Your Mama Looks Like E.T.

(Aynsley Floyd - AP)

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"Art scholars and critics often claim that markets for art are irrational, and that the value an artist's work brings at auction is unrelated to the real importance of that artist's work. These claims are wrong," Galenson, who studies the economics of the art world, asserts in a working paper published last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research. "The most valuable art is made by the greatest artists."

Best Sellers

Ranking of living artists by number of works sold at auction for $1 million or more*

Artist ... Number

Gerhard Richter ... 53

Jasper Johns ... 39

Cy Twombly ... 28

Jeff Koons ... 20

Lucian Freud ... 16

Robert Rauschenberg ... 14

Brice Marden ... 9

Ed Ruscha ... 8