Visual arts: $4 billion in direct economic impact in Canada

Current data on a sometimes overlooked sector

This post aims to shed some light on the visual arts, an arts sector that doesn’t always get the same attention as others, especially when talking about economic impacts. (For an excellent analysis of the economic impacts of the performing arts during the pandemic, see CAPACOA’s COVID-19 Impacts page.)

I know of no one who has tracked economic indicators in the visual arts sector. Hence this post.

What are the “visual arts”, based on Statistics Canada’s definitions?

Four areas of the visual arts are the focus of this post: original visual art, art reproductions, photography, and crafts.

As I mentioned in a post two weeks ago, the sector labelled by Statistics Canada as “visual and applied arts” has the second highest economic impact among StatsCan’s groupings, behind only “audiovisual and interactive media”.

The “applied arts” part of this arts domain (as StatsCan refers to the sector groupings) contains some big-impact elements that are of secondary interest to the arts sector: design, advertising, and architecture. Together, these three subdomains make up about three-quarters of the impact on Gross Domestic Product of the visual and applied arts.

The other one-quarter of the grouping (by impact on GDP) includes four areas that will be the focus of this post: original visual art, art reproductions, photography, and crafts. I’ll show the data for each these four areas, as well as my calculations for them as a group (called “visual arts”).

It is important to note that government-owned visual arts centres are excluded from the visual arts calculations (and from other domains). Government-owned facilities have their own category (“governance, funding, and professional support”).

Statistics Canada’s descriptions of the four visual arts subdomains are:

• “Original visual art: includes original art such as paintings, drawings, pastels, engravings, prints, lithographs, sculptures and statuary, as well as dissemination services such as commercial art galleries.

• Art reproductions: include copies of original visual arts, produced with the use of technology, such as unlimited edition prints, posters, statuettes, and ornaments.

• Photography: includes traditional still and digital photography services, covering all fields including portrait, wedding, action, and specialty, commercial and industrial services.

• Crafts: includes hand-made artisanal goods from all materials, including textiles, jewellery, pottery, statues, ceramics, furniture, housewares, musical instruments, etc.”

Today’s focus: most recent data

Today, I’ll summarize the impact statistics for 2021, the most recent year. Next week, I’ll look at changes before and during the pandemic.

I’ve analyzed two Statistics Canada sources: National culture and sport indicators by domain and sub-domain (quarterly, from the first quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of 2022, Canada only, newest release on July 8) and Provincial and Territorial Culture Indicators (yearly, from 2010 to 2020, newest release on June 2).

I’ll focus on three measures of the economic impact of the visual arts:

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP, or direct economic impact, a measure of net value-added to the economy).

• Output (roughly equivalent to total revenues, including multiple counting of revenues that stay within the cultural economy)

• Jobs (including both full-time and part-time positions, not on a full-time-equivalent basis)

See the notes at the end of this post for further explanations and definitions.

Impacts of the visual arts in 2021: an $11 billion market, $4 billion in GDP impact, over 45,000 jobs

The visual arts, as defined above, had a direct impact on GDP of $3.96 billion in 2021. As shown in the graph below, this includes crafts ($2.87 billion), photography ($883 million), original visual art ($168 million), and art reproductions ($47 million).

The large number for crafts indicates that there is strong interest in handmade artisanal goods of various kinds in Canada. (Statistics Canada’s definition includes the examples of “textiles, jewellery, pottery, statues, ceramics, furniture, housewares, musical instruments”.)

The direct impact of the visual arts on GDP ($3.96 billion) was almost double the impact of live performance in 2021 ($2.19 billion).

In 2019, before the pandemic, the direct impact of the visual arts on GDP ($3.50 billion) was also well above that of live performance ($2.07 billion).

A total of nearly $9 billion was spent on crafts in 2021 (that’s the estimate of total output, similar to total revenues). For the visual arts overall, total output was $11.14 billion in 2021, including:

• Crafts: the aforementioned $8.88 billion

• Photography: $1.82 billion

• Original visual art: $335 million

• Art reproductions: $99 million

The number of jobs in the visual arts totaled 45,100 in 2021, including:

• Crafts: 30,000

• Photography: 12,300

• Original visual art: 1,900

• Art reproductions: 900

Per capita impacts

In 2021, the GDP of the visual arts was $104 per Canadian resident, including:

• Crafts: $75 per capita

• Photography: $23

• Original visual art: $4

• Art reproductions: $1

A total of $291 per person was spent on the visual arts in 2021 (i.e., total output, similar to total revenues). This includes crafts ($232), photography ($48), original visual art ($9), and art reproductions ($3).

Notes and data sources

Statistics Canada defines culture sector GDP as:

The economic value added associated with culture activities. This is the value added related to the production of culture goods and services across the economy, regardless of the producing industry. Culture jobs are the number of jobs that are related to the production of culture goods and services.

The data capture direct impacts only and are therefore relatively modest. Excluded are commonly measured elements such as indirect impacts (the re-spending of the expenditures of cultural organizations) and induced impacts (the re-spending of wages earned by cultural workers and suppliers’ workers). Despite the smaller numbers, there are benefits to the narrower approach: the estimates are comparable between jurisdictions and to the GDP of other sectors of the economy.

This post analyzes Statistics Canada’s estimates of the impacts of culture products, i.e., the production of culture goods and services from establishments in both culture and non-culture industries. (See Culture and sport indicators by domain and sub-domain, by province and territory, product perspective (Table 36-10-0452-01) as well as National culture and sport indicators by domain and sub-domain (Canada), Table 36-10-0652-01).

Statistics Canada also provides another set of estimates, on culture industries, which captures the production of culture and non-culture goods and services from establishments within the culture industries. In 2020, the national culture products estimate ($56 billion, or $1,460 per capita) was 9% lower than the industries estimate ($61 billion, or $1,604 per capita).

The per capita calculations are based on Population estimates on July 1st, by age and sex, Statistics Canada Table 17-10-0005-01.