Q: I bought six paintings from a local artist over a twenty year period during his career. He's pretty old now and I'm thinking about selling. Should I wait until after he dies? Will that make any difference pricewise?

A: This is a rather mercenary way to look at art, but the nature of the beast is that people ask these sorts of questions all the time. The answer in this case is that the artist's death will have little impact on the value of your art. Many people believe that prices skyrocket when artists die, but that's a myth perpetrated primarily by dealers who say anything to make sales.

An artist's death significantly impacts his price structure only when he's relatively famous, his work is expensive, he's in demand and collectible, and most importantly, he dies unexpectedly. As evidenced in the months immediately following the deaths of Warhol and Basquiat, for example, their markets went temporarily insane before gradually settling back to normal. Dealers and collectors were caught off guard, everyone scrambled for the art, a sort of buying panic set in, and prices spiked in the upward direction. When an artist dies of old age, however, all market changes have taken place slowly, sensibly, and in an orderly fashion. Death comes as no surprise to anyone and consequently, prices remain relatively steady.

In some instances, an artist's prices can actually drop on the occasion of his death. For example, an executor or family may mismanage the estate by dumping all the art on the market at once and temporarily depress prices. Another reason for a decline in prices is when collectors patronize an artist more for his personality, media image, flamboyance, social contacts, or sales skills than for the quality of his art. With the artist's number one promoter gone (namely himself), art values fall flat.