The 65-year-old artist estimates that, since 2007, his paintings have achieved combined sales of almost £380m. But he has now revealed that he has made barely £230,000 for himself from selling them.

Seems low. Less than 0.1% percent

Should Nike get a cut when a pair of dunks sells high at auction? Should the architect of my house get a cut if I sell it in 20 years for more than I paid for it?

This is not a new argument. In the 1970s, Rauschenberg famously got very upset when his $900 painting sold for $85,000 at auction, where he remarked to the seller, "I've been working my ass off for you to make that profit". (article). But it ultimately led to a huge increase in his primary prices and made him a lot of money indirectly.

Ultimately, the relationship that an artist has with a gallery should be treated like a business partnership. After all, each usually takes 50% from the sale of a work. Like in any business partnership, if you don't get value out of the relationship, you should terminate it. A gallery's list of collectors is a highly valuable asset that they are going to protect, otherwise it weakens the value they offer to the artist they represent.

If he wants a bigger cut of sales, or access to the list of his collectors, he should renegotiate his agreement, change galleries, or self represent. And if people are willing to pay millions for his paintings and he's selling them at primary for a fraction of that, then he's not pricing his works appropriately.

I didn't realise it had changed recently from 'over 1,000 euros' to 'over 1,000 pounds'.  At last, a little bit of good news.

If he's only made that amount during his career then doesn't that indicate that there is barely a primary market for him? To me, it seems that his secondary market isn't a demand for his artwork but instead just a money laundering operation.

I got the polar opposite impression from reading the article.

ARR is the biggest pile of bullshit, the idea that any artist who has a secondary market where ARR applies is somehow "a poor struggling artist" is nonsense, they're all worth millions. Furthermore like a song, book, or film they can still monetise the intellectual property after the mechanical work is sold as generally they retain the copyright. Why they think they deserve a cut of subsequent sales of the mechanical product they freely sold originally is beyond me. I can't think of any other creative endevour where this applies, music, books, architecture, fashion. Should fashion houses get paid money when someone sells a 2nd hand bag, or an architect get paid when you sell your house? If they're not happy with the money they're making why not put up their primary prices, or if they're secondary market is flying it obviously means they can sell their work for more money primary, most do, so they do get compensated!

Furthermore by the UK and EU adopting ARR all they're essentially doing is pushing art sales through the USA, Asia and the Middle-East where the royalty isn't applied, actually perversely taking money out of the European art market. It's a law crafted by naive politicians who have no idea how the art market functions, many still use the example of Van Gogh as why it's necessary , a situation which simply doesn't occur in contemporary art. Basically they've been well lobbied by certain major artists and estates into a policy that benefits very few people, other than already very wealthy artists or their heirs.

In terms of Peter Doig he could make a hundred million tomorrow if he wants the money, just knock up 10-20 large canvases. I don't know his reasons but he never releases primary work certainly not openly, the cynic in me says it may have something to do with keeping prices high. The fact he could sell his work for this level primary is down to the fact he has a valuable secondary market, no one is going to pay hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars for a piece of canvas unless they can resell it, ideally for more than they paid for it. What artists don't realise is that when it comes to the alchemy of market building, the art is only one part of it, in fact garbage with very little merit can be hyped up to be worth millions (just search the history on this board), sometimes the more generic and copy cutter the easier it is to mass market. Having great art helps but there's way more involved than the artist churning out pretty pictures.

I certainly agree with him. Very good appeal this!!

Doig said it is collectors who are profiting, buying and selling his works on the secondary market for “crazy prices”, and he has no idea who they are because the art trade is so opaque. “It’s all very clandestine,” he told the Observer. “Some paintings are sold offshore, so it’s untraceable.”

He is now calling for more transparency within the art market, particularly to protect vulnerable young artists. Doig believes that, as with any business relationship, galleries have a duty to share information about sales with the artists who created the works: “They should be absolutely transparent in all the dealings. There’s so much secrecy, especially when the amounts start to get high. Once an artist has sold an artwork, they’ve got few rights.”

I'm still not sure why Peter Doig thinks he should still have 'rights' over a sold artwork. I don't think he has made the argument, has he?

Presumably he sold it for a price he was happy with.  The fact that it is worth more at some point in the future seems irrelevant to me.   

Do you not want more transparency In the arts business? Not all artists are businessmen, and if they try and sell their early work for heaps of money they won’t sell.So they start low priced and after that collectors/flippers who are after money and gallerias start their games and drive the prices up. I don’t think that’s very fair for the artists so his appeal for more transparancy is very just imo.

Maybe not. But it would be very good if could be discussed how to get this buying and selling in the artworld more transparent.