This paper used comparative data as a backdrop to a commentary designed to illuminate a discussion on whether there are ‘Too many artists?’, raising a range of issues, questions and (mis)perceptions — in part about the role of artists in life in general and impact of state intervention and arts policy-making in particular.
As one may come to various conclusions about such an issue as ‘too many artists’ within the visual arts per se, as part of my investigations for this presentation I interviewed some of those working with contemporary musicians and writers — do they agree/disagree with such a proposition and what are the issues for their practitioners?
However, this is not an exhaustive study but a bit of a whistle-stop review designed essentially to raise questions, promote debate and encourage lateral thinking about value and measurement of artists: consider it to be ‘a work in progress’.
Issues of ‘over supply’ (or underemployment) in the arts overall are not new in being raised.
In 1992 economist Ruth Towse commented in her report : “In many developed countries it is widely believed that there is an over supply of artists although the concept of over supply is very difficult to define.….Concern has often led to moves to restrict HE places. However if demand is strong (and increases the pool of talent) it is not in society’s interest to do this.”
Her assertion that having choice — to study art — supersedes any premise of market driving the number of places/coursesraises the legally-enshrined requirement of equality of opportunity. A civilised society is one that seeks for higher education to be more widely available to all those who wish to participate, regardless of whether there is an economic case for their doing so. And in the neo-liberalist culture of nowadays, notions of self-determination and self-employment is an underpinning philosophy.
Numbers of artists
The 1977 unpublished Gulbenkian Enquiry into the concluded there were at least 20,000 “professional artists” in Britain.
If there were around 20,000 artists in 1977 — and these would have been fine artists painters, sculptors rather than the more broadly-based definitions we now have of visual arts practitioners — what were their ‘labour markets’? Second careers such as teaching provided the main subsidy. “Many artists are very poor and live on state benefits, but many are not poor and some are very well off”.
Artists who gained their recognition from publicly-subsidised gallery exhibitions generally earned less than those who operated within commercial galleries, who enjoyed higher level of sales income. Income from grants made a very small contribution to overall earnings. Many artists ‘signed on’ – with all that this entailed. In 1977, none of this ‘market evidence’ seemed to prevent growth in those joining the arts profession.
The impact of the interference of the state on arts and arts markets is something I will come back to later. It was estimated that in the mid 80s the annual value of UK art sales was £40 million – this would be the equivalent to £101m nowadays. However, it is said to be more like £3.08 billion (thirty times larger). So could there be any correlation between this vastly increased figure and growth in the number of artists whose endeavours underpin the art world?
The 1990 Census showed a 34% increase in the number of individuals with cultural occupations between 1981 – 1991 and a 71% increase in the category that included artists, which contained the largest constituency — far more for example than the categories for writers, actors, musicians.
When in 1987⁄88 I was conducting my feasibility study for the National Visual Arts Information Project, I noted the expected growth in student numbers through development of part-time and specific courses. “Polytechnics expected 7 – 10% growth in student numbers over the next three years….many full-time courses are now shadowed by 5‑year part-time BA courses. There is an also an increase in MA courses…”
It should be noted that my study was designed predominantly to make the case for an alternative to the tortuousness/expensiveness of arts mediation and enable artists to be at the centre of the engagement and interface whilst earning direct income from sales and commissions and from their image-based IP.
Whether the new art school courses were invented by HEIs to preserve teaching posts (many of which provide invaluable ‘second income’ and also validate an artist’s practice within peers) or a result of ‘demand’ from early retirees (for a fulfilling second career), or those wishing to extend an existing qualification or other I cannot tell. But suffice to say, such scope and volume of art school courses does not seem to be peculiar to 2011.
In 2006 and in the midst of the ‘better’ years of Labour, an Inquiry was set up to examine the markets for art (and thus calculations were made of the numbers of practitioners). Evidence from a‑n and VAGA to this Culture Media and Sport assessed the number of artists to be “between 40−60,000”. Although the Census definition “artists, graphic designers and commercial artists” was deemed too broad and woolly to be useful, there didn’t seem to be huge enthusiasm for arriving at an accurate definitive number. Did this matter? And if so, to whom? How for example did HEIs address and quantify for their students the potential for what they now call “employability and entrepreneurship”?
