Ceramics Are Everywhere. Has the Market Caught Up?

Lately, art fans in the three biggest cities in the US (and no doubt elsewhere) have found themselves surrounded by ceramics. At museums, galleries, and fairs, artists working in this ancient medium are showing work ranging from classic forms like cups and vases to figurative and abstract sculpture.

Allow us to start with a litany of such shows, in no particular order. 

In New York, Kathy Butterly’s diminutive pieces sold out at James Cohan at $45,000 each. Nicole Cherubini’s show at Friedman Benda nearly sold out at prices up to $65,000. Ruby Neri’s work was on view uptown at Salon 94, with prices peaking at $75,000. And there was Ron Nagle at Matthew Marks (which, not long before, showed Ken Price). 

In his latest show at Gagosian, Theaster Gates celebrated David Drake, an enslaved South Carolina ceramicist who influenced the Chicago artist, partly known for his work in the medium. And the New Art Dealers Alliance organized NADA Ceramics, at Tribeca venue the Locker Room (March 6–8), where the more than 40 exhibitors included artists, galleries, and studios. 

In California, meanwhile, at least three galleries at the latest edition of the Frieze fair showed ceramics. New York’s Olney Gleason sold clay sculptures by Bosco Sodi for prices in the range of $72,000; Jeffrey Deitch (New York and LA) devoted a solo booth to works by California-born Sharif Farrag priced between $14,000 and $35,000; and David Kordansky (New York and LA) showed Doyle Lane’s glazed pots. Kordansky followed that up with a show devoted to Elizabeth Murray paintings and Betty Woodman earthenware; prices for the latter ranged as high as $190,000.

Meanwhile, three of the 31 exhibitors at the sophomore edition of Post-Fair had impressive pieces on view: Anton Kern of New York brought vessels by Francis Upritchard (made with potter Nicholas Brandon), priced between $10,000 and $16,000; Mariposa of LA sold several pieces by Peter Schlesinger at prices up to $40,000; and Marta, also of LA, showed George Sherman, priced between $4,000 and $20,000. 

Away from the fair, Alma Berrow’s work was on view at Megan Mulrooney, at prices from $800 to $12,000. The dealer will follow up in May with a show of Maddy Inez, the solo LA debut for the artist, the granddaughter of artist Alison Saar, with pieces listed for between $1,750 and $15,000. And David Zwirner opened a show of ceramic sculptures and works on paper by Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, organized by ceramics artist Shio Kusaka (through May 22), with the ceramic pieces priced between $5,000 and $80,000.

At April’s Expo Chicago, meanwhile, New York gallery Bienvenu Steinberg & C showed Korean American artist Jane Yang-D’Haene’s works, priced between $9,000 and $24,000; Miami’s Mindy Solomon sold Dee Clements’ pieces incorporating ceramic and woven baskets, priced between $12,000 and $16,000; and Chicago’s The Mission Projects showed Nicola Costantino, with prices between $600 and $15,000. 

Beyond fairs and galleries, there are also current East Coast institutional shows. In New Jersey, the recently reopened Princeton University Art Museum has dedicated a room to Japanese potter Toshiko Takaezu (through July 5); the RISD Museum in Providence, Rhode Island, offers “A Shared Journey: The Barkan Contemporary Ceramic Collection” (through March 5, 2028); and Kathy Butterly’s work remains on view at the Tang Teaching Museum in Saratoga Springs, New York (through July 26).

‘It’s Been a Slog’ for Ceramics to Be Accepted as High Art

Ceramics have in production since the Paleolithic era, and the medium’s contemporary practitioners join major 20th-century artists such as Lucio Fontana, Joan Miró, Isamu Noguchi, and Pablo Picasso, who all worked extensively in the medium.

But the question remains as to whether prices remain modest for ceramics despite the lengthy tradition and the current acceptance of the material in high-art venues.

“Ceramics are now fully embedded into the art community’s language, and artists are freely working with it as a sculptural medium that’s widely accepted,” said Salon 94 founder Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn in a phone conversation.

The acceptance of the medium has been a long time coming, notes David Rago, who started dealing in ceramics at a flea market in New Jersey at the age of 17. He founded Rago Auctions in 1984 and is a partner at Rago/Wright. “It’s been a slog,” he says, “because pottery was and is still, to some degree, viewed as a craft.”

So, which is it? Fully embedded as an art medium, or still viewed as craft? Or some of each? For those buying and selling ceramics, it’s a live question whether old associations—cups, vases, women’s work—have kept prices low by comparison with painting or even with other forms of sculpture. First it should be said that many, many artists work in the medium; some toil in ceramics exclusively, while others treat it promiscuously, as one of many forms they work in. (“We see it absorbed into other practices,” as Greenberg Rohatyn put it.) Some create mixed-medium works that include it as one of several; Simone Leigh’s second-priciest work at auction, Las Meninas II (2019), incorporates ceramics along with terracotta, steel, and raffia. It fetched $3.1 million at Sotheby’s New York in 2023, while her highest price for a work solely in ceramic is $730,800, paid for Lusaka (2020) at Christie’s New York in 2025.

So questions about price levels could perhaps be answered in as many divergent ways as there are ways that artists work in the medium, as David Kordansky acknowledges: “While there’s been a noticeable surge of interest in ceramics in recent years, the market hasn’t moved uniformly—there’s still a meaningful distinction between emerging enthusiasm for the medium and sustained recognition of its most rigorous practitioners,” he said in an email. 

At least one observer is convinced that the craft associations linger, but sees that changing with new generations of buyers. 

