David Shrigley

Shrigley draws in cheap black ink on cheap paper, wobbly, misspelt, with the crossings-out left in — an approach that took years to be understood as a decision rather than an inability. He studied in Glasgow, has published dozens of books, made animations and music videos, put a seven-metre bronze thumbs-up called Really Good on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in 2016, and in 2020 exchanged a Turner painting for a set of pencils. He was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2013.

The practical problem in this market is volume, and it is a genuine one rather than a snobbery. He publishes prolifically and across every price point: signed screenprint editions, unsigned offset editions, artist's books, ceramics, records, tote bags, T-shirts and a steady stream of gallery merchandise, much of it carrying the same drawing. The distinction between a numbered edition of a hundred and an open-edition print run of several thousand is not visible in a photograph, and the two are frequently listed in the same words by sellers who do not know the difference.

So a valuation begins with the publisher and the pencil. Signature and numbering in the margin, the publisher's documentation, and the edition size are what separate the categories, and framing routinely conceals exactly that evidence. The unique ink drawings are the core of the market and are numerous — he draws constantly and discards heavily — and among them subject matters more than size: the drawings people want are the ones with the line that lands.

Sculpture and ceramic works exist in editions and are the part of the output that has moved most in the last decade, helped by the public commissions and by exhibitions that put the drawings and the objects in the same room. As with the prints, edition size and documentation do the work; unlike the prints, condition is a real variable, because glazed ceramic chips and a repaired piece is a materially different sale.