Careers of Female Artists: Gender Bias in Institutional Visibilty and Secondary Market Outcomes

This article studies gender differences in museum exhibitions and examines how institutional visibility in art museums relates to outcomes in the secondary art market. We analyze more than 21,000 exhibition records and link them to about 33,000 painting auction transactions. We document three main findings. First, female artists remain substantially underrepresented in exhibitions, with persistent cohort heterogeneity. Second, on the auction market, artworks by women are more likely to reach reserve and sell, although average prices remain lower. Third, linking both markets, we construct an event-time exhibition exposure measure based on the timing of exhibitions around auctions and estimate dynamic responses. Auction prices increase three to five years after exhibitions, while sale probabilities show no systematic reaction, with effects concentrated among male artists. Finally, exploiting the Guerrilla Girls’ 1989 campaign as an activist shock, a difference-in-differences design yields suggestive evidence of a modest and only temporary shift toward female exhibitions in the United States. Overall, the results highlight exhibitions as a key allocative mechanism in cultural markets and illustrate how institutional visibility and activism may shape market outcomes.