Education, Gender, and Blue-Chip Gallery Representation: The Importance of Educational Prestige in a Male-Dominated Art World

Abstract

This paper explores the possible gender gap among contemporary artists in important career-related outcomes: representation by prestigious galleries, access to museum exhibitions, and selection for museum collections. Using a sample of 959 artists, created by random sampling from a catalog of represented artists and merged with public data on demographic, socioeconomic, and educational backgrounds , we conduct a quantitative analysis on differences in artist outcomes by gender and education. We find that female artists have lower rates of gallery representation and museum exhibitions and collections, regardless of education. While having a Master of Fine Arts from highly ranked art schools results in better outcomes, the gender gap exists across educational quality.