According to a‑n’s continuous monitoring of data, in 1998 some £2m worth of work was openly offered to artists. As a 2009 adjusted value, that would equate to £3.7m. However by 2007, the figure on offer was actually £27m (more than seven times larger), suggesting that the growth in the volume of artists was at that point well catered for by substantially increased budgets and fees on offer. The Morris Hargreaves report (2004) indicated an enormous potential to enhance sales of contemporary art to ‘new purchasers and collectors’ – if only the ‘art world’ would forego the traditional frameworks that filter “supply” and control the “demand” and thus have the effect of maintaining the poor/rich balance for artists.
In 2011, as part of an analysis of access to and take-up of grants from the UK arts councils by artists, Dany Louise produced calculations of the number of artists in the UK — providing a range of 26,500−30,500 — some 1⁄3 more than the calculation in 1977, but fewer than the calculation in 2006.
- England: 20,000−22,000
- Northern Ireland: 1300 – 1700
- Scotland: 3250 – 4250
- Wales 1950 – 2550
Total estimated volume 26,500−30,500
So are numbers ‘levelling back’?
Until now, we could have estimated that some 4,000 newcomers (from undergraduate courses) were entering the job market from art and design courses annually. But what will the anticipated 27% drop in student applications next year do the size of artists’ labour markets? Are we worrying unduly in the ‘bad times’ about numbers of artists when everything is about to change anyway? Will the UK experience a drop in artist numbers as Australia already has, this not incidentally having been attributed to an economic recession?
What is an artist?
UNESCO defines an artist as:
“Any person who creates or gives creative expression to, or recreates, works of art, who considers his/her artistic creation to be an essential part of life, who contributes in this way to the development of art and culture and who is or asks to be recognised as an artist, whether or not bound by any relations of employment or association.”
The term artist is largely self-defined — and why shouldn’t it be if we as a nation believe in freedom of choice and equal access in terms of study and employment? None of us — I suspect — believe in ‘restrictive practices or cartels’ that are unfair and marginalise sectors or people. That The Office of Fair Trading under the Competition Act investigated use of recommended rates of pay in the arts in 2006 is pertinent. Although this was designed to open up what might have otherwise been perceived as a ‘closed shop’ in actual fact — by causing ACE and others to remove any semblance of ‘good practice’ about payment from their terms of reference and information sheets — it had the effect of increasing the potential for exploitation of artists and freelancers and thus of increasing their poverty.
Frey and Pommerehne’s (1989) defined someone as an artist by:
- the amount of time spent on artistic work
- the amount of income derived from artistic activity
- reputation amongst general public
- recognition amongst other artists
- quality of artistic work – as defined somehow
- membership of a professional body
- professional qualification
- subjective self-evaluation of being an artist
The eight areas by which an artist may be recognised as such includes amounts of income but as we have already found, this is a poor yard stick in the UK, whilst qualification (especially if PhD) and peer recognition are more readily acceptable. Lack of interest amongst artists for labelling themselves ‘professional’ also applies. A professional (in other professions) is usually defined by a combination of qualification and income earning.
Wikipedia says: “An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only. In other art forms the term is more closely defined – writer, actor, playwright, musician, and poet”.
The word ‘professional’ traditionally means a person who has obtained a degree in a professional field ….or a person who in a field typically reserved for hobbyists or amateurs.
