For a long while, works by women artists were mostly excluded from the art market. Today, due to both a shift in attitude and a growing need for new names and voices, women artists have finally begun to gain recognition, enriching the art historical canon in the process. Take a look at the 10 most expensive artworks created by women artists.
10. “Miss January”: Priciest Artwork by a Living Woman Artist
Record price: $13.63 million
The most expensive work ever sold by a living woman artist is a painting by a South African artist Marlene Dumas titled Miss January. Dumas is known for her exploration of post-segregation South African identity and social taboos. Miss January is a ten-feet-tall work that is a reinvention of Miss World, painted by Dumas at just age 10. The record-breaking work subverted the expectations and norms of female nudity and beauty.
9. “The Eye is the First Circle” by Lee Krasner
Record price: $11.6 million
Lee Krasner was one of the most famous women of Abstract Expressionism, often underrated in comparison with her male counterparts. Krasner spent years caring for her husband, Jackson Pollock, helping him battle his alcohol addiction. To make room for Pollock’s workshop, she resorted to creating art in her small bedroom, which resulted in an enormous quantity of small and even tiny painted works. She also experimented with mosaics, creating tables and panels with abstract patterns.
In 2019, her painting The Eye is the First Circle was sold for $11.6 million. The work represented the period in Krasner’s art when she returned to large-scale works. Despite working in her own distinctive style, she still clearly remained in an imaginary dialogue with Jackson Pollock, who died four years earlier.
8. “Propped” by Jenny Saville
Record price: $12.4 million
Jenny Saville is an English painter renowned for her unconventional portrayal of nude female bodies that defy traditional beauty standards. The bodies she paints have hair, extra weight, bruises, stretch marks, and other signs of living a life that does not fit into the conventional artistic norm. Her painting Propped, which depicts a nude woman with her legs crossed, launched Saville’s career and broke the sales record in 2018, selling for $12.4 million.
7. “Grey Stone II” by Agnes Martin
Record price: $18.7
Despite her enormous influence, Agnes Martin remains a mysterious figure in art history. Her work is not always appreciated by average art lovers, yet it is loved by collectors. Her works are difficult to appreciate through catalog illustrations or photographs and require a close, in-person inspection. Behind the seemingly simple and flat surfaces hides the technical and mathematical effort. Her record-breaking painting, Grey Stone II, represents a monochrome grid created with oil paint and a graphite pencil, inviting the viewer to contemplate and focus.
Martin was mostly known for her refined minimalist abstractions. Despite being associated with Abstract Expressionists, her works tend to rely on a subdued and limited color palette, atypical for the movement.
6. “Portrait of Marjorie Ferry” by Tamara de Lempicka
Record price: $21.2 million
The Art Deco legend Tamara de Lempicka transformed from an impoverished immigrant from the Russian Empire, torn by civil war and revolution, into one of the most commercially successful artists of her time. Lempicka worked on society portraits and sensual nudes, creating a world where a woman could be in control of her life, beauty, and sexuality. Lempicka is a favorite of many famous art collectors, including Madonna and Jack Nicholson, who each own a collection of her paintings.
In 2020, Lempicka’s Portrait of Marjorie Ferry, a painting depicting a Parisian nightclub singer, was sold for $21 million. It was commissioned by the model’s husband as a wedding gift to pair with a massive, gleaming ring that was also featured in the work. The portrait was one of the final large-scale paintings created by Lempicka, as she transitioned towards less grandiose works after the outbreak of World War II.
5. “Les Distractions de Dagobert” by Leonora Carrington
Record price: $28.5 million
Leonora Carrington was one of the most original and complex Surrealist painters, who began to gain recognition in global art history in her later years. The importance of Leonora Carrington to the art market was further underscored by the 2022 Venice Biennale, which centered on the exhibition The Milk of Dreams which showcased the artist’s paintings and illustrations. In 2024, her work Les Distractions de Dagobert was sold for $28.5 million. Curiously, thirty years ago, the same painting was sold for just $475,500.
The new owner of the work was identified as Eduardo F. Constantini, an Argentinian businessman and the founder of the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires. Curiously, thirty years earlier, Constantini also wanted to purchase the work, but lost the bid to another buyer. Despite being born in the UK, Leonora Carrington is considered a Latin American artist, as she spent most of her life in Mexico. Just like her friend Remedios Varo, Carrington escaped war-torn Europe and found her new permanent home in Mexico. Her European family members, who broke off all contact with the artist, were unaware of Carrington’s successful artistic career overseas.
4. “Untitled” by Joan Mitchell
Record price: $29.1 million
Another famous Abstract Expressionist, Joan Mitchell, was one of the rare women of the movement who managed to gain recognition and break records with the prices for their works. Unlike her other colleagues, she never presented Abstract Expressionism as a distinctly American form of art, instead situating it within the broader tradition of Western art. In November 2023, her painting Untitled was sold for $29.1 million. That painting marked a transition in Mitchell’s career from bright colors to more somber tones.
According to some researchers, Joan Mitchell had synesthesia, a rare neurological condition also attributed to Wassily Kandinsky. A synesthetic brain mixes up signals, activating senses unrelated to the actual visual or sensual stimuli. For instance, Mitchell could literally hear colors as sounds: when exposed to color, her brain activated the area responsible for sound reception.
3. “Spider” by Louise Bourgeois
Record price: $32 million
The famous French artist Louise Bourgeois avoided joining any form of art group or movement. She created in solitude, transforming her fears and childhood traumas into a universe of deeply symbolic and complex works of art. She was also known for ruthlessly destroying her works that she deemed not good enough. In May 2023, the iconic bronze sculpture by Bourgeois titled Spider was sold for a shocking price of $32 million. Despite the unpleasant connotations for many, in Bourgeois’s art, a spider is a heartwarming symbol associated with her mother, who was a weaver.
2. “Diego and I” by Frida Kahlo
Record price: $34.9 million
The Mexican painter Frida Kahlo is arguably one of the most famous women artists of all time. Her Surrealist paintings, especially self-portraits that relate to her complex and often troubled personal life, are among the most wanted items at art auctions. The record was set in 2021, when her self-portrait titled Diego and I was sold for $34.9 million to the Latin American Art collection of Eduardo F. Constantini.
Diego and I is a work that demonstrates the depth and complexity of Kahlo’s relationship with her husband Diego Rivera. Rivera was an outstanding artist but an abusive and self-centered partner. Frida painted herself with a miniature portrait of Rivera on her forehead, illustrating both the artistic influence of and emotional dependency on her husband.
1. “Jimson Weed”: The Priciest Painting by a Woman Artist
Record price: $44.4 million
The most expensive painting ever sold by a woman artist belonged to the famous modernist Georgia O’Keeffe. O’Keeffe, who was mostly known for her landscapes and semi-abstract flower paintings, was one of the most influential figures of her generation. In 2014, her Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 was sold for a shocking $44.4 million, despite an estimated value of $15 million. The painting was sold to an unidentified buyer, with the proceeds intended for the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum acquisition fund.
However, despite the substantial price tag, the record beaten by Georgia O’Keeffe is noticeably far from the overall top of the most expensive artworks sold. The list of record-breaking works is filled with names of great male artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci, whose highly disputed Salvator Mundi painting is likely to have been actually painted by one of his followers. Other notable artists include Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock, who perfectly fit the stereotype of a troubled genius. Due to the long-standing institutional and social bias against women artists, their works remain undervalued by both museums and private collectors.
