Women artists and celebrity artists

In the Age of Celebrity, the birth of the celebrity artist was inevitable. Like top chefs, the celebrity artist has a name that means something to people to whom his or her art means nothing at all. The celebrity may even have a newspaper column - like Tracy Emin, by all odds the celebrity leader among British women artists. But she still feels that her gender is a handicap to success in her underlying career of art. Women, she has alleged, don’t get the respect or (above all) the prices that men achieve.

Nicola Hicks, Flora, 2002

She has a point, but it’s the wrong one. The millionaire prices, true, go exclusively to males like Freud. But the vast majority of male artists also get nowhere near these vast sums. Damien Hirst, the doyen of the Young British Artists, earns more than all the other YBAs put together - including Emin. His huge celebrity certainly contributes to the wealth, but his masculinity has nothing to do with it. In the great lottery of art pricing, what you get is what you’re worth, by definition. And the glittering prizes, as usual in such markets, are rare.

It’s also true, though for no good reason, that the rise of the woman artist has been relatively recent. There’s also been an advance in the ranks of female art dealers. But people like Annely Juda, Victoria Miro and Angela Flowers don’t discriminate for or against women artists. Flowers has the most - like Nicola Hicks, Lucy Jones, Carole Hodgson, Amanda Faulkner, Glenys Barton, Carol Robertson, Rachel Heller and Freya Payne (who opens at Flowers East on 6th June). But this gallery also has more male artists than anybody else. The opportunities are more equal because of the size of the business.

Dame Elisabeth Frink, Tribute Head 1

The most successful of the Flowers women in price terms is Hicks (see above), a wondrous drawer and sculptor. The late Elizabeth Frink (see left) was a mentor, and hereby hangs a relevant truth. Frink’s work sells for much more - thrice in one recent example - than a comparable Hicks piece. Actually, to my mind, there’s no comparison, since I find the Hicks works full of a potent life and movement that Frink (who I also admire) never achieved. The price difference, though, reflects reputation, awareness, fame - all the attributes that have made Emin rich, but which belong to a different game. Gender is irrelevant; artistic merit is only one factor in this heady mix. David Hockney was and is a beneficiary; but so, on the feminine side, was and is Bridget Riley.

The boot can be on the female foot. Barbara Hepworth was in inevitable competition with her husband, Ben Nicholson; justly or unjustly, he won. But in Hepworth’s studio there worked an invaluable assistant, Denis Mitchell. He also happened to be a marvellous sculptor, one of whose pieces rejoices my heart every day. The recognition he won among other artists didn’t extend to the wider public, and his full acknowledgement, as usual, was left, not to the auction houses, but to the obituaries.

In sum, I don’t believe Emin has a real case. To the extent that any women artists are underpriced (or men, for that matter), that’s an opportunity to buy significantly greater value. And I do believe, as it happens, that the force is with the women.