In western nations, the term “professional artist” commonly describes highly-educated, mostly salaried workers, who enjoy considerable work autonomy, a comfortable salary, and are commonly engaged in creative and intellectually challenging work. In (1996) it was suggested that an artist may be recognised as:
- A maker of unique works of value sold via the art market
- An animateur encouraging the creative expression of others
- A public servant working to commission
- An economic unit in tourism/small business/entrepreneurship
- An educator delivering national curriculum/art school teachin
- An initiator in arts/social policy – producing arts projects, regeneration, community well-being, (we would place the Cultural Olympiad here)
- A visionary and social conscience, political activist
Thus, definitions by 1996 of an artist had veered radically away from the Gulbenkian Enquiry’s. I would posit that this is due to the greater intervention of the state in the markets for art, with its endeavours aided and abetted by the addition of income to the arts from ‘funding sources’ such as the National Lottery, there to support ‘good causes’ and the ‘public good’. Such resources have increased the instrumentality of art and artists, placed them in the role of service industry and largely sidelined any notion of ‘art for art’s sake’, considering this as namby pamby and impractical; get a grip, artists need to join the real world.
However in the House of Lords in 1998, Lord Clancarty (himself an artist) questioned the very principles underpinning the state’s support of the arts: “But what about those artists who of or choose not to operate in a commercial sense, who are engaged in long-term, life-long ‘independent’ research – what in science is termed ‘blue skies research’ which is extremely important for the arts. The long-term broadly non-commercial situation is a reality for the great majority of UK artists. Extremely successful artists are the exception rather than the rule.”
There is perhaps a perversity borne from our mixed economy for the visual arts — the public-private finance initiative that predates the Labour policy in this respect — that the ‘blue skies’, is what sets us apart. Artists do not need clients or patronage to make art – in fact artists often view such instruments as constraints and hindrance to the purity (artistic autonomy) of their practice.
Looking at the music industry where the growth of musicians — individual and ensemble — has been great, money forms a core aspect of the career progression. Musicians talk about money — negotiate fees and terms themselves, getting (for example) a share of the ticket income and promoting their CDs in the intervals (with the venue taking a sales commission). Definitions of quality are multiple – as viewed in the ‘eye of the (various) beholders’
Are there too many musicians and bands? It can be shown by analysis that people who make music are a vital part of paying audiences whether of downloadable music or seats at events. There are “good, excellent, mediocre and OK” musicians across the contemporary music scene — all putting out their stuff, self-managing, self-promoting, and self-producing. It’s how it is. New forms of distribution of music are welcomed as they increase audiences and buyers and ensure the music industry is less reliant on public subsidy (and thus more autonomous).
In 1992 economist Ruth Towse pointed out that: “….risk taking behaviour is the cause of over supply. It comes about because artists overestimate their (average) chances of success prior to entering the labour market. Artists being for the most part self-employed decide whether or not to continue to work in their chosen field according to their realised net profits or incomes. Oversupply of the works they produce would result in low prices, but if they are willing to accept low incomes they can continue in full time [studio-based] work”.
Looking at the world of contemporary writing, reveals that there has been an exponential increase in the last ten years of the number of creative writing courses on offer — indeed in the notion that writers need qualifications in order to write. According to agency New Writing North, more and more titles are being published but fewer of each title are sold.
New ‘self-publishing’ mechanisms means that “no one has to make you a writer” and the historical ‘quality control’ attached to a writer’s agent and publisher has diminished. And whilst the self published was largely dismissed in its infancy by the literary industry, the traditionalists have now come to realise its potency – within literature at least. In my mind, this is an inherent and necessary condition of the ‘deinstitutionalisation’ of the 21st century.
Markets for art practice
Writing in in 2002, Conrad Atkinson commented: “Not all of us make corporate art, not all of us think art should shock the middle classes, not all of us are more interested in our own blood than in the blood of others dying in other parts of the world. Perhaps art can’t really make a difference but it can highlight alternative ways of seeing and living.”
It is said that since the mid ’80s it has not been possible for writers to make a living from their work — some 85% have “other jobs” — that may include arts and non arts related work as is the case with visual artists.
