Artprice: Artprice100 (C)'s "Blue-chip Artists" Index Shows a 4.3% Increase in a Fragile Economic Context

PARIS,Dec.13,2018 -- Since the beginning of 2018,the S&P 500 index has been oscillating without really finding a stable growth path. Over the first 11 months of the year,the American benchmark index has posted an increase of just +2.4%,a gain that could well diminish over the next few days.

According to thierry Ehrmann,founder and chairman of Artprice: "Compared with this performance,the Art Market is continuing its momentum as an increasingly attractive alternative investment. The Artprice100(C) index has posted +4.3% since 1 January 2018. Unsurprisingly,its progression is better than the Art Market as a whole,which remains a safe asset in the long term but shows a -1.9% decline for the year 2018. Buyers appear to be more demanding - in terms of quality - than ever before. While happy to pay big money for rare and high-quality works with irreproachable provenance,they often 'pass' on other works. This new and highly selective behavior is generally profitable for the market's major signatures where the supply is now clearly focused".

https://imgpublic.artprice.com/img/wp/sites/11/2018/12/2018-artprice100.png

Principle

Collecting works by the Art Market's most successful artists is a simple and systematic investment strategy that aims to capture the returns from investing in the high-end Art Market while limiting the financial risk. Based on this principle,the Artprice100(C) has been conceived as a portfolio dedicated to the Art Market's 'blue chip' artists; in other words,a portfolio representing major artists whose works are widely circulated. Although such a portfolio may be difficult to achieve in practice,it has obvious theoretical qualities. The Artprice100(C) is therefore a tool that compares well with other benchmark indices: the S&P 500,the FTSE 100,the CAC 40,the DAX and the NIKKEI 225,etc.

The composition of Artprice100(C) is set on 1 January of each year and reflects the gradual evolution of the Art Market's high end. It brings together the art auction market's top one hundred financial performers over the past five years,artists who must also satisfy a strict liquidity criterion of at least ten 'homogeneous' works sold each year. So,despite an auction turnover of $450 million last year,Leonardo da Vinci cannot be included in this index in 2018 because his works are too rare in private hands. However,this liquidity criterion does not in any way 'diminish' the domination of the artists counted in our index. On their own,the top 100 artists in our Artprice100© index account for no less than 73% of global Fine Art auction turnover so far this year.

The Artprice100(C) index benefits from the alliance between Artprice and Artron,its strong Chinese partner which allows it the best possible coverage of China.

Composition

Six changes were made versus 2018,two more than a year earlier. This relatively large turnover (6% of the composition) reflects rapid adjustments in today's Art Market. The rarity of certain artists' works (or lack of liquidity) may explain some of the entries and exits,but there can be no doubt that underlying changes in collector preferences also contribute to these changes. The growing popularity of Tsuguharu Foujita and Günther Uecher with collectors around the world suggests a lasting place for these two signatures in the composition of the Artprice100(C).

Entries Exits

Joseph Albers Francis Bacon

Max Beckmann Lu Yanshao

Giorgio De Chirico Agnes Martin

Tsuguharu Foujita Piet Mondrian

Paul Klee Pan Tianshou

Gunther Uecker Yu Fei'an

Three Chinese artists (all three active during the first half of the 20th century) have left the portfolio this year. However,there are still 17 in 2018 among the one hundred most successful artists on the market. In addition,Zao Wou-Ki's importance (3rd in the provisional ranking of artists by turnover for 2018 - all periods combined) is continuing to grow on the international art market.

Picasso remains the heaviest weight in the composition (7.4%),followed by Andy Warhol (6.7%),Zhang Daqian (4.7%),Qi Baishi (4.1%). In the long term,the composition of the Artprice100(C) also reveals a constantly growing number of living artists: 17 this year,versus 12 in 2000. Of these,Gerhard Richter has the heaviest weight in the portfolio (3.3%).

The prices of works by Georg Baselitz have posted a particularly impressive increase,starting with his drawings,which this year were included in prestige day sales in London and New York. For example,his Untitled (Lovers) (2001) sold at Phillips in London on 9 March 2018 for $112,500. In November 2016,the same work was acquired for just $32,500 at Veritas in Lisbon. The value of this drawing has more than tripled in less than two years after enjoying substantially improved visibility.

Composition of the Artprice100(C) in 2018

(C)Artprice.com

Ranking - Artist - Weighting

1 - Pablo PICASSO - 7.4%

2 - Andy WARHOL - 6.7%

3 - ZHANG Daqian - 4.7%

4 - QI Baishi - 4.1%

5 - Claude MONET - 3.7%

6 - Jean-Michel BASQUIAT - 3.6%

7 - Gerhard RICHTER - 3.3%

8 - Alberto GIACOMETTI - 2.4%

9 - FU Baoshi - 2.3%

10 - Cy TWOMBLY - 2.3%

11 - Roy LICHTENSTEIN - 2.2%

12 - ZAO Wou-Ki - 2.1%

13 - Amedeo MODIGLIANI - 2.0%

14 - WU Guanzhong - 1.9%

15 - Lucio FONTANA - 1.7%

16 - LI Keran - 1.7%

17 - Marc CHAGALL - 1.6%

18 - HUANG Binhong - 1.6%

19 - XU Beihong - 1.6%

20 - Alexander CALDER - 1.6%

Discover all of the Art Market's 100 "blue-chip" artists for the year 2018 on www.artprice.com

About Artprice:

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Artprice is the global leader in art price and art index databanks. It has over 30 million indices and auction results covering more than 700,000 artists. Artprice Images® gives unlimited access to the largest Art Market resource in the world: a library of 126 million images or prints of artworks from the year 1700 to the present day,along with comments by Artprice's art historians.

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Artprice permanently enriches its databanks with information from 6,300 auctioneers and it publishes a constant flow of art market trends for the world's principal news agencies and approximately 7,200 international press publications. For its 4,500,000 members,Artprice gives access to the world's leading Standardised Marketplace for buying and selling art. Artprice is preparing its blockchain for the Art Market. It is BPI-labelled (scientific national French label)Artprice's Global Art Market Annual Report for 2017 published last March 2018: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-art-market-in-2017

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