"The Lives of the Painters of Modern Life: The Careers of Artists
in France from Impressionism to Cubism"
BY: DAVID W. GALENSON
University of Chicago
Department of Economics
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Paper ID: NBER Working Paper No. 6888
Date: January 1999
Contact: DAVID W. GALENSON
Email: Mailto:sogrodow at midway.uchicago.edu
Postal: University of Chicago
Department of Economics
1126 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637 USA
Phone: 773-702-8258
Fax: 773-702-8490
Paper Requests:
Full-Text Availability at http://www.nber.org/wwp.html Papers
can be downloaded online for $5. Hard copies are $10 plus
$10.00/order outside the USA. Prepayment required. NBER orders:
Mailto:orders at nber.org Checks, Mastercard, Visa and American
Express to 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138.
Phone:(617)868-3900. Fax:(617)349-3955. For NBER Subscriptions
Mailto:subs at nber.org or write to "Subscriptions" at address
above.
ABSTRACT:
Modern painting began in France during the nineteenth century.
Using transactions from art auctions for the work of 50 leading
painters who worked in France during the first century of modern
art, I estimate the relationship between the value of a painting
and the artist's age at the date of its execution. The
econometric estimates show that artists born before
1850--including Manet, Cezanne, and Degas--typically produced
their most valuable work late in their careers, whereas artists
born after 1850--including Picasso, Leger, and Braque--were more
likely to have done their most valuable work at early ages.
Comparison of these results to evidence drawn from art history
textbooks furthermore demonstrates that these artists' most
valuable work has also been that most highly regarded by
scholars. I argue that the change over time in the shape of
these artists' age-price profiles was a result of changes in the
nature of painting during the late nineteenth century, as
painting increasingly became an activity in which innovation was
a principal determinant of an artist's importance.
JEL Classification: J24