In The Visual Arts Survey, London Institute (1990)
- 25% of artists said sales of work were their main income
- 21% gained their main income from commissions and public art
- 19% from teaching (FE/HE)
- 8% from residencies
In 1996, a survey conducted for the NAA (National Artists Association) gave these statistics:
- 20% of artists said teaching was the most important income
- 19% said residencies were the most important income
- 18% said commissions and public art were the most important income
- 14% said selling was the most important income
These 1996 figures provided a clear indicator that growth of interest in being in the visual arts was not commensurate with income acquisition. Artists were seemingly quite prepared to manage on less money whilst the cost of living rose.
If the more recent a‑n and AIR Big Artists Survey findings are correct and the average turnover artists made from art practice in the last year is £9,000, then artists are either making quite a lot more from non-art sources, being financed by a partner/family (similarly to the 1977 Gulbenkian Enquiry findings), managing to ‘sign on’ (unlikely) or using some other means to put the bread on the table.
Although the 1996 NAA survey found 37% of artists to be gaining their work from art policies that fostered instrumentality or ‘art services’, The Big Artists Survey in 2011 – perhaps because of the larger sample size or because of the greater diversity of types of work now undertaken – found this ‘services’ area of work to be the regular or occasional role for around 24%.
Is the current ‘concern’ about the size of the artist constituency due to declining public sector markets? Is this situation the ‘fault’ of artists? Does it make them worthy candidates for ‘extermination’ or any other method one might wittily choose to reduce numbers to the size the art market can stand?
I’d like though here to raise an issue I fairly cursorily examined a few years ago. Should there be a redundancy process available to artists? Because the majority of artists are self-employed, how otherwise can an artist ‘leave’ the profession if they are no longer practising or making work to their own required professional standard or have taken on a different occupation (that they may not recognise as having supplanted their artist role)? I have witnessed some members of artists’ studio groups complain about certain spaces being wasted: full up with stored ‘old’ work – let to artists who have in fact become something other than an artist – a full-time art lecturer or manager, director of an arts (or artists’) organisation, someone now running an arts business such as a gallery that is showing and framing other artists’ work.
A route for such artists who are no longer practising as artists (non practising artists) could be to take redundancy – to leave the profession gracefully. A redundancy package may, for example, acknowledge an artist’s length of service, their altruism to the arts and to the profession; allow them to draw a line and move onto something else. It might prevent the dilution of quality and professional recognition that others in this debate allude to, and minimise the impact of ‘too many artists’ on the profession as a whole.
A self-determining practice
Artists tend to select self-employment because (as Whitmyer, Rasberry and Phillips said) it is “a statement about what you are and all that is important in your life”.
- 7% artists on Enterprise Allowance (1990)
- 76% of makers self-employed/sole traders (1990)
- 41% self-employment in creative industries as whole (2009)
- 72% self-employment amongst artists (2010) drops to 50% (2011)
When I started out an artist, there was no suggestion of self-employment — it just wasn’t something anyone like me did. We did a bit of part-time teaching or we signed on – in 1980, the latter was what nearly all the artists in my studio group did to get by.
It was the 90s and the Tory Enterprise Allowance that moved artists towards self-employment — before then, surveys did not include the differentiation between employment and self-employment. (Nor incidentally did it suggest anywhere that the longer the practice, the higher price that artist may be able to command — this was felt to be ‘anti equality’ or downright unfair.)
I went to art school — I discovered recently by reading a second-year note book — because I wanted to explore the role of the artist, not because of any expectation that I was employable or that anyone would offer me a job afterwards. I had no idea I’d acquire social research, writing and editing skills nor bring my creative problem-solving skills and entrepreneurship to bear on the non-profit company I now lead. As I commented in a recent lecture , “In many situations, the artist kind of ‘falls in love’ with their occupation and wholeheartedly embraces all that this involves. And as Bob Dylan said: ‘You can’t be in love and wise at the same time’.”
In 2011, new graduates say that what they want to know about is things like contracts, how to set up as self-employed and other ‘business-like’ skills – as well as about how to locate and generate peer networks. Note they aren’t yet saying this whilst students, but once they have graduated and probably have huge amounts debt to deal with.