“Craft associations still keep prices relatively low,” said Benjamin Critton of LA’s Marta in an email, adding that “as more ceramic work gets shown, there’s a happy material confusion, or innocent conflation, or flattening, or maybe just material agnosticism, or at worst a lack of material curiosity, among younger collectors who view the work very generally and freely as Sculpture, and are less concerned with the associations of its medium.” 

A Growing Market, But Peak Prices Remain Modest

On the secondary market, the presence of ceramics has grown dramatically in the last decade, according to statistics from art analytics company ARTDAI. In 2016, just 695 lots came to auction, and sales totaled just shy of $30 million. In 2025, the number of lots had grown to just over 6,200, and the sales total had more than doubled, to $62.5 million. 

Fontana, Miró, Noguchi and Picasso all have healthy auction records for ceramics pieces, but their highs in the medium are in each case a fraction of those notched for their paintings or their sculpture in other mediums.

Picasso’s La Chouette en Colère (1953) sold for $2.5 million at Sotheby’s New York in 2018. Three of his ceramic works have exceeded the $1 million mark. His record price for a painting is $179.4 million, for Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’), 1955, established at Christie’s New York in 2025. Fontana’s Figura Femminile Con Fiori (Female Figure with Flowers), standing some 8 feet high and dating from 1948, sold for £1.8 million ($2.5 million) at Sotheby’s London in 2018. Seven of his ceramic pieces have sold for north of $1 million. His record overall, for his 1964 painting Concetto spaziale, La Fine di Dio, is $29.2 million, set at Christie’s New York in 2015.

Miró’s Grand vase (1956) sold for $797,500 at Sotheby’s Paris in 2013, one of three of his ceramics to top a half-million dollars. His high price overall is $36.9 million, paid for his 1927 painting Peinture (Etoile bleue) at Sotheby’s London in 2012. Noguchi’s ceramic The Elephant (1952) fetched $339,750 at Christie’s New York in 2013, far exceeding its $40,000 high estimate. His granite sculpture The Family (1956) set his auction record of $12.3 million at Sotheby’s New York in 2023.

Despite the growth in the market seen over the last decade, prices for some canonical artists remain low relative to their stature and the quality of their work. 

On the West Coast in the 1950s, Peter Voulkos established ceramics departments at both the Los Angeles County Art Institute (now the Otis College of Art and Design) and the University of California at Berkeley. He taught artists like Ron Nagle and Ken Price, who became mainstays of the next generation; Nagle was included in the 2013 Venice Biennale, and a Price retrospective toured major American museums starting that same year. Voulkos is one of the rare ceramics artists with a seven-figure price attached to his work. His Black Bulerias (1958) fetched $1.3 million at Phillips New York in 2020. 

Price is a giant in the field, but just two of his pieces have topped the half-million-dollar mark; his M. Green (1961) holds the record at $554,000, set at Christie’s New York in 2023. Betty Woodman’s high stands at $131,250, fetched at Rago Auctions for Untitled (Diptych), ca. 1990, in 2021.

Many renowned artists haven’t broken into six figures on the secondary market. Nagle’s high is just under $55,000, fetched in 2012 for Criminal Negligee, 2012, at Christie’s Paris in 2021. Kathy Butterly’s auction high is $32,250, paid for Green Reach (2018) at Phillips New York in 2025 (eight of her top ten prices were seen in 2024 and 2025). Ruby Neri’s priciest ceramic piece is an untitled 2014 work showing a seated woman, which sold for just $12,100 at Bonhams Los Angeles in 2023.

NADA Ceramics started at a very modest level, ranging from under $100 to pieces as high as $10,000, and the vibe was more craft fair than art fair, with exhibitors set up on little tables, cheek by jowl. (Pun lovers, take note: curator Larry Ossei-Mensah showed his work with New York’s All’Bout Clay, under the nom d’artiste Larry Potter.) 

“I woke up one morning and realized, there’s no dedicated ceramics event in New York, and that’s kind of crazy,” said NADA executive director Heather Hubbs in a phone conversation. She got more than 130 proposals from exhibitors for the 40 or so slots; dealers paid just $250 for a table at the Locker Room, a venue in Tribeca, a huge gallery hub. Visitors streamed through all weekend, said Hubbs. She had organized a similar event previously, at NADA’s headquarters, but this was the first under the name NADA Ceramics and at a dedicated venue. “I would like to turn it into a more elevated, serious thing,” she said. “I’d like to believe there’s a world in which the two could co-exist, with more functional stuff and then booths devoted to sculpture.”

Shereen Al-Sawwaf, an associate specialist in the post-war and contemporary art department at Christie’s, noted in a video conversation that typically smaller sizes (which generally correspond to lower prices) may be part of the medium’s appeal, with most pieces topping out at modes sizes due to the restrictions of the scale of the kilns in which they are fired.

“We’ve been pretty oversaturated with mega-sized paintings that really take up a space, and you could say same thing about sculpture,” she notes. “People are starting to change how they think about scale in terms of what they buy. Some are really in love with ideas of miniatures and smaller objects.”

While champions of the medium might wish for secondary market sales records to be higher, the modest prices may, of course, be good news for collectors. Al-Sawwaf pointed out that Christie’s (which achieved several of those record prices noted above) regularly includes in its sales ceramic pieces by many artists in the $5,000 to $10,000 range, often about the same prices as they command on the primary market. 

“All have sold relatively well against estimates,” said Al-Sawwaf, adding, “I see this trend only continuing.”