Overview of the World's Leading Art Indexes

The global art market is a vast and intricate space, driven by the passions of collectors, the creativity of artists, and the expertise of gallerists. As with any market, understanding its trends, performance, and nuances is crucial for both seasoned and novice players. Art indexes serve as invaluable tools in this endeavor, offering data-driven insights into the art world's dynamics. This guide will offer a comprehensive overview of three of the world's leading art indexes: The Artprice Global Index, Artprice100 Index, Mei Moses Art Index, and Artnet Index.

1. Artprice Global Index

What is it?

• The Artprice Global Index is a leading art market reference tool that tracks the price evolution of artworks since 1998, adjusted for inflation.

Features & Benefits:

• Provides a macro view of the art market's health, reflecting the price movement of repeat sales artworks.
• Offers insights segmented by periods (modern, post-war, contemporary) and mediums (paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, prints).
• Associated with the Artprice database, it leverages a vast repository of auction results to offer comprehensive insights.

Notable Insights:

• Periodic reports on global art market trends, emerging artists, and shifts in the collector's interests.

2. Mei Moses Art Index

What is it?

• Developed by Jianping Mei and Michael Moses, the Mei Moses Art Indexes measure the art market's historical returns using repeat sales data, giving an indication of the investment quality of art.

Features & Benefits:

• Offers separate indexes for diverse art categories like old masters, impressionist and modern, and post-war and contemporary.
• Utilizes a vast database of 45,000+ repeat sales, which includes data from artworks that have been sold at least twice at auctions.
• Provides valuable insights for investors to compare art's performance with other investment vehicles.

Notable Insights:

• Periodic comparisons of art returns versus traditional investment benchmarks like the S&P 500.

3. Artnet Price Database & Index

What is it?

• Artnet's Price Database is a crucial tool for tracking individual artist performance and overall market trends, encompassing sales from over 300,000 artists.

Features & Benefits:

• Offers a vast database covering auction results from 1985 to the present from over 1,400 auction houses.
• The associated Artnet Index provides aggregated data on the art market's performance, offering insights segmented by genre, region, and time period.
• Enables users to analyze market demand, discover emerging artists, and predict future trends.

Notable Insights:

• Reports on the global art market, top-performing artists, and shifts in regional art market dominance.

4. Artprice100 Index

What is it?

• The Artprice100 Index focuses on the art market's "blue-chip" artists, essentially those who are at the heart of the market demand. It monitors the performance of the top 100 artists at auction based on turnover and offers insights into the heavyweight artists' market trends.

Features & Benefits:

• Offers a more concentrated view of the art market, focusing on the top-tier artists who often drive major auction results and headline sales.
• Acts as a barometer for the high-end segment of the art market, reflecting its resilience or vulnerability during various economic climates.
• Utilizes Artprice's extensive database, ensuring comprehensive and accurate tracking.

Notable Insights:

• Periodic reports highlighting shifts within the top 100 artists, emerging trends in this elite segment, and analyses on how external factors (like global economic shifts) might be influencing their auction performances.

Conclusion

In an era where data drives decisions, indexes such as the Artprice Global Index, Mei Moses Art Index, Artnet Index, and the focused Artprice100 Index are invaluable resources. Their detailed insights offer a lens into both the breadth and depth of the art market. Whether you're a seasoned collector, an emerging artist, a gallery owner, or just an enthusiast, understanding the metrics and analyses these indexes provide can equip you to make informed choices in the ever-evolving world of art.