Supply and demand?
Quoted in a Q‑Arts publication, Derreck Harris has put another slant on ‘over supply’, commenting that there are “More fine art courses per capita in UK than anywhere else in the world – more than Europe and North America where there are well-established art markets particularly Germany and US.” So it should come as no surprise that the Creative Graduates: Creative Futures report in 2008 said that: “One third of artist graduates earn £15,000 or under a year, less than the average starting salary for a new graduate across disciplines. Artists often already subsidise or co-fund their own projects.”
So is the debate about ‘too many artists’ because there is not enough work for them actually a swipe at the mercenary or cynical attitudes of universities with their uncaring attitudes to employability? Given that artists continue to be heavily reliant on HE income (according to a 2011 survey by AIR Artists Interaction and Representation 69% teach or lecture to some extent to provide professional income), would the aim of this debate about ‘too many artists’ be to the number of courses on offer and by doing so to deny these artists a worthy income?
State intervention in the arts
“State intervention …is not neutral … it has radically affected what art is, how it is understood and how it is practiced.” Thus concluded Dr Nicholas Pearson in 1981. He asserted that state patronage was developed because ‘Art’ was deemed to be morally good:“ He quoted from the (1868), that had said: “No one expects the whole of the working class to at once take up drawing and entirely denounce strong liquor”.
One of the arguments for setting up what later became the Arts Council of Great Britain was the fear of what would happen to the visual arts if left to the vagaries of the market place… in the hands of those (who had not got ‘taste’).
Historical assumptions for setting up state support of the arts as delivered by the Arts Council(s) include:
- The difference between high art and culture and anything else
- Fine art is important but very fragile
- Quality fine art is generally found in London — this is still felt to be the case and regardless of any attempts to change it is ever thus a perception due to the size of the critical mass and the centralist nature of art in England
- Artists are uncontrollable and need to be guided and ‘patronised’ by the state — rather than the state nurturing the creative instincts and complexity of artists and their practice.
- Artists are poor — the state needs to uplift and patronise them
- Quality is something obvious to certain types of people from certain kinds of educated classes.
- Quality is hard to define in value terms (but we all know it when we see it or someone from the above echelon tells us it’s there)
Less than a dozen years ago, arts policy proudly proclaimed: “The overall aim of Year of the Artist 2000 is to place the artist at the centre of society, to create better understanding of the role of the artist, to establish new partnerships between every sector of society and the arts, to empower artists and communities, and to have a lasting impact for their benefit….”
State intervention, patronage or interference in the market has certainly had the effect of creating more work within arts mediation and administration. Back in the ’70s, those arts ‘management’ jobs tended to be done by artists who moved from practitioner to leading the arts in other ways – they set up and ran the galleries, agencies and arts centres, Nowadays, arts managers are a separate breed with special qualifications and their own peer networks. They can become ‘leaders’ through schemes such as the Cultural Leadership programme (which incidentally so far has enabled just one artist — Joshua Sofaer — to benefit from a Fellowship). Whilst arts leaders rely on an ongoing supply of good artists, they rarely include them in their professional networks, unless they are ‘well-known’. Practitioners are rarely trusted to be a ‘leader’ – to behave nicely in public.
In the ’80s gallery director Edna Read wrote in : “I have a feeling that if all the living artists disappeared today, the contemporary art world would [not notice] — just carry on dong what they’re doing”. And a decade later John Pick (founder of Europe’s first arts management department) commented wryly: “If arts administrators continue to grow at the current rate, there will soon be more of them than people”. Is too much arts money tied up in mediation? Is it significant that in 2004 (when compared with 1989) the salary levels of arts officers working in the publicly-funded arts in England rose by some 41%?
Despite those grand statements about the value of artists made in 2000, by 2010 Arts Council England is barely mentioning artists in their policy (its ten year strategic framework for the arts, except when in the couplet ‘artists and arts organisations’ will/should…. [do something or other]. Innovation, excellence and all other important arts things – they seem to be saying – are best achieved by placing subsidy into whose missions are to increase audiences for the visual arts (rather than to support the artistic development or autonomy of artists). There seems to be some irony therefore that the State of the Arts conference for 2012 (organised by ACE and the BBC) is on the theme of ‘Artists changing the world’.
