Artists! Have you ever thought about how to price your artwork?
Selling pieces is one of the many things artists have to deal with after the actual creation process of the artwork is finished. Setting a price on personal work can be hard. Even the most famous artist in history struggled to price their masterpieces.
Vincent Willem Van Gogh is one of the most influential Dutch artists in Western art history. He produced more than 900 drawings and paintings, but was never famous as a painter during his lifetime. He sold only one painting while he was alive: The Red Vineyard, which went for 400 francs in Belgium seven months before his death. After his death, his painting became well-known worldwide, which raised the value of his paintings by a significant amount. Van Gogh had considered most of his paintings to be failures, which hindered his decisions on pricing and selling his work when he was alive.
The Red Vineyard by Vincent Willem Van Gogh
Andy Warhol on the other hand was a great businessman who believed that “good business is the best art”. Andy Warhol's paintings are some of the most valuable in the art world, with major works selling for tens of millions of dollars.
Leo Castelli and Mick Jagger were among those who posed for Warhol’s celebrity portraits, View photo here.
“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” - Andy Warhol
Yet Despite Warhol’s advice to focus on the business aspect of the art world as well as the art itself, artists have historically devoted their time and effort to each artwork, making every work their only focus. This leads to a more specific question: how much is the artist's hard work worth? Pricing art for sale is about what's happening on the market, which dictates how much similar products are worth. Be aware that most buyers are not billionaire collectors but ordinary people who appreciate art. The more you understand how the art market works and where your art fits into the big picture, the more prepared you are to decide the value of your work.
With so much to keep in mind, we’re here to help! Here is a new formula: Market research is a great place to start. Identify artworks that are similar to the piece you want to sell. See how much these artworks are sold for; the prices will be good initial estimates of the price range that you should charge for your art.
The second step is to begin to think about the amount of time you spent making the piece. What materials you have used, how would you describe the work, who is your target audience, and so on?
Then give yourself a reasonable hourly wage and multiply it by the number of hours you spent on the pieces. Lastly, take the product and add the material cost. You now have a good price for your artwork!
After all these calculations are done, be mindful to still keep your artwork in a fair price range. Most pieces displayed at Studio Gallery range from 50 dollars to 10,000 dollars.
Images by Andy Warhol. View images here.
With all of that being said, we hope these tips are helpful. Have fun pricing! For more reference, please feel free to click on the link to our online shop! You could learn about how the artworks by our artists are priced based on medium, size, etc.
By staff contributor Jolin.