Pricing Emergining Art

The Huffington Post has a good article by Daniel Grant on how emerging artists should price their artwork.  As appraisers, many times it can be difficult to place a value on work by a new and emerging artist, so having some insight into how these pieces may be priced can be of benefit.  Grant discusses looking for comparable work in size, quality, standing and imagery at galleries and fairs, and also discusses discounts pricing.  Sounds pretty familiar.

Grant also mentions things such as cost of material, overhead as well as a price per hour. Although he states these should not be of primary importance, they should be reasonable and certainly taken into consideration.  He also mentions that once the artist is established in demand and is being collected, the prices should rise based upon the laws of supply and demand.

Grant writes

The best way to establish one's market value -- the price a collector is likely to pay -- is by going to art fairs, art galleries and other places where artworks of comparable size, imagery and quality by artists of similar standing in the art world are sold. Those prices should offer some guidelines to what an artist may charge for his or her works. One should never ask prospective buyers what they would pay for art; that is the artist's decision. One may have some flexibility in this, perhaps offering a discount of, say, 10 percent for collectors who like to negotiate, but the pricing decision should never be taken out of the artists' hands.

Discounts can be tricky, since there is great potential for situations to get out of hand: If an artist offers a discount to one collector, word may get around and every potential buyer may not only ask for but demand the same or better discount; if an artist negotiates a discount with a collector in front of other people but the sale never takes place, the artist may look a little foolish and even desperate. Artists should prepare themselves for these conversations with would-be buyers, steeling themselves to say (for example) that the stated price is the actual price. If a collector says that So-and-So Artist, whose work is similar to yours, lowered her price so why won't you, artists will need to remember that not all art is interchangeable and that those buyers who want a work badly enough will pay the asking price. An artist might say to a discount-seeking collector, "I'm not going to lower the price, but I will throw in a brochure and a personal invitation to my next exhibit." (One may be tempted to say something catty, such as "If saving money is your goal, she probably is your kind of artist," but that could embarrass and offend the would-be buyer and poison relations with another artist.)

It is often the case that an artist looks to price items in such a way as to achieve a certain per hour wage, and some attempt to develop a complicated equation that includes cost of materials, rent, utilities and labor. Such an equation, and a final price for a given object, may exist somewhere, but it does not (and cannot) reflect the market, especially for someone who is new to the field. One artist's painting should not be priced twice as high as everyone else's, simply because either that artist's rent is high or he or she doesn't want to feel like a slave. The reasonable price needs to be established first, and all other related expenses need to be adjusted accordingly -- if one's rent is too high, find a less expensive studio, for instance. If an artist cannot bear to part with a particular work for a low price, he or she shouldn't sell it.

To read the full HuffPost article, click HERE.