In the current squeezed economic climate, it seems to have been the recognition of artists in financial terms which has been eroded whilst arts managers – admittedly often just as hardworking as artists — continue to assiduously find funding and income to maintain their roles, arguing they are the essential grease between market and art. (Note I have purposely placed market first, as it seems that galleries for example tend to give audience development a higher status within their ambitions than they do to supporting the artistic development of practitioners on their patch).
How are artists practising?
The 2011 Big Artists Survey reveals that:
- 93% of artists use exhibitions/gallery commissions regularly or occasionally.
- 83% of artists use private commissions regularly or occasionally
- 78% of artists use sell/retail regularly or occasionally
- 69% of artists use teach/lecturing regularly or occasionally
- 60% of artists use fairs regularly or occasionally
- 60% of artists use community art regularly or occasionally
- 52% of artists use do residency/engaged practice regularly or occasionally
- 52% of artists use offer research/consultancy regularly or occasionally
- 49% of artists use festivals regularly or occasionally
- 48% of artists carry out public art regularly or occasionally
- 35% of artists use empty shops to present their work in regularly or occasionally
The artist’s portfolio of activity nowadays is staggeringly large and diverse. The gap between this grass-roots pragmatic approach to creating a livelihood and the high-end commercial dealing is ever widening – just as is the gap between the UK’s poor and rich.
It is a pity that when the UK’s ‘art stars’ do find time to get up and have a voice about the state of the arts they tend to support the institutions and art markets that have given them their place (and standard of living) rather than expressing any support for those things that provide ladders and structures for the ‘critical mass’ of artists – from which quality in the arts emerges. It’s almost as if these well-known artists acquired their status by good luck and (of course) by making great work. They didn’t actually need to do any of this ‘portfolio working’ themselves or bother themselves with the ‘grimy’ business of making a living however they could.
Who wants artists?
a‑n’s (2011) that analyses openly offered work to artists in the calendar year of 2010 compares the main employer categories in 2009 and 2010.
| HE/FE sector | 23% | 33% |
| Arts organisations | 11% | 13% |
| Local authorities | 6% | 10% |
| Trusts | 2% | 3% |
| Healthcare | 2% | 0% |
Note how important the HE sector has continued to be in employment terms. In the Gulbenkian study in 1977 “second careers including teaching provided the main source of subsidy for the practice of art”. And arts organisations nowadays — just as they did in that past period — play a much more minor role in financially providing for artists’ livelihoods and career development.
In 2011 Mo Throp is quoted as telling students and parents that: “1% making a living from being a fine artist.” So with the increase in student fees and greater role of parents in the decisions about their offspring’s education choices result in fewer students going on art (and fine art) courses? Could the current proposition that there are ‘too many artists’ be superseded in the future by ‘not enough artists’ (to make a vibrant critical mass)? Note too that this year, UK art colleges saw a 27% drop in applications.
I have discovered in the course of researching this paper that only 10 – 20 playwrights are making a living from their work nowadays and commissions for contemporary composers are far and few between. Some of those in the high echelons of the visual arts world have voiced approval for the creation of a ‘Top 20’ artists listing as this would clarify the art market and make it all much easier to deal with.
So are artists ever destined to be at the centre of culture (or is there only room for a chosen few)?
Being an artist
The more of a portfolio worker you are, the less you earn concludes Creative Graduates: Creative Futures in 2008: “48% of graduates in work were engaged in multiple activities or portfolio working…. combining paid employment with self-employment… 30% combined two activities, 13% had three, and 5% combined four different types of work. This pattern does not change significantly over time, even when graduates are four, five or six years into their careers.”
