The Top 10 living artists

[25 Sep 2015]

 

Fridays are the Best! Every other Friday, Artprice offers you a themed auction ranking. This week the ranking reveals the world’s 10 most expensive living artists since the start of the year.

The Top 10 living artists
Rank Artist Hammer Price Artwork Sale
1 Gerhard RICHTER $41,142,600 Abstraktes bild (1986) 2015-02-10 Sotheby’s LONDRES
2 Christopher WOOL $26,500,000 Untitled (Riot) (1990) 2015-05-12 Sotheby’s NEW YORK NY
3 CUI Ruzhuo $25,800,000 Landscapes (2013) 2015-04-06 Poly Auction Ltd HONG KONG
4 Gerhard RICHTER $25,000,000 Abstraktes Bild (1992) 2015-05-12 Sotheby’s NEW YORK NY
5 Peter DOIG $23,000,000 Swamped (1990) 2015-05-11 Christie’s NEW YORK NY
6 Gerhard RICHTER $21,330,400 Vierwaldstätter See (Lake Lucerne) (1969) 2015-02-11 Christie’s LONDRES
7 Gerhard RICHTER $19,661,250 A B, Brick Tower (1987) 2015-07-01 Sotheby’s LONDRES
8 Robert RYMAN $18,250,000 Bridge (1980) 2015-05-13 Christie’s NEW YORK NY
9 Gerhard RICHTER $12,950,600 Karmin (Carmine) (1994) 2015-02-11 Christie’s LONDRES
10 Jeff KOONS $9,500,000 Louis XIV (1986) 2015-05-13 Christie’s NEW YORK NY
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Gerhard Richter, the world’s most sought-after artist

Gerhard RICHTER is number one this year. He dominates half the ranking and hammers in the final with a new record set in February. One of his abstract works (Abstraktes bild) from 1986 was sold for some 16 million more than its upper estimate, hoisting his new record to USD 46.3m, including fees (Sotheby’s London). In 10 years, Richter’s price index has climbed 234%, a significant progression, which translates into a turnover multiplied by 10 during the same period: his annual sales at auction went from USD 22m in 2005 to more than USD 254m last year. This veritable blaze is worthy of the market’s zeal for an artist younger than Richter: the American Jeff KOONS, who reached a ceiling at USD 58.4m including fees in 2013 (for a giant sculpture of Balloon Dog sold in 2013 at Christie’s New York) and remains the world’s most expensive living artist. While he did not repeat the feat this year, he remains in the running for the most expensive and sought-after artists in bringing our ranking to a close (the price for his sculpture Louis XIV, sold for USD 10.8m in May, shows an increase of more than 4,400% in 20 years).
Richter has been thrown off course by astronomical sums generated by the sale of his work: he confided to The Guardian, in March 2015, being “horrified” to see the records continuously topped. While good news, the sums are shocking to him. The record race doesn’t always depend on artists such as with Richter who fears a price collapse and prefers to be remember with nostalgia the joy he felt 30 years ago, at the sale of an abstract canvas to a collector in Cologne. The canvas was sold for roughly USD 10,000 and the financial value had not yet prevailed over the notable interest in the work…
The market directs its own sphere and elects its new stars. In the last few years, it has quickly skyrocketed the canvases of Christopher WOOL (second in the ranking) and those of Peter DOIG, as seen in their new top records, set in May 2015: the summit for de Peter Doig is now nearly USD 26m (Swamped, Christie’s New York, 11 May 2015), and that of Christopher Wool (Untitled (Riot), Sotheby’s New York, 12 May 2015) is nearly USD 30m, including fees. To scale with the decade, the popularity of the first has increased by nearly 750%, and that of the second by… 2,200%! Millionaire buyers love purchasing their canvases as soon as the occasion presents itself. Of the 16 canvases that Wool put up for auction since January 2015, 14 were purchased, and 13 of those sold for more than a million. Why is his work so expensive? Wool, supported by the huge art dealer Larry Gagosian, is also supported by all the huge American cultural institutions and the critics, who consider him the most important American artist today. The brilliant multi-millionaire of the market should illustrate a convergence between the value of his work and his popularity. A price jump along the lines of 2,200% in 10 years certainly does not scare buyers, but rather reassures them in their choice.

A great American master: Robert Ryman

Along with its dazzling price increases, the Top10 reminds us that Robert RYMAN, born in 1930, is an essential artist in creating American contemporary art. Ryman, one of the greatest representatives of radical American abstract painting, just obtained a new auction record this year of USD 20.6m for the monochrome Bridge (1980). This type of painting is typical of his work, which takes into account, thanks to the starkness of the white painting, the thickness of the painting, its relationship to the wall, the way it is affixed and the space. While he does not appear in this ranking, as his record was set in November 2014, we note the recent rise of the great American master, Jasper Johns , the originator of Pop Art in the 1950s. Jasper Johns was as radical as Ryman but with a more Duchamp-like heritage: his ready-made art made with wax, such as the famous Flags, which inaugurated the gallery of art dealer Léo Castelli in January 1958, immediately met with enormous success which can never be denied. The all-time record for Jasper Johns was set last November, for one of his Flag (1983) pieces, which sold for USD 36m, including fees (Sotheby’s New York).

We have no choice but to note that the wealthiest collectors on the planet do not lean toward the “historic” artists of the contemporary art world. The best works of Robert Ryman and Jasper Johns are sold for USD 10, 20 or 30 million less than the summit attained by Jeff Koons.

China, not to be forgotten

Like the United States and the United Kingdom, China makes known via the market that it firmly supports its artists, resulting in the presence of CUI Ruzhuo in third place for the most expensive living artists of the year, behind Christopher Wool and Gerhard Richter. Born in Beijing in 1944, Cui Ruzhuo studied in Chine and in the United States, before studying at the China Academy of Art. A scholar, a huge collector of Chinese art, ambitious, Cui Ruzhuo reflects the rapacity of the Chinese market for ink drawings, namely for a contemporary creation renewing the great Chinese tradition.The rich collections are snatched up in Hong Kong, where Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Poly Auction sell his works for several million dollars. 40 of Cui’s works have been sold for more than a million dollars since 2011… His new record was set at USD 30.4m$ in April 2015 for a large-scale landscape created two years earlier (Landscapes, 2013, 292 cm x 143 cm), which made him a more popular artist than Pablo Picasso in the field of drawing.
Unlike Richter, Cui Ruzhuo feels part of a record race which embodies Chinese ambition versus the rest of the world. Being among the world’s most popular artists is, in a manner of speaking, his Chinese Dream.