Do the different expressions of an artist offer the same financial performance over time? The case of Fernando Botero

Abstract

PurposeArt return indices are usually estimated based only on a few means of artistic expression (mainly paintings and drawings). Other forms of expression (e.g. sculptures and installations) are generally ignored, in part because they are three-dimensional and, hence, more difficult to measure. We analyze the price determinants as well as the return and risk of three artistic expressions (paintings, drawings and sculptures) executed by Fernando Botero, the most expensive living Latin American artist, to analyze the degree to which their risk and return attributes differ throughout a 20-year period.Design/methodology/approachWe analyzed all paintings, drawings and sculptures executed by Botero and sold at Sotheby’s and Christie’s between 2000 and 2020 (a total of 707 artworks). The data and the images of each artwork were obtained from the web pages of these two auction houses. A hedonic regression was run to explain the price of each artwork and use explanatory variables that are standard in the literature. Art price indices for paintings, drawings and sculptures were constructed using the year-dummy variables estimated in the regressions. We performed a similar analysis for another artist, Carlos Cruz-Diez, as a robustness to our results.FindingsThe performance of Botero’s sculptures through time differs markedly from that of his paintings and drawings. Our results suggest that it is possible that returns estimated in the literature could suffer from a bias, as they have usually ignored the performance of sculptures and other artistic expressions. Botero’s paintings provided a return that was comparable to those of his sculptures (3.36% and 3.20%, respectively), they were two times as high as those of his drawings (1.68%). On the other hand, whereas paintings and drawings had similar annual standard deviations (26% and 25.22%, respectively), sculptures had a much smaller standard deviation (16.96%).Research limitations/implicationsA limitation of the hedonic regression method lies in the need to have a significant and diverse sample to identify the true effect of each variable on the price of a good. Another limitation is that we were only able to use art prices from auctions, as this is the only comprehensive source of art price data that is publicly available. These two limitations are shared by all the studies that use the hedonic pricing model.Practical implicationsOur results have practical applications for art collectors and investors, as well as for artists, galleries and, in general, for the whole art market ecosystem. The risk and return attributes of the various artistic expressions of an artist can be different, and thus it makes sense to analyze each one of them individually, as well as their correlations with the other artistic expressions and with traditional and other alternative investments.Social implicationsThe art market is part of what is known as the “orange economy” (also known as the Creative Economy). According to the World Bank, the economic value of the creative sector is not well known or appreciated, even though cultural, creative and artistic activities are vital for our sense of well-being.Originality/valueTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that compares the financial performance of paintings, drawings and sculptures for the case of a specific artist. We chose Botero for three reasons. First, he is a Latin American living artist who has achieved the highest levels of international sales. Second, Botero has worked extensively on various artistic expressions (oil paintings, drawings on different materials and sculptures) throughout his life, a characteristic that is essential to be able to carry out our study. Third, there is a long record of auction sales for each of Botero’s artistic expressions.