ARTS
At a time of year when the London gallery world is traditionally quiet and When many gallery owners and their pat- rons are browning themselves by azure seas, perhaps we should spare some thought for those who bring profit and pleasure to the former groups: living Brit- ish artists. For them the future, like the immediate past, is anything but rosy. A story was recently told me of an artist telephoning a prominent London gallery and asking to talk to the owner. 'Tell him I only speak to dead artists,' the proprietor replied.
Certainly dead or semi-moribund artists are a more reliable source of profit to galleries than those who are still hale and productive. That artists must live and Produce before they can die and make money for other people is a nuisance the market has to accept. One almost feels that artists should apologise to dealers for the sheer inevitability and inconvenient slow- ness of this process. But who expects con- siderate behaviour from artists anyway? Compared with everyone else actively engaged in the art world in Britain, practis- ing artists are far and away the most poorly Paid. Very few indeed can match the Incomes of the directors of established commercial galleries — or even approach the salaries of the directors' secretaries. In the sector of public funding, some adminis- trators' incomes may be lower than in the Private sector but so, too, are the risks. Those art bureaucrats who work for funded galleries, arts councils and the like, sail on serene and unworried toward pen- !ions, perks and status. Even their most junior members probably enjoy expecta- tions exceeding those of all but the most senior established artists in Britain.
Any who would angrily gainsay these claims is urged to study before doing so The Economic Situation of the Visual Artist, a survey commissioned by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. This re- Pelt, which is the culmination of years of mil-time research, was commissioned as long ago as 1976 as a reaction to findings of the earlier Redcliffe-Maud Report. It has finally become available for public perusal only recently in a limited list of 22 institu- tions and libraries. That this report exists °lily in typewritten form and has not been Published seems a most disappointing end to a major research project. The ostensible reason for non-publication is that some of the economic data collected is now out of date, but I harbour other suspicions. Cer- tainly the report is not kind to the unworld- IY attitudes of British art schools. One major change since the survey ended is the virtual abolition of teaching by part-time lecturers. This tragic and misguided change
Artists' incomes
The art of endurance
Giles Auty
will in time achieve its catastrophic — and presumably desired — effect on the arts in Britain. At once it reduces student contact with true practising artists to a minimum and wipes out the best-paid and most compatible part-time work available to serious painters and sculptors. With body blows such as these, gov- ernmental indifference and a permanently depressed domestic art market, British artists must try to develop the stoicism of saints. However, that they are by no means blameless for their own economic plight is another aspect the report makes clear. Many artists give up without seriously trying to make a significant proportion of their livings through sales of work. This reluctance may be understandable but is certainly not admirable. To me, not giving potential patrons some chance, at least, seems arrogant and misguided — although the report does stress that only about five per cent of 'single-career artists manage to make a significant living. Hand-made objects of all kinds are technologically anachronistic, but a good painting is some- thing much more than a decorative 'object' and should be priced accordingly. Those engaged in the Gulbenkian survey were involved in research for which no precedent existed and were further hin- dered by the internal complexities of their subject. Thus in trying to locate sufficient `professional' as distinct from amateur — artists to form a representative sample, they were hampered not only by an abs- ence of useful registers but by widespread disagreement about what being a profes- sional artist entails. It will surprise no one that full-time art teachers hotly denied any connection between 'professionalism' and direct earnings from sales or, more asto- nishingly still, even with the regular public practice of art. At the other extreme, artists whose work sold well, if not always for the right reasons, were scathing about the supposed professionalism of full-time teachers who had never chanced their arm in the 'real' world. Were not such full-time lecturers merely engaged in the ultimate tail-swallowing exercise of teaching teachers to teach teachers to teach teachers? If everyone went for the safe pay cheque and nobody any longer made or exhibited art, then surely the whole art educational process was futile? It is diffi- cult to counter this argument.
Since reading the report, I have asked several friends to guess at some of its find- ings. For example, what would you guess was the average annual income from sales of work of 'professional' artists in Britain during 1978-80? Some friends guessed £5,000 and some as little as £3,000. No- body suggested less than £1,000, so nobody was right. The correct figure was £836. The I national average wage at this time was £5,000 p.a., meanwhile successful single- career artists averaged about £3,000. So don't send your son to the Slade, Mrs Worthington. About 2,000 young artists graduate from art schools each year after a minimum of four years' training. Their number is the same as that of all fine artists in Britain who make some kind of reason- able living. At the risk of setting off the banshee wails of the feminists, I should also point out that women artists are better off than their male counterparts in at least one respect: their spouses or male part- ners, where applicable, earn far more than do the women partners of male artists and thus make it much easier for such women artists to follow their careers.
If today's national average wage is £8,000, how much work would an artist need to sell to achieve such a figure?
London galleries take between 30 and 50 per cent commission on gross sales, gener- ally leaving the artist to pay for all mate- rials and framing. Taking a suggested £100 as material and framing costs for each of, say, 16 works, adds £1,600 to the £8,000 target. To earn £9,600 with a gallery taking 40 per cent commission means the artist must sell £16,000 worth of work. To do this he must produce and sell one work priced at £1,333 per month, or two at £666, or four at £333. My approximate figures take no account of VAT on gallery commission, ' nor of studio rent and heating.
Outside London, most galleries still find it hard to sell contemporary paintings for more than £400. This is a kind of artificial ceiling which occasional buyers, who would willingly pay £15,000 for a motor- car, simply will not exceed. Twenty years ago this 'ceiling' was probably £250. Prices paid for the work of most living artists bear no relation to rises in the cost of living.
In 1878 the average price paid for works sold at the RA Summer Exhibition was £74. One hundred years later the average was only £103, and visitors were quarter of a million fewer. Going by the figures, it is indeed a miracle that art endures.
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