artnet owns the world’s largest and most comprehensive price database for secondary market sales of fine and decorative art. With the help of the artnet Analytics team, we crunched the numbers to assemble the definitive list of the world’s most collectible living artists at auction.

We looked at sales results from auction houses worldwide over the past four years, the post-recession period, which we believe has the most relevance for both current market conditions and future trends. From these we derived two intersecting lists.

The first list shows the top 100 living artists ranked by total value of secondary market sales; the second presents the top 100 lots by living artists, ranked by price. Whereas the first list displays overall sales volume by value and quantity, the second tracks top lots for individual artworks and therefore contains duplicate entries for artists where an artist’s work is in high demand. Small arrows indicate a change in rank from the previous month.

In addition to the name of the artist, the sale year, and price for each work of art, we felt it important to also include the name of the auction house and the location of the sale. Not surprisingly, we found that London, New York, and Hong Kong continue to be dominant points of sale.

For more information about top lots, including the name of individual works, or comparable sales, or to research other artists beyond the Top 100 Most Collectible Living Artists at auction, we invite readers to visit the artnet Price Database Fine Art and Design at artnet.com. We source, update, and publish this Top 100 list quarterly on artnet News.

Benjamin Genocchio, Editor in Chief, artnet News