By Geoffrey Williams, Founder and Publishing Curator, The Indigenous Art Book
I would like to begin this week’s blog by thanking the visitors to our website who have emailed us their questions. I will do my very best to write answers to them in the weeks ahead, but this question from Laura in Adelaide, South Australia, was a particularly interesting one, and one that I thought I would answer for this week’s post.
Q: Why do prices for Aboriginal Art vary so much on so many different websites?
In a previous post, I shared my thoughts about how we might determine the ‘value’ of Aboriginal Art, and the price that sellers choose for particular pieces is often based on the results of an equally subjective equation – what have, and/or what will, people pay for it? There can also be other considerations that are used to determine pricing, such as size, paint coverage (how much paint or ochre has been used), materials (linen, canvas, paper or bark), and the cultural significance of the subject of the painting.
Rainbow Serpent Dreaming by Jimmy Nimitjuma. Painted in 1995. Natural ochres on Arches paper. 57cm x 38cm. Image courtesy of The Bedford Collection and The Indigenous Art Book. © 2024. All rights reserved. Reproduction is strictly forbidden in all national and international jurisdictions.
Another important aspect of pricing is also how comfortable the Artist was or is when dealing with their buyers – whether they are gallery owners, dealers, studio managers, or direct customers. The ways in which Aboriginal Art is acquired are vast and often complex, and I wrote about this in a previous post about provenance. The main issue relating to pricing, however, is how much the seller paid for the painting when they acquired it in the first instance. This price can vary dramatically, and in the case of the majority of Aboriginal Artists in the commercial space, the paintings are purchased outright. Aboriginal Artists don’t work within the ‘consignment’ construct (where artists are paid their share when and if the piece sells), so their creations need to be paid for in full and up front. This creates a particular kind of pressure on the buyer, because not only have they paid for the piece, but they also need to then load the piece with their associated oncosts and profit margin to arrive at the new selling price.
Ensuring that the artists understand the difference between the price they sold their piece for and the price for which it is now offered for sale is a critical aspect of doing business with them. The more comfortable, experienced and knowledgeable an artist is about how art sales in the commercial context work, the more constructive and mutually beneficial the relationship will be. I have always valued the opportunity to help artists appreciate the difference between our pricing and theirs, and always made it clear what the difference reflects.
In the case of the studios where the artists go to paint, their paintings will be offered for sale at standardised prices, which is based predominantly on size and the artist’s reputation. Some buyers base their purchase price on ‘X number of dollars per 10 square centimetres’, which is also how canvas stretchers can arrive at their stretching price. While this standardisation works well a majority of the time, it does not take into account the cultural significance of a particular piece, which can then often be added to the purchase price as a purely subjective amount to reflect the significance of a particular piece.
As I touched on earlier in this post, how much artists want for their creations can vary dramatically – and this factor will always be considered when the buyer sets their selling price. It is crucial to understand that Aboriginal Artists are the family members who are making an enormous contribution to the continual economic needs of not only themselves and their families, but also their extended families. They are, almost without exception, generating the income that a very large number of people will rely on to exist.
One of the most interesting examples of this aspect of the transaction in my direct experience was when a famous family of weavers were travelling from Arnhem Land to Darwin and then back again. When they set off from Country, they carried with them enough weavings to fund their entire return trip. They would sell a few pieces at every stop, to cover bus fares, accommodation, food, drinks and entertainment – and each of their beautiful pieces had a very significant role and value to play in the journey. The unfortunate disruption occurred when they missed the bus that was to take them on the first leg of their journey home, and so they came to see me. The pieces they brought me to sell to me had obviously increased in value, because now they represented additional costs that they had not anticipated. Of course, I paid the price they needed, but then had to spend an inordinate amount of time explaining to my customers why there was a difference in the price I was selling certain pieces for when compared to other pieces.
It will help you understand the variations of a seller’s pricing when you appreciate that the initial price that was paid for the piece can be very different every time, and for whatever reason(s) the artist(s) chose.
What you will also see reflected in the pricing of Aboriginal Art on the various websites from which you can purchase will include:
a reasonable portion of the oncosts of designing, building, maintaining and hosting the website;
possibly a fair and reasonable amount allocated to cultural significance and the artist’s reputation;
possibly a fair and reasonable amount allocated to ‘market weight’ and ‘value’;
cost-recovery in relation to the freight (and possible stretching) costs the seller invested in bringing the work (from Central Australia and/or Arnhem Land) to their physical location;
cost-recovery in relation to insurance costs while the piece(s) was(were) in transit;
completing due diligence in relation to Certificates of Authenticity, stories and Artist profiles; and
a profit margin.
In terms of the ‘profit margin’, this is where we land in a very particular and conflicted space. I will write more about this topic in my next post because Laura’s question was about the difference in pricing on different websites, not the difference between ‘profit’ and ‘profiteering’.
I hope you have enjoyed this blog post, and if you have a question you would like me to answer, I look forward to receiving your email at theindigenousartbook@gmail.com
Geoffrey Williams is the Founder and Publishing Curator of The Indigenous Art Book. He is based in Darwin, Australia. The Traditional Owners of Darwin and the surrounding region are the Larrakia (Saltwater) people. Larrakia country runs far beyond the municipal boundaries of Darwin, covering the area from the Cox Peninsula in the west to the Adelaide River in the east.
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