Major Exhibitions Drive Interest in September’s Top 300 Artist Searches

It's been a big month for erotic photographers and blue-chip artists.

Oscar Murillo's show at David Zwirner caused a surge in online searches for the artist. Photo: GERARD JULIEN/AFP/Getty Images.

Who were artnet’s most searched artists in September? Insight into the artists that thousands of artnet users search for offers a unique perspective on the art market and what fuels popularity.

In the top 10 a familiar pattern emerged once again, as erotic photographers and blue-chip artists populate the list. Controversial American photographer Jock Sturges’s controversial show in Moscow, which included images of nude adolescents, was recently shut down when a man threw urine on them. Sturges hit number one on our list. British street artist Banksy, who—it was recently posited—might be Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja, came in second.

Meanwhile, blue-chip artists Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso took fourth and fifth spot. Japanese erotic photographer Nobuyoshi Araki came in sixth, while photographer Diane Arbus took seventh. Hans Zatzka took eighth place, with Nan Golden and Keith Haring rounding off the top 10 in 9th and 10th place, respectively.

Elsewhere on the list, Dutch master Peter Paul Rubens jumped 148 places from 179 to 31 thanks in part to the discovery of a £3.6 million ($4.7 million) painting by his pupil Jacob Jordaens in the storage facility of the Swansea Museum in Wales.

Larry Clark homage to Brad Renfro (2011). Photo: courtesy UTA.

Larry Clark homage to Brad Renfro (2011). Photo: courtesy UTA.

Filmmaker and photographer Larry Clark’s retrospective at talent agency UTA’s new 4,500 square foot art space in Los Angeles propelled him 40th place, up from 276th in August.

After surging in online popularity thanks to his involvement in a bizarre authentication trial, British painter Peter Doig lost his 10th spot after the buzz surrounding the case died down. Doig finished September in 44th place.

After hovering near the bottom of the top 300 most searched artists list for four months, and not featuring at all in August, Danish artist Olafur Eliasson’s exhibition in Seoul’s Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art prompted artnet users to look up his works more regularly in September. He finished the month in 100th place.

Similarly, Colombian artist Oscar Murillo likely benefited from a major exhibition at David Zwirner gallery in New York. The exposure helped him land in 208th place after being absent from the top 300 list for four months.

Meanwhile, Kara Walker’s recent exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art moved her up to 178th place after being absent for three months.

See the list of top artists below:

