Women in the art market

What does the growing role of women in the art market mean?

It means that women are increasing on both sides of the table: among buyers and among artists whose works sell well and are highly valued. The number of registered women bidders (women actively bidding at auction) is rising, and so is interest in the work of women artists. The market is thus slowly straightening out into a shape that better matches the real distribution of talent and interest.

Why is this change happening?

Art history was long written and exhibited predominantly by men, so many excellent women artists remained undervalued or forgotten. Today galleries, museums and collectors are deliberately redressing this imbalance and rediscovering overlooked women artists (a process often described as a revision of the canon). The composition of collectors is changing too, with ever more women bringing their own taste and budget.

Why does it matter?

Because whoever was missing from the exhibition halls was also missing from prices and from our sense of what important art actually is. When attention widens to include women artists, we gain a fuller picture of history, and works come to light whose value had not yet been fully recognised. It is not merely a question of fairness, but of not letting something valuable slip past us.

Can you give an example?

Think of Joan Mitchell or Georgia O'Keeffe, painters the market has been rediscovering in recent years and whose work now attracts exceptional interest. That is exactly what this systematic redressing looks like, with women artists returning to the centre of attention. And on the other side of the room, the number of women bidding for such works is growing.

— Anna Pulkertová, founder of Art Part Club