Print Market Performance 2022
Prints vs Paintings
Note: for the most updated 2023 Warhol market data, click here.
While Warhol was active in a dozen art forms, from filmmaking to Polaroids, two comprise the vast majority of his market: prints and paintings. Paintings performed well in the years following his death, but the market largely lost its luster as they became too valuable for most investors. For the past decade, prints have climbed steadily as a percentage of Warhol art sales, owing partially to their price accessibility and availability in the market.
Last year, this report indicated that as the price of the most valuable prints approached the prices of Warhol’s paintings, the trend might reverse, with paintings regaining market share from prints. That is exactly what happened, with prints dropping from 26 percent to 15 percent market share from 2020–2022. Excluding the single Shot Sage Blue Marilyn sale, however, provides a clearer picture of the print versus paintings market share: prints would then comprise 22 percent of the market in 2022, a 38 percent recovery of their market share.
A Record Breaking Year
While sales in 2021 appeared to completely make up for the drop in 2020, 2022 demonstrated an unsatiated, unprecedented appetite for Warhol prints. The volume of prints beat the previous record, set in 2019, by 7 percent, and the dollar sales volume was 50 percent higher than the previous record, set in 2021. Overall demand resulted in an increase of the average print sale price of 9.6 percent.
Both the volume of prints sold and the dollar volume of print sales set new all-time highs in 2022.
From 2020 to 2022, the average sale price of a Warhol print rose 52%.
2019
Revenue from Public Print Sales: $20.25M
Number of Print Sales: 558
Average Print Sale Price: $36,742
2020
Revenue from Public Print Sales: $15.3M
Number of Print Sales: 420
Average Print Sale Price: $36,526
2021
Revenue from Public Print Sales: $23.7M
Number of Print Sales: 466
Average Print Sale Price: $50,919
2022
Revenue from Public Print Sales: $33.2M
Number of Print Sales: 595
Average Print Sale Price: $55,907
A High End Rising
Since 2000, the average sales price and median sales price of Warhol prints have moved in tandem with each other. This was the year that pattern broke; while the average sales price rose by 9.6 percent, the median sales price dropped 11.3 percent—indicative of a larger movement within the print market. The highest end of the market continues to rise, dragging the average sales price up with it. The lower end of the market has seen an increased availability in number of prints, but the price of those prints has trended even or slightly down year over year, an expected and healthy correction after the steep rise in value 2021.
The bracket performance of Warhol prints in 2022 confirms the trend, as Warhol prints were more available across all price brackets than in the previous two years. The largest percentage increase, however, was in the $500,000+ bracket. Due in large part to the Queen Elizabeth II and Double Mickey sales, that bracket saw a 162 percent increase in sales, from eight to twenty-one. The next bracket, $100,000-$500,000 continued to grow rapidly, with a 47 percent increase.
