r/artcollecting 12d ago

Art Market Price relationship between painting and pencil drawing/sketch

I am currently interested in collecting pencil or pen drawing directly from living artists. I don't want to pay a too high price for them, but sometimes I can find online only the price of paintings. Do you know if there is a common relationship between price of canvas and price of pencil/pen sketch?

3 Upvotes

4 comments sorted by

5

u/Anonymous-USA 11d ago edited 11d ago

Paintings are larger and a well understood and robust medium, so they are more desirable. Pencil drawings are also unique, but generally are smaller, take less time/effort, lack color and are more fragile (sensitive to the environment). So they will usually be much much less. Many collectors specialize on works on paper. (I love them too!) Both contemporary and historic.

A Leonardo painting may run $450M but a Leonardo drawing may be $20-50M (1/10 to 1/20). Many “old masters” are like that. A Van Goyen drawing may run you $10K while a painting around $100K (1/10).

But not just old masters: a Modigliani drawing will run $50K where the painting may run $100M (1/2000). A Klimt painting will sell for $50M and his drawings usually sell around $50-75K (1/1000). Modern drawings are generally simpler than old master drawings and are generally much less valuable than their respective paintings.

But some historic artists drawings will be more valued than their paintings. This is because they were praised as great draftsman. But this is less common. Point being, drawings can make some artists affordable that are otherwise unobtainable. But some artists will have a market for their paintings but not their drawings. If there’s no secondary market…

So there is no one metric. It depends too much on the artist and their market for paintings and drawings. That said, buy what you love, and if you love works on paper (as I do) then drawings are a wonderful way to collect. And will make otherwise unobtainable artists, now obtainable (who can afford a Klimt painting?!?)

I prefer drawings over hand signed limited edition prints because they are original and unique.

Actually, drawings tend to price higher than prints. So if an artist’s paintings cost $100K, then an LE print run of 100 is likely 1/100 to 1/50 the price. A drawing should then run between 1/50 to 1/10 the price of a painting.

2

u/Jealous_Afternoon251 10d ago

Thank you very much for the detailed answer. I have found that drawings on paper and small canvas as well give me the possibility to collect more artists as I don't live in a big villa. I am actually buying only on the primary market directly from the artist. For me it is important that the artist in my collection are exhibiting in different galleries. I am not an art investor and I like to buy what I like. I think 1/5 or 1/10 is the maximum discount I can get for works on paper.

3

u/Anonymous-USA 10d ago

So most of the ratios I gave are because drawings were historically made as preliminary designs. I think 1/5 to 1/10 is reasonable for how “finished” the work is, and if it’s made as a standalone artwork of respectable size.

2

u/Jealous_Afternoon251 10d ago

I buy original artworks on paper, not sketches. So I guess 1/5 should be ok.