The riddle of the rich-poor artist

Data on visual artists' socioeconomic backgrounds shows why it's so hard to win public support for a cultural sector defined by day-to-day hardship

A new survey of visual artists in the UK grabbed art-media headlines this week by putting hard data behind a widely understood reality: that most artists in Britain earn poverty wages. But also lurking in the study’s results is a seemingly contradictory finding: that most artists in Britain are not actually poor. By one measure, they’re far from it comp…