An economic study of professional artists in Australia

• David Throsby, Anita Zednik
• Australia Council for the Arts

Read the full text

27 August 2010The careers of Australian practicing professional artists across all major art forms (except film) are profiled in this economic study. It is based on interviews with professional artists and includes data on their numbers, incomes, achievements and challenges.

This survey is the fifth in a series carried out over the past 30 years at Macquarie University, with funding from the Australia Council. The original survey, in 1983, was undertaken as part of the Individual Artists’ Inquiry, initiated by the Australia Council at the time. A larger and more comprehensive survey was carried out in 1987, another in 1993, and another in 2002. All of these studies have yielded reports widely used by policy makers, bureaucrats, arts organisations, artists themselves and the wider community. They have provided factual information about the economic circumstances of professional artistic practice across all major artforms apart from film. The present survey, undertaken in 2009, updates and expands the information collected in the earlier studies.

Like its predecessors, this survey is concerned with serious, practising professional artists. The seriousness is judged in terms of a self-assessed commitment to artistic work as a major aspect of the artist’s working life, even if creative work is not the main source of income. The practising aspect means that we confine our attention to artists currently working or seeking to work in their chosen occupation. The term professional is intended to indicate a degree of training, experience or talent and a manner of working that qualify artists to have their work judged against the highest professional standards of the relevant occupation.

Appendices to the report are available here >