Warhol Over Time
Money is to buy today what will have value tomorrow.
The following text explores the dynamics of the Andy Warhol art market up to the year 2023, offering insights into its evolution and key milestones. For the most up-to-date analysis and data on Warhol’s print market, we invite you to consult our upcoming 2024 Print Market Report.
In 1962, Andy Warhol sent thirty-two Campbell’s Soup paintings, comprising his first gallery show, to gallerist Irving Blum. When the show ended, Irving offered to buy all of the paintings. Warhol agreed. He was still relatively unknown at the time, and many collectors anticipated that his style of art might be a passing fad. Irving held onto those paintings until 1995, when he sold them to the Museum of Modern Art for $15 million. He had paid $1,000.
For the past sixty years, Andy Warhol prints and paintings have made excellent long-term investments, far outpacing inflation and equity market performance. From 2000–2022, the average annual return of the Warhol market was 21.7 percent. Select pieces and portfolios have achieved a 27 percent annual return for the past four decades. In the last four years, the return on Warhols has accelerated significantly. On average, prints sold for 53 percent higher in 2022 than in 2020.
Warhol works perform well not only compared to equity indices, but also compared to all other artists. To identify the best-performing art from a financial perspective, Forbes examined all the price pairs it had for top artists, calculated the annualized performance, and compared the result to an index that included all art by those artists over the time period used. Of the twenty-five most liquid artists, including Renoir, Picasso, and Monet, “Warhol wins, palette down.” In fact, his work averaged 10.3 percentage points a year higher than the overall index.
A Safe Investment
Returns are not the only concern in a fine art investment. The market for an artist’s body of work must be perfectly positioned: It has to be large enough that there is art available to purchase; small enough that the art remains a relatively scarce commodity; liquid enough that the art can be sold when necessary; and stable enough that returns can be recognized when desired.
Warhol is superior in all measures, but he especially excels in the size of his oeuvre. Between 1961 and 1987, he produced more than 50,000 prints. It’s a Goldilocks number—not as many as Picasso, which would flood the market, and not as few as Jackson Pollock, which would make buying and selling difficult. Only eleven pieces of artwork attributed to Pollock sold publicly in 2021; Warhol sold just under 1,000.
Warhol prints and paintings have become the most widely collected and traded works of art in the world, and three decades after his death, his work accounts for one-sixth of all contemporary art sales. The Warhol name carries among the highest recognition in the general public— second only to Picasso. Only unlike Picasso, his work is contemporary and remains relevant. His work has been featured in museums and art history books around the world. His art will be available and liquid and its value appreciable as it is passed from one generation to the next.
Accessible Art
Warhol is the most democratic of all art markets. Andy worked relentlessly to undercut the conceit of art as exclusive, from the very beginning creating art that was meant to be accessible to everyone. The Campbell’s Soup art that Irving Blum purchased shocked the art world with its crass commonness.
When Warhol launched Factory Additions, his aim was to create paper prints at different price points—like his art, there would be something available for everyone. It was a manifestation of his belief that the richest consumers purchase the same thing as the poorest. “A Coke is a Coke,” he said. The accessibility of Warhols has not only made them a historically good investment—it is also part of the art itself, and part of how Andy transformed the concept of what constitutes art.
Because Andy experimented with so many different mediums and produced so much art, there are effectively several sub-markets. A Committee 2000 print might sell for $10,000, and a Cagney—a completely unique print—might go for more than $6 million. By comparison, the only Jackson Pollock painting to sell in 2021 went for more than $50 million—only affordable by an ultra-high-net-worth individual. But it is demand that pushes the value of prints up; when anyone can afford a Warhol, they become more valuable for everyone.
Cultural Staying Power
Aside from possessing the crucial characteristics of a good investment, Warhols also have enduring cultural, aesthetic, and prestige value. In the final analysis, his work is considered to define twentieth-century American art. His prints are art history.
The range of subjects he used, which may surpass even that of Picasso, ensures long-term relevance. His subject matter deftly shifted from Pop Art imagery, such as Coca-Cola and Elvis, to media headlines, as in the Flash portfolio, to celebrity portraits, to enduring political figures, to still life depictions such as Flowers and Shoes. Studio assistant Billy Name said: “Warhol brought fine art back to popular culture. People wanted his images on their living-room wall because they recognized them as their own.”
Since only one person can own a specific editioned print, its accessibility becomes exclusive. Hanging a Warhol displays not only the means to acquire his art, but also the sophistication to recognize the place it holds in art history. No one knew precisely who Warhol was, but everyone knows a Warhol when they see it. Regardless of the other art in a collection, the Warhol is the crown jewel.
Life As Art
A Warhol print is not just a piece of art history, a silkscreen print, a piece of Pop Art, or a good investment. They are an idea. An identity. A Warhol. He spent his life on display: from his other-worldly appearance to being an out gay man in the ‘50s, to being the first to start a tabloid magazine, to transforming art from abstract expressionism to Pop Art. To acquire one of his prints is to buy into the art of Warhol himself.
Warhol's work becomes eternal and iconic in equal measure... He thus becomes the central figure to the massive art market that has grown up around it, locking himself in as the single most important artist in the canon of contemporary art.
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Image Credits
Image 2: Christie’s auction of Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, May 2022, by Sarah Yenesel.
Image 4: Andy Warhol with Myths, 1981, by Robert Levin.
Image 5: Andy Warhol silkscreening in the Factory, 1964, by Ugo Mulas.
