Analysis of contemporary Spanish painting in the art market and auctions sales

Abstract

This paper carries out a study on the profitability of Spanish contemporary painting in relation to auction sales in the last decade. For this purpose, twenty Spanish artists from the second half of the twentieth century have been selected, by virtue of the volume of business generated within the art market at national and international level, and their works have been analyzed as well as the methods of sale and the places where they were made so that, from the data we could extract reflections on their profitability, collecting trends and turnover of the sector in these years. Among the results of this research, we have been able to identify the different circumstances of the painting of national artists at auction, as well as their cultural and economic transcendence in the international and national market. Demonstrating how the contemporary art sector, which in recent years was seen as one of the most demanded periods by collectors, during periods of economic recession seems to retract, in favor of the painting of previous periods or fully consolidated artists. This trend is reminiscent of what happened during the 2008 economic crisis, when collectors' buying motivations tended towards acquisitions of works by artists who were fully consolidated in the market.