Women’s art makes mark

Long reduced to the role of a muse or model, women’s status in the art world is changing. Their works are increasingly valued, so much so that women have risen up the ranks of Hiscox’s list of best-selling contemporary artists for 2023.

After years of phenomenal growth, contemporary art is following the downward trend of the rest of the market. But women artists have held their own in this global context of declining contemporary art sales, and Yayoi Kusama in particular.

The Japanese artist takes in first place in Hiscox’s annual ranking of the best-selling contemporary artists of 2023 – thanks to the $80.9 million (about R1.5 billion) generated by the auction of her works.

This is well ahead of David Hockney, who ranks second with $50.3 million. In third place is another Japanese artist, Yoshitomo Nara. His works, depicting little girls with deceptively cute “kawaii” looks, generating $36 million in the contemporary art market.

Cecily Brown comes fourth in the Top 100, thanks to the $31.7 million sale of her figurative abstractions at auction. Overall, 30 women feature in the ranking of best-selling contemporary artists for 2023, compared to 33 in 2022.

Nevertheless, their presence at auction has risen sharply over the past 12 months, attesting to collectors’ and curators’ appetite for their works of art. “Contemporary female artists have always been undervalued and under-represented,” Robert Read, head of Art and Private Clients at Hiscox, said in a statement.

“Meaningful progress has been made in recent years, as the market gradually begins to recognise the importance and value of their work, but we are still some way from parity.”

Other female artists have become extremely coveted in 2023, including Julie Mehretu, an Ethiopian artist, living in the US, jumped from 22nd place in the Hiscox list to 6th place in one year.

She also broke the record for the highest sale price at auction for the work of an African-born artist last November, with Walkers With the Dawn and Morning. At the time, this 2008 canvas sold for $10.7 million at Sotheby’s in New York. –