Most artists never make it onto a gallery roster. Below we size the pool of people making art, show why the unrepresented majority is so large, and explain where the “~94% not represented” figure comes from.
1) Start with makers: how many people create art?
Large national surveys are the best anchors.
● In the U.S., the National Endowment for the Arts’ 2022 SPPA found 42.8% of adults personally created or performed art in the previous year. That’s not just attending—it’s making and doing. National Endowment for the Arts.
● In Australia, the national stats office reports that 10–13% of adults created visual art (e.g., painting, drawing, sculpting) during 2021–22. Australian Bureau of Statistics
How big is that, globally? The UN marked the world’s population at ~8.0 billion in 2022, and World Bank/UN data show ~25.3% are ages 0–14, so roughly 75% are 15+—about 6.0 billion adults. United Nations | FRED
● If U.S. creative‑making rates held globally (a “what‑if” to show scale), ~42.8% of 6.0B ≈ 2.6 billion people created or performed some art in the last year. National Endowment for the Arts
● If we focus only on visual art making (the Australian anchor), 10–13% of 6.0B ≈ 600–780 million people worldwide made visual art last year. Australian Bureau of Statistics
Takeaway: even with conservative anchors, hundreds of millions of people make visual art; billions create in some form.
2) Our bottom‑up benchmark: Australia × market multiplier a well‑studied national baseline for professionals:
● Australia’s landmark Making Art Work study estimates 48,000 practising professional artists, including ~8,600 professional visual artists. Creative Australia | Macquarie University
From here, we apply what we’ve heard consistently from galleries, internal surveys, and sector experts: for every represented professional artist, there are ~20 unrepresented or early‑stage artists who are active and seeking opportunities. Using the Australian visual‑arts baseline:
● 8,600 × 20 = ~172,000 unrepresented or early‑stage visual artists in Australia. Scaling that ratio internationally (by population and art‑market intensity) yields ~18 million unrepresented visual artists globally. Given the global maker numbers above (hundreds of millions doing visual art), 18M is conservative by design—it’s aiming at the subset actively trying to show/sell rather than everyone who dabbles.
3) A second lens: gallery capacity is tiny two independent facts highlight the bottleneck:
● There are ~19,000 fine‑art galleries worldwide. Magnus Resch
● In 2023, dealers represented ~23 artists on average in the primary market and ~39 if they also worked the secondary market. Art Market
That implies ~0.44–0.74 million “roster slots.” But artists often have 2–4 galleries (regional and international representation), so unique artists on rosters are far fewer—roughly 0.11–0.37 million worldwide. Artsy
Compare that to 600–780 million visual‑art makers: the share of makers with gallery representation is on the order of ~0.01%–0.06% (about 1 in 1,600–7,000). Capacity alone explains why most artists are shut out. Australian Bureau of Statistics | Art Market | Magnus Resch | Artsy
4) Where the “94% unrepresented” comes from a practical segmentation widely used in the field groups artists by career stage:
● Hobby/Passion (45%)
● Amateur/Beginner (40%)
● Emerging (10%)
● Mid‑Career (4%)
● Established (1%)
If you (conservatively) assume:
● All established (1%) and all mid‑career (4%) have some representation, and
● ~10% of emerging (10%) have partial representation (i.e., 1% of the total),
you get ~6% represented and therefore ~94% not represented. This aligns with the gallery‑capacity math above (and, again, looks conservative next to the sheer scale of people creating art). (These breakdown percentages are a practical heuristic for strategy, not an international census; logic is the key point.)
5) So what?
● Creators are everywhere. National surveys show tens of percent of adults are making art; hundreds of millions make visual art. National Endowment for the Arts | Australian Bureau of Statistics
● Galleries can’t absorb the supply. Even at generous assumptions, unique represented artists number hundreds of thousands, not millions. Magnus Resch | Art Market | Artsy
● The unrepresented market is massive. Our Australia‑anchored multiplier method yields ~18 million unrepresented visual artists worldwide—a subset of the broader creator base, and clearly conservative in that context.
Method notes (for the skeptics)
● We anchor participation with large national surveys (NEA SPPA 2022; ABS 2021–22). We scale to adults using UN/WB age structure and UN population totals. National Endowment for the Arts | Australian Bureau of Statistics | FRED | United Nations
● We bound gallery capacity using Resch’s global gallery count and Art Basel & UBS dealer rosters, then adjust for multi‑representation using industry guidance from Artsy. Magnus Resch | Art Market | Artsy
● Australia’s Making Art Work provides a high‑quality count of professional
artists—including ~8,600 professional visual artists—which underpins our multiplier. Macquarie University
Bottom line: Whether you look top‑down (participation) or bottom‑up (gallery capacity), the math converges: the overwhelming majority of artists are not represented by galleries. Saying “~94% are unrepresented” is a reasonable, conservative way to communicate that reality—and ~18 million unrepresented visual artists worldwide is a defensible, Australia‑anchored estimate within a creator universe that’s vastly larger.