RBA Annual Exhibition 2025 METRICS: Analysis of art sales & Recommendations about pricing

This is an analysis of the art sales at the recent Annual Exhibition 2025 of the Royal Society of British Artists. 

It contains a number of charts and tables which attempt to explain what can be learned by both members and open artists about sales compared to artwork hung.

The charts and tables include

• CHART 1: an analysis and comparison of the number of artworks sold by type of artist and price range
• CHART 2: a comparison of the number and percentage of artworks sold with the total hung hung - according to the Mall Galleries Price Ranges
• TABLE 1: an analysis of the distribution of artwork by media (numbers hung and sold) - and then ranked according to the percentage of sales for different media
• TABLE 2: An analysis is subject matter by media used

Looking at numbers in isolation does not however tell the whole story. It's only when we look at comparative data in previous years that the very obvious and very significant finding stands out.

This was a much bigger exhibition with much fewer sales when compared to previous years.  There were 554 artworks hung in the show split between:

• 275 artworks by members
• 279 artworks by open entry artists

This was my review of the exhibition - Review: Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition 2025 in which I commented

The artwork selected comes from 3,843 submitted images. To give you a sense of what that represents it's bigger than the entry for some major art competitions.

Mostly it was good work, although it certainly included artwork I personally would have edited out at the selection stage.

You can see a much bigger version of the chart below on this post on my Facebook Page . Just click it to see the big version

Or get a magnifying glass out!

CHART 1: An analysis of the number of artworks sold
at RBA Annual Exhibition 2025
by type of artist (member or open) and the price range

The main findings of this chart are as follows

• A total of 63 artworks sold (just 11% of the artwork hung) which is VERY LOW 
• SEE SOLD ARTWORK HERE
• Previous sales figures for this exhibition 
• 2023:  97 sold (20% of the exhibition) - overall volume of sales was excellent
• 2024: however this year's exhibition is marginally better than the 52 sold from 491 hung (10%) last year - but only just (11%!!)
• in general the trend is the MORE artwork exhibited, the FEWER sales are achieved

I commented as follows in my review

I have the sort of brain which remembers good exhibitions extremely well. I can walk around them in my head. I can remember exactly where certain paintings I like are situated - and what artwork is near it. I can remember that for a very long time afterwards. For some exhibitions I can do the walk around in my head some months and even years after the actual exhibition.

So to have difficulty recalling more than small sections of the exhibition causes me concern.

I came to the conclusion that I was faced with VISUAL OVERLOAD.

RBA Members vs Open Artists

You may well conclude from the metrics that open artists presented more affordable more attractive art than the members of the RBA.

In terms of who sold what:

• Members sold just 25 artworks (a very low figure, which IMO is in fact quite dire!) and achieved lower sales than...
• The Open entry artists - who sold 38 artworks

I commented as follows in my review post

the RBA needs to vet open entry prices much more carefully and, if necessary, offer advice to open entry artists

However, I'm now inclined to say the RBA needs to vet its members' prices more carefully. Some appear not to have a clue as to what sells at the Mall Galleries.

 

In terms of price ranges

• the majority of sales were for less than £1,500. I have repeatedly identified this figure as being crucially important to pricing art as there is a big drop-off in sales above this figure - across all art societies exhibiting at the Mall Galleries
• The open artists dominated the sales in  all three categories below £1,000. It's very possible that those who are not biased towards selling via an art gallery/galleries have a much better appreciation of how the market has changed and what prices generate sales. Particularly those who are well used to selling online or at art fairs
• Between £1,000 and £1,500 the member artists took back dominance of the price range with twice as any sales as the open artists.  However I have noticed before that very many open artists tend to price below £1,000 as they know that's where more sales take place
• Above £2,000 it's interesting to see that open artists sold four compared to the two sold by members and that the highest priced artworks sold were both by open artists. Bottom line, any member pricing above £2,000 needs to be doing so on the basis they have consistently sold in the above £2,000+ price range in recent times. Otherwise I'd suggest it amounts to aspirational at best.

The two artworks sold in the £2,500 - £5,000 price range were both floral. This ink painting was one of them

Third Space: Bunga Jari Kuku III (Fingernail Flowers) SOLD

Chinese ink and water-based mediums on watercolour paper, varnish, 

1500 x 560 mm

by Jennifer Ng

Total artworks hung compared to total artworks sold

I was going to do repeat this exercise to identify what this said about the total artworks hung per price range. However that is a very long manual counting exercise and a proxy is available using the prices ranges used by the Mall Galleries Filters.  

