The season’s marquee evening auctions will not take off in earnest until next month—but there was plenty of market activity behind the scenes that kept art professionals searching the Artnet Price Database. 

The search queries aren’t free, which means those running them have skin in the game, and changing rankings can offer a snapshot of business interests and activity in particular artists, especially on the secondary market. Below, we bring you the list of the top-searched artists on the Artnet Price Database in August 2021. (Those who had the same number of searches are listed as tied; all final prices include buyer’s premium, while estimates do not. ) 

Before we get into that, however, here is a selection of artists on the rise who haven’t cracked the most-searched list yet—but might soon. Some of these rising figures have highly concentrated local markets but could be poised to go international; others may be the new favorite of profit-hungry speculators. Either way, it would be wise for you to familiarize yourself now, before their prices shoot even further into the stratosphere.

Notable Fast-Risers

Allison Zuckerman (b. 1990)

Allison Zuckerman, Harlequin Nude (2020). Courtesy of Christie’s Images, Ltd.

The young artist earned some very important early fans with her frenetic, Internet-addled compositions that fuse digital collage with her own hand-painted figures. Back in 2017, mega-collectors Don and Mera Rubell were taken with her first show at Kravets Wehby Gallery in New York and offered her a slot in their museum’s coveted residency. The platform did not immediately vault her to superstardom (reviews were meh), but over the past year, her work has gained serious traction on the secondary market. All five of Zuckerman’s paintings to hit the block in 2021 so far have shattered expectations, including The First Royal Portrait (2018), which sold at Phillips New York’s day sale in June for $252,000 (estimate: $30,000–40,000). It’s no wonder, then, that while she had exactly zero searches in the Artnet Price Database in August 2020, she had 45 in August 2021. 

Edgar Plans (b. 1977)

Edgar Plans, Invaders (2018). Courtesy of Christie’s Images, Ltd.

Plans is the latest artist whose big-eyed, cartoony characters have earned him a large fan base among young buyers in Asia. (He is—if you can believe it—not even the only Spanish artist to meet this criteria, which also applies to his countryman Javier Calleja.) Plans’s top seven auction prices have all been set this year, six of them at auction houses in Asia. Now, international heavyweights are starting to see gold in his compositions of mice playing the trumpet and riding bicycles. His top auction result, for an alien-dotted composition called Invaders (2018), fetched $162,000 at Christie’s Online in July (estimate: $20,000–$30,000). He has also been included in several group shows at Almine Rech gallery. Last August, Plans drew nine searches in our database; one year later, that number skyrocketed to 90. 

Flora Yukhnovich (b. 1990)

Flora Yukhnovich, Pretty Little Thing (2019). Photo: Phillips.

The London-based painter made a splash in June, when her Rococo-inspired painting Pretty Little Thing (2019) fetched $1.2 million at Phillips New York’s contemporary art evening sale, more than a dozen times its high estimate. That breakthrough price has, perhaps surprisingly, not yet spurred a wave of collectors consigning her work in search of a payday; just one other Yukhnovich painting has hit the block since then. The oil-on-paper Study (2018), which looks as if a Fragonard were put through an Expressionist filter, made $60,295 at a Sotheby’s London sale in August, more than seven times its high estimate. Yukhnovich’s search numbers have also spiked: Last August, the artist—who is represented in London by Victoria Miro—did not make a ripple in the database. In August 2021, she recorded 52 searches. 

Kyne (b. 1988) 

Kyne, Untitled (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Kaikai Kiki Gallery.

You probably have never heard of Kyne, the Japanese artist who creates 1980s- and anime-inflected portraits of women staring straight at the viewer. His work is rarely exhibited outside of Japan, where he shows with Tokyo’s Gallery Target. But that doesn’t mean he’s not famous. In June, Kyne unveiled a line of sneaker and T-shirt designs in collaboration with Adidas. He also has more than 87,000 followers on Instagram. And now, his work is generating major heat at auction. In June, an untitled painting of a short-haired woman fetched $194,865 at Phillips’s joint sale with Poly Auction in Hong Kong, soaring over its high estimate of just under $65,000. His six top auction prices have all been set this year. Kyne’s total searches, meanwhile, nearly doubled, from 14 to 27, between August 2020 and August 2021. Expect to see a lot more of him in the future.

Angel Otero (b. 1981)

Angel Otero, Blue Pineapple (2019). Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

Something is going on with the market for Angel Otero’s work. Until recently, the Puerto Rico-born, Brooklyn-based artist saw only a handful of pieces hit the auction block annually; they usually sold for well under $50,000 a pop. Then 2021 hit. Ten of the artist’s textured, layered paintings, often built from skins of dried paint, have been consigned so far this year (and three are coming up later this month). So far, four of them have sold for more than $100,000, including Acis and Galatea (2013), which generated $277,200 at Phillips New York’s day sale in June (estimate: $25,000–$35,000). Artnet Price Database inquiries for Otero, who is represented by Lehmann Maupin gallery, are picking up, too. Last August, he generated 13 database searches; in August 2021, that figure jumped to 51.

300 Most-Searched Artists in the Artnet Price Database, August 2021