Estonian art market sets records as auction activity cools

Tiit Pääsuke holds Estonia’s auction price record for a living artist, while the latest spring season also set a record for a female artist, ERR reported in an article by Gertu Lepik von Wirén published in Kunst.ee.

Pääsuke’s 1989 painting and assemblage “Rahvariie III (Mustjala ainetel)” reached 113,000 euros at Haus Gallery’s spring auction last year, rising from a starting price of 24,000 euros. The auction house’s fee was added to the final amount. The work was listed as sold for 133,000 euros.

Worldwide, the record for a work by a living artist belongs to American artist Jasper Johns. His conceptual painting “Flag”, made in 1958, was sold in a private transaction for 110 million dollars in 2010. Adjusted for inflation, that amount would be approximately 162 million dollars.

Lepik von Wirén noted that comparisons between such records provide limited insight into how prices are formed. The art market may appear to be a rational marketplace for alternative assets, but emotional factors can also influence prices. Its opacity, including speculation, myths and elitism, continues to drive interest in understanding how the market works.

The actual size of the art market is not known precisely in Estonia or elsewhere. Art is sold through businesses that specialise in brokering works, directly from artists’ studios for cash and by private sellers on online platforms such as eBay, Etsy and Estonia’s Osta.ee. More than 4,000 items are currently listed in the art category on Osta.ee.

Spring auction season

Several records were nevertheless set in Estonia during this year’s spring auction season. The most notable was the highest price ever paid at a public auction for a work by a female artist.

The record was set by Malle Leis’s 1983 painting “Sandra ja Château de Tarascon”, which sold at Allee Gallery’s auction for 100,000 euros. The final price was only 1,000 euros above the starting bid.

The previous record belonged to Aili Vint, whose painting “Mägiaas udus” sold for 65,000 euros at a spring auction in 2024. Both works are considered outstanding examples of their artists’ output, making the sales unsurprising, according to Lepik von Wirén.

The latest spring auction season was also marked by a cooling in activity. A sell-through rate of around 70 percent can no longer be taken for granted. Two well-known auction houses recorded sell-through rates of 34 percent and 52 percent this year.