The art world’s gender gap remains staggering even after decades of discussion about equity and representation. Between 2008 and 2019, approximately $196.6 billion was spent at auction globally, yet only about $4 billion went to works by female artists according to Forbes.
That’s roughly 2% of total spending, creating what amounts to a $192 billion gender pay gap in a market that prides itself on recognizing genius and quality wherever it appears. The numbers suggest that for most of art history, the market simply wasn’t looking.
However, a BBC-backed analysis highlighted in The Guardian revealed that female artists’ work has been rising approximately 29% faster on secondary markets than male counterparts since 2022, starting from that historically suppressed base.
By 2024 and 2025, younger collectors, particularly Gen Z women, are allocating substantially larger shares of their art spending to female artists, accelerating the institutional and private rebalancing that’s been discussed for years but rarely executed with conviction.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways & The 5Ws
- From 2008–2019, women artists captured only about 2% of global auction spending (€4B out of €196.6B), implying a roughly €192B gender gap that highlights how deeply female talent was historically undervalued.
- Since 2022, works by women have been rising around 29% faster on the secondary market than works by men, helped by younger collectors—especially Gen Z women—consciously redirecting capital.
- Yayoi Kusama anchors the blue-chip tier with multi-million-dollar results, more than 70% of lots beating estimates, and primary and secondary markets that still appear to be catching up to her pricing power.
- Bridget Riley is in a late but powerful re-rating phase: 1960s–70s museum-grade paintings now reaching multi-million-pound prices while still trading at discounts to comparable male peers in Op Art and Minimalism.
- Tracey Emin has shifted from “controversial” to canonized contemporary, with landmark works like My Bed demonstrating that confessional, personal art can sustain institutional pricing and strong auction demand.
- Ayako Rokkaku and Daisy Dodd-Noble represent the higher-beta end of the thesis: young, fast-moving markets with record-breaking sales, meaningful upside, and equally real volatility and career-risk.
- Who is this about?
- Female artists across generations—from blue-chip names like Yayoi Kusama, Bridget Riley, and Tracey Emin to rising figures like Ayako Rokkaku and Daisy Dodd-Noble—and the collectors, especially Gen Z women, allocating more capital toward them.
- What is happening?
- A structural re-pricing after long-term undervaluation: women still represent a small share of total auction value, but their prices are growing faster than men’s, and several artists show strong auction momentum and tightening primary–secondary spreads.
- When is the shift most visible?
- The underpayment is clearly visible across 2008–2019 (and earlier), while the acceleration is most visible from 2022 through 2025, as new records, estimate-beating results, and collector behavior increasingly favor women artists.
- Where is it playing out?
- Across the global art market—major auction centers such as London, New York, and Hong Kong, plus key contemporary hubs—where Kusama’s sustained demand, Riley’s Op Art revaluation, Emin’s landmark sales, and breakthroughs for Rokkaku and Dodd-Noble are being priced in.
- Why are prices catching up now?
- Because decades of structural exclusion created suppressed starting prices, and now changing collector demographics, institutional rebalancing, and cultural attention on equity are unlocking latent value—making both top-tier and emerging female artists central to cultural impact and long-horizon return potential.
Yayoi Kusama
Kusama commands the highest auction prices for any living female artist, a position she’s held for years and continues to reinforce with results that would be remarkable for any artist regardless of gender.
Her Infinity Net painting achieved $10.5 million at Phillips in 2022 according to Art Newspaper, setting a benchmark that separates her from nearly all other contemporary women artists in terms of pure auction power.
The irony is that Kusama famously reached out to Georgia O’Keeffe early in her career seeking support, and O’Keeffe’s response provided meaningful encouragement during a period when Kusama faced dismissal from the New York art establishment.
That relationship, often simplified as a mentor connection, makes it fitting that Kusama has now surpassed even O’Keeffe’s records for a living female artist, though O’Keeffe still holds the all-time auction record for any woman artist overall.
The consistency of Kusama’s auction performance matters as much as the headline numbers. Maddox Gallery reported that in 2022, over 70% of Kusama’s artworks sold above their estimates at auction, demonstrating that demand repeatedly outstrips expectations rather than just meeting them.
This pattern suggests the market hasn’t fully adjusted to her pricing power, with auction houses still setting conservative estimates that buyers then exceed. For collectors, that dynamic creates opportunity in primary market acquisitions and gallery purchases where Kusama’s work may be priced based on outdated assumptions about where her secondary market actually trades.
Bridget Riley
Riley’s market reached a new level of recognition with two sales that established her as one of Britain’s most valuable living artists. Her 1966 painting “Untitled (Diagonal Curve)” sold for approximately £4.3 million in 2016, well beyond its estimated value and setting a benchmark for optical art that demonstrated serious collectors were willing to pay museum-quality prices for her work.
The 2022 sale of “Gala” reset that benchmark at £4,362,000 at Christie’s London, confirming that the earlier result wasn’t an outlier but rather the beginning of a sustained revaluation.