CHART 2: Number of artworks sold compared to Number hung
- with an overlay of the percentage for each price range

This gives you a better sense of the relationship between total artworks in the exhibition and total sales

The Mall Gallery price ranges are are simplified to:

• upto £999
• £1,000 - £2,999
• £3,000 - £5,000
• £5,000+

HOWEVER, I would argue these simplified price ranges miss ALL the really important data relating to sales - as identified by my CHART 1

• the importance of the number of sales below £500 - many of which are spontaneous 
• the fact that the two ranges which cover £500-£1,000 generate the most sales overall
• the huge dropoff in sales which occurs above £1,500

The reality is that the MAJORITY of the "middle aged, middle income, middle class of Middle England" who visit these exhibitions are prepared to be make spontaneous purchases (in relative terms) up to £1,500 - and no further. Which is not to say that there won't be individuals who buy above - just that there are many fewer of them.

I've always argued that before you start counting you have to observe what you are counting to get the ranges correct - so they can tell the important messages in the story of an exhibition. 
(I've been counting sales in all the annual exhibitions by all the FBA art societies based at the Mall Galleries for many years! I can tell before I start doing the detailed analytical work what the key messages are each year - just by looking and reading labels.)

Sales above £1,500 are very frequently related to artists who have collectors or followers - or who are recognised as being an emerging artist of note.  Two such are listed below

For example Joshua Donkor won the RBA Rome Scholarship in 2024 and was one of the two artists who sold above £5,000. I'm not surprised as his previous portraits entered in tis exhibition have been absolutely stonking!

The other was Ælfred Hillman whose paintings have been notable and admirable from the first time he entered the RBA Annual Exhibition - and who won the RBA Rome Scholarship in 2023. He'a apparently paintings while also being a PhD candidate in English at the University of Cambridge, specialising in Restoration and early eighteenth-Century Literature!!

A Melusine of the River Dun by Ælfred Hillman SOLD
oil on board  61cm x 54cm 

Media and Sales

Next up is a Table comparing the figures for the Media used for different exhibits and the relationship between the number hung and the number sold

I've ranked the media according to the percentage sold. Something which is not often seen - but I think some might find it interesting if not illuminating!

TABLE 1: ROYAL SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS ANNUAL EXHIBITION 2025
Analysis by Media of numbers hung and numbers / % sold

My study of this table suggested a few possible conclusions.

• this is very much NOT a watercolour exhibition. Quite why is unknown. I wonder if it's to do with the bias of selectors?
• oil paintings seem to be a good benchmark for the overall success of the exhibition - with a percentage sold which exactly mirrors that for the exhibition as a whole
• Interestingly gouache - which some use instead of oil did well, maybe because such paintings were maybe more reasonably priced?
• the top four media all tend to be considered opaque
• the top four media include two frequently used for drawings - which suggests to me consideration needs to be given to including more drawings and fewer paintings next year

Media related to Subject

I thought it might be interesting to look at how media relates to different subject matter. It's absolutely impossible to chart is so Table 2 below is the best I can do.

As you can see there is a diverse use of different media across different types of subject matter. In fact it was more diverse than I was expecting - with the exception for the extremely high number of oil painters

• oil painters favour landscapes, still life and portraits
• fine art printmakers favour landscapes and still life or interiors
• sculpture tends to be about living things - people or animals

It does however occur to me that media might be studied in more depth in relation to sales - as per Table 1.  Two thoughts occur:

• Sales tend to favour pricing below £1,500, consequently the media which sits well within this price bracket may well do better in terms of sales in future.
• I think oil and acrylic painters need to think long and hard about the SIZE of their paintings. You might not want to adjust your media but you can certainly adjust your size - and I'm sure most would rather have sales than no sales

.....and there were a LOT of artists with multiple artworks with no sales this year

I THINK RBA MEMBERS NEED TO HAVE A RETHINK. 

Comments from my Facebook Followers

I posted the first chart on my Facebook Page and invited comments from my followers. 

Some were astute and/or illuminating. They included the following

Well, the vast majority are under £1500 and open call artists have outsold the membership...

I believe the bubble created by lockdown has well and truly burst and this is mirrored by the amount of people offering tuition both online and in person. I heard one artist paid £2.5k for their stand at an art fair recently only to sell nothing.

My wife has been listening to Gary's Economics. His analysis is that the gulf between the middle classes and the ultra rich is getting wider and wider. The reluctance to tax the rich means that middle classes will now be feeling the pinch more and more. As such I would expect this trend towards the lower half of the graph get more extreme. For the Super rich £5K and under probably doesn't count as ART worth investing in and would be the middle class equivalent of buying a printed canvas at The Range.

Do members always put in their best work or are they a bit less worried as “selection” for members doesn’t really exist (except maybe the odd horror). Does getting membership (of any of the societies) lead to complacency? The buying public might be voting with their feet that way.

AS to the breakdown - I guess the only conclusion is that what ever metric is used to evaluate membership - it is misaligned with the tastes of the buying public.

and a nice optimistic one

based purely on the facts and information of this graph alone, there’s enough to say that no matter the price point there is a collector/buyer willing to pay for art in these cost of living restrained times, which is nice to see!