MAKING A MARK: Analysis of Sales at the RSMA Annual Exhibition 2024

This post about the number of sales and the prices they sold for is specific to the Royal Society of Marine Artists. However it has a number of useful lessons for:

more than one art society
members and associates of the RSMA
ALL those who enter open exhibitions by national art societies in London - and most especially those who exhibit at the Mall Galleries.

The reason I'm writing this post is because I'd like to see:

more artists do better
more artists make sales
more artists improve their annual income from their artwork
THROUGH more intelligent pricing of their artwork

Bottom line, the most realistic price for your artwork is the price which enables a sale. Otherwise, why bother pricing at all?

So far as I'm aware, I'm the only person who provides detailed analysis across various national art societies and comments on the lessons that can learned - which all can benefit from.

I've no objection to changes to "the rules" being made over time - but I do know that those which are grounded in real numbers and real life are much more likely to be successful over time.

I've established in the past that there's a strong trend which generates lots of sales in the £350-£500 price range.

The rule which I think curtailed sales in this exhibition was the one which required a minimum sale price of £600 - when there are a lot of people buying art priced below £500.

Read on to find out why....

General commentary on Sales of Artwork

These days art sales are typically generated via

the associated online website for the artwork - and the fact this goes online before the exhibition in the gallery opens
sales at the Private View - where it's a common expectation that a goodly proportion of artwork will be sold given this is an opportunity to be nice to collectors!
sales during the time the exhibition is open to the public.

Sales in the last couple of years have been less than usual due to the constraints on people's budgets.

Number of Sales by Price Range

By the time the RSMA Annual Exhibition closed on 28 September 2024, there had been 57 sales in total (out of 452 artworks in the exhibition) i.e. 12% of artworks "hung" sold.

The analysis in this post is based on those sales. See my review post for the explanation of how I arrived at these numbers

The remaining unsold artwork remains available for sale on the online art sales pages website

The chart below is based on an analysis of the 57 sales - splitting them by

the artist as follows:

RSMA - a full or associate member of the RSMA
Open - an artist selected via the Open Entry

different price ranges - based on prevailing price hurdle (eg 1,000) demonstrated at the Mall Galleries in the past

Analysis of the 57 art sales at the RSMA Annual Exhibition 2024

You can compare 2024 performance to a previous chart from 2020

Click to see a larger version

NOTE that just 4 years ago:

there were 56 sales in total of which:

17 sales were below £500
48 sales were below £1,500 - and only 40 now in 2024.

how few sales there were above £2,000 (during the pandemic)
how the number of open artists selling has improved since 2020

In this context

sales in the upper price ranges have improved since 2020 - but not by much.
While the bottom price range (£350-£500) has been completely eliminated by the requirement for a minimum price of £600.

I'm still completely mystified as to the metric evidence which suggested this was a good idea.

RSMA Sales Metrics 2024

I've split my comments between:

ones related to how one can categorise the artists eg members vs Open; men vs women
ones related to the price ranges

BY ARTISTS

57 sales were achieved by a total of 44 artists i.e. some artists had multiple sales (see below for more details)
44 artists were made up of 26 men and 18 women - irrespective of type
44 artists included 24 RSMA members & associates and 20 Open artists - irrespective of gender
the two largest groups were:

men who sold between £1501 and £5000 (9) - typically members
women who sold between £600 and £1000 (8) - mostly open artists

members/associates of the RSMA dominated higher priced sales - as one might reasonably expect. Only 12 artists sold above the price hurdle of £2,500 - and 11 of the 12 were members/associates of the RSMA (i.e 92%)

I'd recommend:

open artists on provide excellent value for artwork priced below £1,500
all artists to be mindful of the fact the majority of sales are below £1,000
all artists to work out how many sales they need to achieve to break even (not make a profit or a loss)!
all artists to look long and hard at those artists who sold multiple works

BY PRICE RANGE

NOTE: I'll write more about hurdle prices in my next post.

40 sales (70% of total sales) were for less than £1,000.

This is VERY SIGNIFICANT and at the same time I am entirely unsurprised.
This follows the ways sales values in relation to total sales at Mall Galleries Exhibitions have been tracking in the last couple of years. Bottom line, we are still not back into those economically comfortable places where people feel they can splurge on higher prices artworks.

Upto the hurdle price of £1,500, sales were evenly split between RSMA Members/Associates and those selected from the Open Entry.

I find members of art societies have a tendency to overprice their smaller work and would do well to take a close look at how open artists price! They'd sell more if they priced better.

Only 1 artwork by an Open Artist sold above the hurdle price of £1,500 - and this was by the artist I suggested was "The artist to keep an eye on for the future". This suggests most open artists would do well to understand that a lack of credentials - specifically in marine art - means artwork by Open Artists may be less persuasive if they have high prices.
Only 11 artworks (2.4% of artworks hung) sold for more than £1,500. RSMA members like to price above £1,500 and only they will know whether or not they've been achieving sales by so doing. Look very closely at the prices charged on artwork you've sold in the last two years - and work out a strategy for generating more sales!
Only one artwork by a Member Artist sold above £5,000. This was by veteran maine artist Geoff Hunt who has collectors - one of his historic ships paintings sold for £17k.

The clear implication here is that it's a very smart member who makes sure part of his entry is devoted to smaller works at lower prices. That should help cover the costs of exhibiting

Artists making multiple sales

Artists with multiple sales tended to have a theme - and I wonder if it was the same buyer for all sales.

Their sales are typically equivalent to one sale of between £2-2.5k

It speaks to the value of hanging similar works together - as interestingly it can sometimes be easier to see that they have companion pieces when seen in the online gallery.

Lizzie Black (OPEN) had three sales of paintings of views at Mousehole
totalling £2,240 (gross) and £1,030 net after commission and VAT
(VAT of £201.60 can be reclaimed - but only if registered for VAT)

These are the artists (3 women and 2 men) who had multiple sales - in alphabetical order

Lizzie Black (Mousehole, Cornwall) had 3
Robert Brindley RSMA (Cumbria) had 3
Brian Collins RSMA had 3
Madeline Davenport ARSMA (Scotland) had 2
Kayla Martell (Wicklow, Ireland) had 2

I find it interesting that most (all) live in rural areas a long way from London!

Brian Collins had three sales of waves in strong winds
totalling £2,190 (gross) and £1007 (net)
(VAT of £197.10 can be reclaimed - but only if registered for VAT)

Note that the net prices quoted above then have to finance the art materials, framing and transporting the artwork there (and back for any that don't sell) !

If I had time, the next thing I'd be looking at is size of artwork relative to sales......

Archive of posts about past RSMA annual exhibitions

Call for Entries: Royal Society of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition 2019
(no review post because I was in the USA)

MAKING A MARK

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Monday, September 30, 2024

Analysis of Sales at the RSMA Annual Exhibition 2024