These prices matter because Riley has been producing significant work since the 1960s, establishing optical art as a serious movement and influencing generations of artists who work with pattern, color, and perception. Despite this historical importance and continued productivity, her market lagged male peers for decades.
The recent sales suggest that gap is finally closing as collectors recognize that Riley’s contribution to post-war British art equals or exceeds that of male artists whose work has commanded premium prices for far longer.
Major museum-quality pieces from the 1960s and 1970s still trade below what comparable works by male optical and minimalist artists fetch, creating room for appreciation as institutions compete to acquire her best work. Later pieces and prints offer more accessible entry points for collectors who want exposure to an artist whose historical significance becomes clearer with each passing decade.
Tracey Emin
Emin’s signature market moment came in 2014 when “My Bed” sold for approximately £2.54 million at Christie’s London, dramatically exceeding estimates and setting a record for the artist nearly 15 years after the work’s controversial Turner Prize debut, according to The Guardian.
The sale proved that Emin’s work had moved beyond provocative curiosity to genuinely collectible art that serious buyers would pay museum-acquisition prices to own. The piece itself, an unmade bed surrounded by detritus from a depressive episode, represented exactly the kind of confessional, emotionally raw work that made Emin famous and that the market had historically undervalued compared to more conventional artistic production.
Her collector base blends institutional buyers with high-profile celebrity collectors whose ownership helps maintain visibility and demand. Madonna, Elton John, and the late George Michael are among the notable names who’ve collected Emin’s work according to The Art Story, providing the kind of cultural cachet that often translates into sustained market interest beyond pure artistic merit.
This celebrity connection matters less for validation of quality, which critics and institutions have already provided, and more for maintaining the broad awareness that keeps prices strong during periods when contemporary art markets generally soften.
Emin’s works regularly exceed their estimated auction values, suggesting that auction houses still haven’t fully calibrated to where her market actually trades. For collectors, this creates opportunities to acquire work at prices that may look high relative to estimates but prove reasonable when the hammer falls well above those conservative projections.
Ayako Rokkaku
Rokkaku represents a different investment thesis entirely, as an artist born in 1982 who has achieved price levels that typically require decades of career development to reach. She set three consecutive auction records in 2022, with paintings soaring above the $1 million mark according to Artnet News.
One untitled 2017 painting achieved approximately $1.3 million, more than double its high estimate, demonstrating the kind of aggressive bidding that appears when collectors fear missing their chance to acquire work from an artist whose trajectory looks exponential.
The speed of Rokkaku’s market development is extraordinary by any standard.
Artnet News described her as the best-selling Japanese painter of her generation and the sixth best-performing Japanese artist of all time by total sales value, remarkable positions for someone who has been actively exhibiting for less than twenty years. Her work combines childlike imagery with sophisticated color sense and compositional instincts, creating a visual language that feels accessible while demonstrating genuine painterly skill.
The editioned print market she’s developed helps create entry points for emerging collectors who can’t afford six or seven-figure paintings but want exposure to an artist whose prices seem likely to continue rising.
The risk with Rokkaku is that markets for young artists can be volatile, driven by fashion and speculation rather than the sustained institutional validation that supports more established figures. Her prices have risen so quickly that there’s limited historical data on how her work performs through market cycles or whether demand will persist as her career matures.
Daisy Dodd-Noble
Dodd-Noble represents the emerging artist opportunity where auction performance is demonstrating rapid market recognition for talent that was unknown to most collectors just a few years ago.
Her painting “Purple Forest” from 2021 exploded past its £10,000 to £15,000 estimate to sell for £69,300 at Christie’s London in June 2023, exceeding expectations by over 4.5 times. That result is particularly notable given how early it came in her public timeline.
Phillips notes that her first solo exhibition in London was in 2020 at Roman Road Gallery, meaning she went from debut solo show to achieving nearly £70,000 at Christie’s in just three years.
This kind of rapid price acceleration typically indicates that the market has identified genuine talent before the artist has built the exhibition history and institutional validation that normally supports such prices. Buyers are betting on trajectory rather than proven track record, which introduces significant risk but also creates the potential for substantial returns if Dodd-Noble continues developing and her work enters major collections.
The subject matter in her paintings, often focusing on natural landscapes and forests with rich color palettes, has broad appeal while demonstrating technical sophistication that suggests serious artistic ambition rather than merely decorative work.
The investment thesis for Dodd-Noble requires accepting that you’re buying near the beginning of what could be a major career or could plateau after early enthusiasm fades.
For collectors who want exposure to potentially transformative appreciation and are comfortable with the risk that early success doesn’t always translate into long-term market strength, Dodd-Noble offers exactly that high-risk, high-reward profile.
Her work is still accessible at price points where meaningful positions can be built without committing enormous capital, but the window for that accessibility may close quickly if her market continues developing at the pace the Christie’s result suggests.
