80% of White Artists Are Making A Living

Duh! and No shit! were the first thoughts that came to mind when I saw this article heading. My second thought was that most of that 80% are men.

This really isn’t shocking or surprising. The research revealed interesting numbers, I suppose, but it really just makes me more depressed.

A study compiled by data gurus BFAMFAPhD reaffirms what many, many, many critics have postulated — American artists are facing a diversity problem. As The Washington Post reported, BFAMFAPhD’s research reveals that most artists making a living from their work are white. And by most, we mean 77.6%.

The Diversity Problem

The study, titled “Artists Report Back,” analyzed data for over 1.4 million working artists* (as well as a group of 2 million art school graduates) across the United States using the Census Bureau’s 2012 American Community Survey (ACS). The results show that nearly four out of five working artists are white. That leaves 7.5% of working artists identifying as black, 3.9% as Asian and 8.3% Hispanic.

The statistics for art school graduates are a bit bleaker. A solid 80.8% of this population is white, while 4.4% is black, 7.0% is Asian and 5.7% is Hispanic. Of art school graduates who make a living from their work, 83% are white. BFAMFAPhD compares these findings to the U.S. population at large, which is 63.2% white, 12.3% black, 5% Asian and 16.6% Hispanic.

Read full story via Most Artists Who Make A Living From Their Work Are White, Research Says.