Age-Price Profiles for Canadian Painters at Auction

Abstract

We conduct an empirical analysis of the effect on the auction price of a Canadian painting of the age of the painter at the time of creation of the painting. We consider several hundred artists, active over the entire history of Canadian art, who are pooled in the estimation of a hedonic regression in which a polynomial function in age enters as a regressor along with several other control variables. We then consider the possibility that the age-price relationship has changed over time by : (a) estimating separate age-price functions for three generational groups of artists -those born before 1880, between 1880 and 1920, and after 1920 and thus coming of age in the world of post-war "contemporary art" ; and (b) estimating a parameterization where the shape of the age-price profile is permitted to change continuously depending on the year of birth of the artist. Our principal result is that artists born more recently tend to "peak" earlier in their careers than those of previous generations.As pertaining to artists born after 1920, this result is consistent with the findings of Galenson (2000) for modern American painters, but we find that the phenemenon applies over longer periods of art history, and propose an interpretation based on demand-side changes in art markets brought about by economic and urban population growth.2

The Impact of Color Palettes on the Prices of Paintings

“…Modern Art, in turn, presents a puzzle for defining subjects. A possible solution is to use the artist's age [under the assumption that paintings done in the same year are close in style] (Galenson, 2000;Hodgson, 2011;Hellmanzik, 2009). 2 We thank our referee for pointing this out to us.…”

Econometric Fine Art Valuation by Combining Hedonic and Repeat-Sales Information

“…In many such studies, the effects on the price associated with these variables are of central substantive interest. Hodgson (2011) is an example which focuses on pooled age-valuation profiles. Of course, the effects of hedonic characteristics at an individual-artist level could well be different for each artist, and better models may result from using separate models for each.…”

“…The data set that we use for empirical comparison of methods is an extended version of that used by Hodgson (2011) in a study of age-valuation profiles for Canadian painters. In the pooled model, all of the artists included in the sample are grouped together, whereas, in the individual-artist models, a separate regression is estimated for each artist.…”

“…Hodgson (2011) estimates a fourth-order polynomial for the overall and cohort regressions, as well as for the specification with continuously shifting profile. Galenson (2000) allows for up to three polynomial terms in each individual-artist regression, selecting order by R 2 .…”

An analysis of pricing and returns in the market for French Canadian paintings

“…In the growing economics literature devoted to studying the behaviour of art prices, most of the attention has been devoted to markets for European and American art, but some authors have analyzed various aspects of the market for Canadian art (Valsan (2002), Arvin and Scigliano (2004), Hodgson and Vorkink (2004), Hodgson (2006)). The present study extends this line of investigation in considering the factors influencing the pricing of French Canadian paintings.…”