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Inside the Growing Market for Work by Women Artists
The latest Sotheby’s Insight Report finds women artists are gaining ground in the art market – as well as long-overdue institutional recognition.
T he lightbulb moment came to British collector Christian Levett in 2017. A few years after losing his treasured collection of Old Masters in a divorce settlement, he sponsored an exhibition of Abstract Expressionism at London’s Royal Academy. At the opening, Levett surveyed the assembled spread of familiar AbEx icons, present and correct on the walls, with a lingering sense of unease. As he left the building, the penny dropped. The overwhelming majority of artists in the show – nearly all, in fact – were men.
Determined to do something about this gross imbalance, Levett immediately pivoted his not inconsiderable collecting program solely towards post-war and contemporary women artists. This mission blossomed into an all-consuming passion, and in June 2024 he relaunched his family’s private museum near Cannes – the Musee d’Art Classique de Mougins – into a beautiful new space: Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins. FAMM is now Europe’s first major museum, dedicated solely to women artists.
Christian Levett’s story is just one example of how the male-dominated Western art landscape has been addressing endemic neglect of women artists across the world in recent years. This is the focus of the Sotheby’s latest Insight Report – a mass survey of women artists at auction and in institutional collections, between 2018-24, published in collaboration ArtTactic and made possible by Sotheby’s Financial Services, whose mission is to empower collectors through asset-backed lending solutions. This edition was launched with a panel discussion at Sotheby’s London, available now as a podcast.
Levett joined Anna Brady (Editor-At-Large of The Art Newspaper), Jenny Waldman (Director of Art Fund at the UK’s national fundraising charity for art and museums), Ottilie Windsor (Head of Contemporary Art, Sotheby’s) and ArtTactic Managing Director Anders Petterson (coauthor of the Insight Report) for a wide-reaching discussion, celebrating achievements and identifying the work still to be done in expanding visibility of women in the auction market and across the wider art sphere.
“As you’ll see in the report, we’re still not quite there,” Petterson acknowledged in his opening remarks to the room. “There’s a fair distance to get to parity, but there is change – and that is what this report is highlighting.”
The Women Artists Insight Report used a colossal quantity of sales data, sourced between 2018-24, from Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips. The addition of unique proprietary statistics from Sotheby’s reveals even more critical perspectives across generations and territories. ArtTactic’s expert critical analysis also drew on exclusive input from MoMA and the Tate to contrast buying patterns with an institutional view. This is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the fluid synergy between marketplace and public space.
“There’s a fair distance to get to parity, but there is change – and that is what this report is highlighting.”
- ArtTactic Managing Director Anders Petterson
Petterson observed that during the surveyed period there was a colossal leap in the number of woman artists represented at auction – from 500 to 1,1150, or an increase of 130% in overall market share. Nonetheless, Brady replied, this represents only a quarter of all artists at auction.
Still, Petterson and others remain optimistic of an energizing surge that may outlast the current soft period of the overall art market. Their optimism is borne out by consistent growth across price bands, as detailed in the report. In the under-$50,000 segment, 2,072 lots sold came from women artists in 2024, up 136% since 2018. Women artists selling in the $50,000-$1 million range rose from 197 to 310, and in the upper reaches of the market – the over $1 million category (and the subject of a March 2023 Insight Report) – there was growth from 27 to 46 women artists.
Sotheby’s Ottilie Windsor pointed out in response that while auction houses respond to what people are selling, the growing demand has been for women artists. Why? “Being an artist is a path that is today open to a broader range of people,” she expanded. “In previous decades and centuries, it was harder for a woman to be, say, an artist and a mother. Also now [with greater institutional visibility] when you walk into a museum or gallery, its more relatable. This has a trickle-down effect.”
“In previous decades and centuries, it was harder for a woman to be, say, an artist and a mother.”
- Ottilie Windsor, Head of Contemporary Art, Sotheby’s
Windsor was referring to a key finding in the report. Over the past decade, institutions such as the Tate and MoMA have actively addressed historical gender imbalances in their collections, resulting in women artists now accounting for 50% of solo exhibitions at Tate and 54% at MoMA. And this institutional support reflects in the auction market – “auction values are created in museums,” as Anny Brady put it – with increased institutional spending from the Tate and MoMA on women artists. Collectors, the panel agreed, were more likely to investigate lesser-known female artists if they see them exhibited at prestigious galleries.
“We do counsel collectors to look at what’s happening in the public space,” said Windsor. “Not only does it give a good indication of what other people are looking at and how they are thinking, but it's also a good way to build a collection.”
Not only does the report find the overall volume of works by women artists rising, it also notes a special interest in younger artists born after 1980. Here, sales volume at auction have risen from an overall of $523 million in 2018, to $675 million in 2024. Anna Brady cited the report’s finding that this is mainly due to Gen Z buyers and older collectors who are new to the market.
This, as Petterson pointed out, is especially noteworthy as sales of male artists charted during the same period has decreased by 47%. “The two markets are beginning to diverge quite significantly” he stated.
From Brady’s perspective, not only has the quantity of women artists appearing at auction skyrocketed – so has their value. Historically, a small elite of galleries and dealers representing the most expensive female artists in the market have set the bar high. The Report cites eight galleries, who between them represent the top 30 of the 50 leading female artists at auction. When markets soften, as they often do, these big names act as a barometer, depressing the overall trend downwards.
“It’s slightly problematic that so much power is concentrated in so few galleries,” Petterson reflected. “Yayoi Kusama, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Georgia O’Keefe and Cicely Brown represent 40% of the women artist sales at auction.” But the historical imbalance represents an opportunity. “What’s going to be important going forward is that maybe more opportunities are given to smaller and medium sized galleries.”
“A younger generation of gallerists are deciding that they can represent and nurture artists of their own age range – and sell to collectors of their own age range too.”
- Art Fund Director Jenny Waldman
Art Fund Director Jenny Waldman agreed that future drivers of growth will emerge at the grassroots, deepening the market across price bands. “A younger generation of gallerists are deciding that they can represent and nurture artists of their own age range – and sell to collectors of their own age range too,” she said. “There are fantastic public sector galleries like Chisenhale, Camden and Whitechapel looking for younger artists and curators who have come through an art history and curatorial training which is very different from 50 years ago”
Waldman added that, incidentally, most visitors to museums in the UK are women. “You can say [museums] are rebalancing their collection – or rebalancing your mind. There was huge talent in half the population that has been ignored for the last couple of centuries. What are we doing about it?”