Hayley Harrison said in her blog “I’ve always felt shame knowing I will always make art regardless of how much £s I do/don’t make. It’s refreshing to hear others admit that too. It’s especially difficult to explain to someone [outside the arts]. I feel, they feel I am an idiot. What? You will work for nothing?”
The question I would raise here is whether this situation – this evidence – is very much different from any other ‘profession’ nowadays? Those similar changes in income levels (and status) seem to be occurring in accountancy, journalism, IT, elsewhere in the humanities in general. Is this a condition of 21st Century life.
Note that back in 1997, researchers for found that “Money is not the driving force behind making work. What is most important to artists is making work that they are personally happy with. This suggests that artists experience non-pecuniary or psychic income from continuing their practice.
I was listening in recently to a twitter debate on #artinacoldclimate in which one speaker asserted that “businesses were now learning from art”. But surely it isn’t just artists who have the ability to be creative, innovative, risky and experimental? People who are trained as artists can segue into other professions and environments – some of the ‘too many’ usefully take their art thinking and apply it to business, management, social change in other ways. It may be then that such options for artists are not well enough charted (although surely the greater requirement to show employability and enterprise within art and design courses will remedy this omission?)
In my mind, the issue for the future is not whether there are too many artists but whether sufficient levels of investment – from a wide range of sources and perspectives — can be found to support the ‘blue skies’, the things they do that raise the game and expectations of practitioners, that put fashion and instant gratification into perspective. I believe that it is the publicly-funded arts institutions that will fail to navigate the 21st Century whilst the ‘too many artists’ will secure our ability to do so.
This paper which was commissioned by MarketProject for the seminar ‘Too many artists?’ held on 9 November 2011, has been extended and adapted for online publication.
Bibliography
The economics of artists’ labour markets, Ruth Towse, Arts Council of England, 1996
Gulbenkian Enquiry into the Economic Status of Visual Artists, Andrew Brighton and Nicholas Pearson (unpublished) 1977
Employment in the arts and cultural industries: an analysis of the 1991 Census, Jane O’Brien and Andy Feist, Arts Council of Great Britain 1995
Feasibility Study for the National Visual Arts Information Project, Susan Jones, 1988
The British Art Market, Arts Economics, 2009
Inquiry into the market for art, Culture Media and Sport Select Committee 2006
Taste buds: how to cultivate the art market, Morris, Hargreaves, McIntyre, 2004
The changing face of artists’ employment, Susan Jones, a‑n The Artists Information Company, 2011 (pay to view / free to a‑n members)
Achieving Great Art for Everyone, Arts Council England, 2010
The Visual Arts Survey, Susan Jones, London Institute, 1990
Artists’ fees and payments in the UK, draft report, Phyllida Shaw & Keith Allen, National Artists Association, 1996
The Big Artists Survey, AIR and a‑n, 2011
Running a one-person business, Whitmyer, Rasberry and Phillips, Ten Speed Press, 1989
11 Course leaders, 20 questions, Q Arts London, 2011 (pay to view)
Do you really expect to get paid? An economic study of professional artists in Australia, David Throsby, Australia Arts Council, 2009
A fair share – direct funding to individual artists from UK arts councils, Dany Louise, a‑n The Artists Information Company 2011 (pay to view / free to a‑n members)
Muses and markets explorations in the economics of the arts, Frey and Pommerehne, Blackwell, 1989
The business of being an artist, Janet Summerton, Eric Moody, City University, 1996
Profile of Conrad Atkinson, a‑n Magazine, December 2002 (pay to view / free to a‑n members)
The State and the Visual Arts, Nicholas Pearson, 1981
Creative Graduates – Creative Futures, 2008
Artists’ rates of pay 1989 – 2004, Susan Jones, Paul Glinkowski (pay to view / free to a‑n members)
Something’s happening, Hayley Harrison’s blog started October 2011
Artists Career Paths, Arts Council of England, 1997
Thanks also to Ros Rigby, Programme Director, The Sage Gateshead and Director of New Writing North Claire Malcolm, for their insights and evidence for this paper.