Art Photography Prices

The art market has several segments with one of them being the market for visual arts. This sector is traditionally dominated by paintings which undoubtedly hold the records in high prices. However the visual arts consist of more subgroups which also deserve examination due to their characteristics (reproducible artworks) and the apparent growing interest from buyers. Photography is a prime example for the reproducible visual arts; furthermore it has not been researched where cultural economics are concerned, thus creating a gap that ought to be filled. The examination of the whole market for photographs, especially the primary market, is certainly time consuming and quite hard because of the lack of sufficient data. The focus of this research is on the secondary market and more precisely on the auction market which was also the source of data for the sample I used. The results of this research on auction data for a number of 12 contemporary artists showed that the size of the artworks plays the most significant role in determining their hammer price. Even though several determinants were tested their actual influence on the hammer price was not as strong as with size but this does not mean that they should be disregarded. The role of artist reputation was tested separately and in combination with all other determinants. The auction house reputation for instance can outperform the reputation of the artist and result to significantly higher hammer prices. This overlap can show a smaller impact of the artist’s reputation which is not necessarily the case. This thesis is basically the first step into what I hope will be a thorough examination of the art photography market, as both the technical and the social circumstances are ripe enough for it to evolve and reach the levels it deserves. This is definitely the case of the last 10 years, where price levels of photographs at auction have risen considerably in comparison to other visual art categories such as paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures etc.