1. Jock Sturges

2. Banksy

3. Andy Warhol

4. Pablo Picasso

5. Nobuyoshi Araki

6. Diane Arbus

7. Hans Zatzka

8. Nan Goldin

9. Keith Haring

10. Alec Monopoly

11. Roy Lichtenstein

12. Helmut Newton

13. Victor Vasarely

14. Sally Mann

15 Marc Chagall

16. Robert Mapplethorpe

17. Jean-Michel Basquiat

18. Joel-Peter Witkin

19. David Hockney

20. Fernando Botero

21. Jim Dine

22. Andy Goldsworthy

23. Salvador Dalí

24. Francesca Woodman

25. Wayne Thiebaud

26. Liu Bolin

27. Shepard Fairey

28. Joan Miró

29. Takashi Murakami

30. Peter Paul Rubens

31. Alexander Calder

32. KAWS

33. Gerhard Richter

34. Damien Hirst

35. Yayoi Kusama

36. David Hamilton

37. Jean Dubuffet

38. Bernard Buffet

39. Larry Clark

40. Thomas Ruff

41. Wolfgang Tillmans

42. Mr. Brainwash

43. Peter Doig

44. Tanja Playner

45. René Magritte

46. Andreas Gursky

47. Joseph Nechvatal

48. Henri Matisse

49. Frank Stella

50. Raoul Dufy

51. Robert Rauschenberg

52. Jeff Koons

53. Tracey Emin

54. Alex Katz

55. Herb Ritts

56. Grandma Moses

57. Philip-Lorca diCorcia

58. Man Ray

59. Ed Ruscha

60. Sebastião Salgado

61. Francis Bacon

62. Gregory Crewdson

63. Yoshitomo Nara

64. Pierre Soulages

65. Christian Boltanski

66. Emil Nolde

67. Milo Manara

68. Tom Wesselmann

69. Anselm Kiefer

70. Karel Appel

71. Candida Höfer

72. Ross Bleckner

73. Julian Opie

74. David Lynch

75. Konstantin Razumov

76. Jeff Muhs

77. Josef Albers

78. Egon Schiele

79. William Kentridge

80. Chuck Close

81. Fernand Léger

82. Georg Baselitz

83. George Grosz

84. Sol LeWitt

85. Niki de Saint Phalle

86. Jenny Holzer

87. Maurice Utrillo

88. Vik Muniz

89. Bridget Riley

90. Paul Klee

91. Bert Stern

92. Joseph Beuys

93. Sam Francis

94. Jenny Saville

95. Helen Frankenthaler

96. Cindy Sherman

97. Käthe Kollwitz

98. George Condo

99. Olafur Eliasson

100. Peter Max

101. Peter Blake

102. Janet Fish

103. Albert Marquet

104. Hans Vilz

105. David LaChapelle

106. Nick Brandt

107. Harland Miller

108. Daniel Richter

109. Thomas Struth

110. Rufino Tamayo

111. Ellsworth Kelly

112. Sigmar Polke

113. Grayson Perry

114. Kiki Smith

115. Henri Cartier-Bresson

116. Pierre et Gilles

117. Anish Kapoor

118. Robert Longo

119. Raymond Pettibon

120. Garry Gross

121. Robert Indiana

122. Gerda Wegener

123. Christopher Wool

124. Cy Twombly

125. Bettina Rheims

126. Lucio Fontana

127. Brice Marden

128. Marc Riboud

129. Wassily Kandinsky

130. Lucian Freud

131. Kehinde Wiley

132. Niclas Castello

133. Duane Michals

134. Barbara Kruger

135. Maurice de Vlaminck

136. Alberto Giacometti

137. Zao Wou-Ki

138. Hiroshi Sugimoto

139. Tony Cragg

140. Antoni Tàpies

141. Robert Motherwell

142. Markus Lüpertz

143. Swoon

144. François-Xavier Lalanne

145. Ronald Ventura

146. John Baldessari

147. William Klein

148. Yves Klein

149. Shirin Neshat

150. James Rosenquist

151. Max Ernst

152. Richard Prince

153. Yue Minjun

154. Jeremy Mann

155. Arman

156. Katsushika Hokusai

157. Kees van Dongen

158. Gustav Klimt

159. Saul Leiter

160. Peter Lindbergh

161. Jasper Johns

162. Pierre-Auguste Renoir

163. William Eggleston

164. Per Kirkeby

165. Willem de Kooning

166. Richard Estes

167. Andrew Wyeth

168. Louise Bourgeois

169. Erwin Wurm

170. Julie Mehretu

171. RETNA

172. Will McBride

173. Günther Uecker

174. Christo and Jeanne-Claude

175. Otto Dix

176. Irving Penn

177. Kara Walker

178. Edward Weston

179. Georges Braque

180. Wolf Kahn

181. Annie Leibovitz

182. Wifredo Lam

183. Harding Meyer

184. Ai Weiwei

185. Mel Ramos

186. Marina Abramovic

187. Irina Ionesco

188. Claude Monet

189. Manolo Valdés

190. Maximilien Luce

191. Vernon Ward

192. Imi Knoebel

193. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

194. Stanley Donwood

195. Igor Mitoraj

196. Vanessa Beecroft

197. Lyonel Feininger

198. Massimo Vitali

199. Sean Scully

200. Donald Judd

201. Margaret Keane

202. Friedensreich Hundertwasser

203. Jackson Pollock

204. Jean Prouvé

205. Dash Snow

206. Lucien Clergue

207. Oscar Murillo

208. Douglas Coupland

209. Günther Förg

210. Roberto Matta

211. Pierre Bonnard

212. Stephan Balkenhol

213. Milton Avery

214. Marlene Dumas

215. Ernesto Neto

216. Russell Young

217. Erwin Olaf

218. Duane Hanson

219. Martin Kippenberger

220. René Gruau

221. Georg Emanuel Opitz

222. Agnes Martin

223. Robert Doisneau

224. Romero Britto

225. Georges Rouault

226. Yaacov Agam

227. Arnulf Rainer

228. Edvard Munch

229. Eduardo Chillida

230. Edward Burtynsky

231. Marcel Dzama

232. Zdzislaw Beksinski

233. Hans Hartung

234. Martin Parr

235. A.R. Penck

236. Andres Serrano

237. Joan Mitchell

238. Richard Diebenkorn

239. Jean Lurçat

240. Gio Ponti

241. James Rizzi

242. Aslan

243. Miquel Barceló

244. Rineke Dijkstra

245. Jonathan Meese

246. Le Corbusier

247. Antony Gormley

248. Serpieri

249. Claude Lalanne

250. Ronald Davis

251. Auguste Rodin

252. Maurizio Cattelan

253. Donald Sultan

254. Charlotte Perriand

255. Francis Picabia

256. Hebru Brantley

257. Michel Jean Cazabon

258. Richard Avedon

259. Beatriz Milhazes

260. Montague Dawson

261. Jean Cocteau

262. Doug Aitken

263. Bernard Dufour

264. Mel Bochner

265. Anton Pieck

266. Charles Camoin

267. Henri Lebasque

268. Deborah Butterfield

269. Jan Saudek

270. Richard Serra

271. Dennis Sheehan

272. Chris Ofili

273. Ang Kiukok

274. Carmen Herrera

275. Paul Flora

276. John Currin

277. Erich Heckel

278. Hieronymus Bosch

279. Edgar Degas

280. Ellen von Unwerth

281. Walasse Ting

282. Gabriel Orozco

283. Jesús Rafael Soto

284. Sue Coe

285. Brassaï

286. Katharina Grosse

287. Louise Nevelson

288. Alphonse Mucha

289. Patrick Caulfield

290. Marino Marini

291. Marie Laurencin

292. Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

293. Bill Henson

294. Patrick Hughes

295. André Derain

296. Albrecht Dürer

297. Richard Orlinski

298. Heinz Mack

299. Fritz Aigner

300. Giorgio de Chirico

 


Follow Artnet News on Facebook:


Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward.
Article topics