Women Artists Begin to Narrow the Gender Gap

British artist Tracey Emin was in the crowd when My Bed—an unmade bed with rumpled sheets, empty vodka bottles, underwear, and cigarette packets—sold for £2.5 million ($4.3 million) on July 1 at Christie’s in London, more than five times her previous high. “I was really nervous, and then six people started bidding,” Emin says. “I thought it was just brilliant.”

A five-year rally in prices for contemporary and modern art is lifting the value of works by women in a market long dominated by men. Six women set personal records in the past two months at auctions at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips in New York and London. A 1960 Joan Mitchell abstract painting sold for $11.9 million at Christie’s in New York in May, the most ever for a work by a woman.