Consider $195 million, which is the record amount paid for Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, or any Warhol for that matter. That record was set in May of 2022, and it blew away not only Warhol’s previous auction record of $105 million, it also cut right through Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 2017 record of $110 million and Francis Bacon’s 2013 record of $142 million. It did not, sadly, even get close to Salvatore Mundi, Leonardo Da Vinci’s much-fretted-over painting that sold for $450 million in 2017, but I’ll save that argument for when we launch European Fine Art Magazine.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, 1964. Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 40 x 40 in. SOLD: $195,040,000

So, again, what’s in a number? Well, for us here at American Fine Art Magazine, quite a bit, which is why we’re including a table showing artist world records, the years those records were set and the number of works by that artist that have sold for $1 million or more. Our full list was larger than 150 names and it was getting a bit unwieldy, so we’ve chopped it down to 45 highlights here for the magazine. As a note, we looked exclusively at deceased artists from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. They are primarily all American artists, or at least created work in the United States—Thomas Moran, for instance, is from England, but lived in New York and is known for his American subjects. All of the data was pulled from the website AskArt.com, which is a resource many auction houses and collectors use to follow upcoming auctions and track results. Although AskArt’s numbers often only go back 15 or 20 years depending on the auction house, the site has enough data to give a chunky cross-section once sliced through.

Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009), Day Dream, 1980. Tempera on panel, 19 x 27¼ in. SOLD: $23,290,000

The genesis of this project comes from the January 2023 issue of our sister publication, Western Art Collector. As a fun glimpse into the art market, I poured through auction data to isolate all the Western artists who had achieved a sales record of $1 million or more. Only 26 artists could be identified, which made it a very exclusive club.

Porting that idea over here to this magazine, though, has been slightly trickier, primarily because of modern and contemporary art prices, which have gone through the roof in recent decades. The list started getting top heavy with abstract expressionists and other modern artists—which, in and of itself, is an interesting morsel of information—like Basquiat ($110 million), Robert Rauschenberg ($88 million), Mark Rothko ($86 million), Barnett Newmann ($84 million) and Jackson Pollock ($61 million). Meanwhile, art movements we tend to focus on—Hudson River School, American impressionism, Golden Age Illustration, American regionalism, etc.—were largely buried under the $10 million mark. Again, this is interesting data if you’re looking at where to start collecting.

Edward Hopper (1882-1967), Chop Suey, 1929. Oil on canvas, 32 x 38 in. SOLD: $91,875,000

There are other interesting bits of analysis that can be made gleaned from this data. For instance, notice the number of sales over $1 million. For Warhol, he has 759 lots that have exceeded that number, which shows his entire market is very strong. Other artists with consistently strong sales of $1 million or more include pop artist Roy Lichtenstein with 248 works, metalworker and mobile maker Alexander Calder with 360 works and the late Wayne Thiebaud with 119 works of art. These numbers occasionally reflect the same work being offered and sold multiple times, but each time it counts as another sale, whether it’s the first time the work has been offered or the 10th.

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000), The Businessmen, 1947. Egg Tempera on board, 20 x 24 in. SOLD: $6,169,800

The quantity of $1 million sales also gives some insight on the number of major works that are on the market. Warhol, for example, created a lot of art, which his records show, but notice Emanuel Leutze, who only has four works that have sold over $1 million, and yet his auction record is $45 million. This would seem to indicate Leutze’s market is very small, either because he didn’t create very much work or because not much of it is in private collections that turn up at auctions. In this case, both are true. In these scenarios, where masterpieces are rare and demand is high, an important artwork will generally go very high, as it did when Sotheby’s sold one of Leutze’s Western works in 2018 for $4.8 million. Other artists that sell very high when important works become available, however rarely that is, include Jacob Lawrence, Grant Wood and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021), Four Pinball Machines, 1962. Oil on canvas, 68 x 72 in. SOLD: $19,135,000

Notice also the years of the sales records. Many of them are new, with 33 of the 45 records set after 2008, the pre-recession/pre-housing crisis historical marker that many auction watchers use as a landmark when looking at past auction sales.

Thomas Moran (1837-1926), Green River of Wyoming, 1878. Oil on canvas, 25 x 48 in. SOLD: $17,737,000

Finally, another thing to consider here, is that some of this isn’t a science at all. Some of it is pure emotion during the day of the sale. What propels one piece of art to $195 million while another can barely cross $1 million? It gets down to the age-old question, “What is this piece of art truly worth?” Well, in the auction world, worth is determined by how far two bidders are willing to go to get what they want. Sure, the lot may start with a dozen bidders, but it really only matters at the end when two are left and they determine if the auctioneer is going to go one more round, or close the sale with the hammer. When two bidders want the same thing, that’s how records are set. 

Highlights of Historic American Auction Records*

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