Richard Long Auction Prices and Value Guide

Richard Long auction prices are tracked in Appraisily's artist market index, with source-directory coverage of 438 records. Use this page to review sold-lot activity, market context, and valuation factors before requesting a formal appraisal.

Richard Long auction prices: quick answer

Richard Long auction prices depend on medium, size, date, condition, provenance, edition details, attribution confidence, and recent comparable auction sales.

Artist: Richard Long
Source records: 438
Market update: 2026-02-06

Artist context

About Richard Long

Richard Long (born 1945, Bristol, England) is a British sculptor, photographer, and one of the most celebrated figures in the Land Art movement. Since the late 1960s, Long has made art by walking through landscapes, creating ephemeral sculptures from stones, mud, and other natural materials found along the way, and documenting these interventions through photography and text. His practice centers on themes of place, distance, time, and the relationship between human movement and the natural world. Long's work bridges Conceptual Art and environmental sculpture, using raw materials at human scale within real landscapes. He has exhibited extensively at major institutions worldwide, and his works are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Tate (London), and many other leading museums. He was appointed CBE for his contributions to art.

Land ArtConceptual ArtSculpture (stone, mud, wood, natural materials)PhotographyText worksDrawingWalking and landscapeNatural materials (stones, mud, water, wood)Place, distance, and measurementTime and transience in nature

Common works and media

Collectors encountering Richard Long's work at auction will most often find gelatin silver or chromogenic prints documenting temporary landscape sculptures, text-based works describing walks, mud drawings on paper or directly on gallery walls, and small-scale stone arrangements. Photographs are typically issued in limited editions. Less commonly, hand-drawn maps, artist books, and prints may appear. His subjects center on walking routes, natural forms, and the elemental qualities of stone, water, and earth.

Market and appraisal context

Richard Long maintains a robust and active secondary market with 232 auction lots recorded by Appraisily, of which 168 carry realized prices, spanning from February 2001 through March 2026. The market shows broad auction-house representation: Christie's, Sotheby's, Phillips, and Bonhams account for the upper tier, while mid-tier and regional houses such as Bernaerts, Forum Auctions, Zwiggelaar, Cornette de Saint-Cyr, Dreweatts, Artcurial, Koller, and Piasa provide consistent liquidity across Europe and North America. Price dispersion is wide — the median stands at approximately $3,000 USD, with a 25th percentile around $400 and a 75th percentile near $17,500, and a recorded maximum of $158,500. This reflects the dual nature of Long's market: photographs, prints, artist books, and small works on paper trade frequently at accessible price points, while major sculptures and mud-wall works at Christie's and Sotheby's command five- and six-figure sums. Liquidity is steady, with 17 priced lots in the most recent 12-month period versus 15 in the prior 12 months, indicating stable or slightly growing demand. The strongest results are concentrated at Christie's, where significant stone and wood sculptures such as '192 Pieces of Wood' (realized £63,500, October 2025) and a River Avon mud panel (realized $50,800, September 2025) anchor the upper market.

Auction categories and appraisal factors

Common auction categories

Post-War & Contemporary Art
Contemporary Photographs
Works on Paper
Sculpture (stone, mud, wood, natural materials)
Photography

Value drivers

Provenance and exhibition history — works with documented museum exhibition provenance carry stronger market interest
Work type distinction — ephemeral land-art sculptures exist only as photographic documents; gallery-scale mud or stone installations are site-specific; textworks and photographs are the most commonly traded formats
Edition and size — photographs and prints may be issued in editions; edition number and print size affect value
Date and period — early works from the late 1960s and 1970s, when Long established his walking-as-art practice, are particularly sought after
Work type is the primary value driver: major stone or wood sculptures and mud-wall panels command five- to six-figure prices at top-tier houses, while photographs, prints, and artist books typically trade in the hundreds to low thousands
Date and period: early works from the late 1960s through the 1970s — the formative years of Long's walking-as-art practice — attract stronger collector interest and higher prices

Appraisal caveats

Site-specific installations cannot be moved or resold in the conventional sense; their market representation is typically through documentation, maquettes, or related photographs
Condition assessment for works using natural materials (mud, stone) requires specialist knowledge of material stability and conservation
Price data is derived from Appraisily's auction-record index, which aggregates public auction feeds; not all lots may be captured, and some results may be incomplete or reported in differing currencies without conversion
Approximately 28% of recorded lots (64 of 232) lack realized prices, which may indicate unsold lots, withdrawn lots, or post-sale private transactions; the actual sell-through rate may differ from what the data suggests

Evidence

Sources for artist context

This source-grounded artist context passed Appraisily's promotion threshold: high confidence, strong sources.

Library of Congress library authority
RKD library authority
The Museum of Modern Art museum or university
Tate museum or university
Wikidata library authority
VIAF library authority

Source-grounded artist Markdown

Data basis

This page is built from Appraisily's public auction market index. Private transactions, incomplete sale feeds, and attribution changes may not be fully represented.

LLM-readable Markdown summary for Richard Long

LLM summary index · LLM full index

Artist value FAQ

How much is Richard Long worth?

Comparable public auction sales are the best starting point, but final value depends on the specific artwork, condition, size, medium, provenance, and attribution confidence.

Can Appraisily value my Richard Long artwork?

Yes. Appraisily can review photos, dimensions, signatures, condition, provenance, and comparable market data to prepare a current valuation.