Eye of the beholder? Art buyers discount female artists

A study of more than a million art auction sales across 40 years has revealed that works by women artists attract prices that are nearly 50% lower than those for works by men, on average.

Even when auction results for “stars” like Leonardo da Vinci were removed there was still a large discount, the researchers found.

“We looked at sales of artworks by 67,000 individual artists. Even when we took away sales over $1 million – the Rembrandts and the Picassos – there was still a 29% discount for female artists,” says Associate Professor Marco Navone from the University of Technology Sydney.

“Our results reveal the struggle and cultural bias facing female artists in getting recognition and true compensation for their work,” says Associate Professor Navone.

The researchers, Professor Renée Adams, UNSW Sydney, Professor Roman Kräussl, Luxembourg School of Finance, Associate Professor Marco Navone, UTS Business School and Professor Patrick Verwijmeren Erasmus School of Economics, examined 1.5 million auction transactions in 45 countries between 1970 and 2013. They found a 47.6% price gap between male and female artists across all sales.

To understand the influence of cultural perceptions of gender, the researchers looked at auction prices in conjunction with measures of gender inequality around the world, including the number of women in parliament and women’s enrolment in higher education.

They found the price gap for female artists was greater in countries and years with greater gender inequality and the price gap decreased as gender inequality decreased, suggesting cultural attitudes towards women are a key factor.

“The art auction market can have a profound influence on artists’ careers, and art markets are discounting paintings by women on the basis of gender,” says Professor Adams.

To further understand these reasons behind the price difference, the researchers conducted two experiments.

In the first experiment the researchers asked 1000 people to guess the gender of the artist for 10 works, half of which were painted by women, then rate how much they liked the paintings on a scale of 1-10. This allowed them to measure whether perceived gender might affect a person’s appreciation of the work.

The results showed that participants were unable to accurately guess the gender of the artist by looking at the painting. However, artworks perceived to be painted by women were rated lower by participants who were male, affluent and who visit art galleries.

In the second experiment, the researchers showed 2000 people a painting with either a male or a female artist’s name randomly assigned to the artwork, and asked them to rate the painting.

To avoid associating fake artist names with real paintings, the researchers ‘created’ the paintings using an artificial intelligence application that converts a photo into a painting.

Most people rated the artworks equally, however one category, wealthy individuals who visit art galleries frequently – those who would typically buy art at auction – gave the painting a lower rating when it was associated with a female name.

“These results reveal the struggle female artists face to have their art valued on equal footing with male artists, and suggest that policies to reduce gender inequality may improve outcomes for female artists,” says Professor Adams.

Read the full paper here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3083500