Please note, we are in the process of retiring the public api. The public api, as well as its documentation and playground, will remain available until July 28th, 2025. This change will not affect integration partners using our partner api.
If you're an Artsy partner gallery, reach out to your Artsy Liaison or contact our Support team for assistance.
Public API Documentation > Resources > Artists
An artist creates artworks.
An artist is generally one person, but can also be two people collaborating, a collective of people, or even a mysterious entity such as "Banksy".
Retrieve artists by following the artists link from root.
curl -v "https://stagingapi.artsy.net/api/artists" -H "X-XAPP-Token: XAPP_TOKEN"
This endpoint accepts the following parameters.
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| artwork_id | Retrieve artists for a given artwork. |
| similar_to_artist_id | Return artists similar to a given artist. |
| similarity_type | Similarity type, either default or contemporary. See below. |
| gene_id | Return a set of artists that represent a given gene. |
| artworks | Only return artists with artworks. |
| published_artworks | Only return artists with published artworks. |
| partner_id | Return artists with artworks that belong to the partner. |
The response is a paginated result with embedded artists.
Users can retrieve a specific artist by ID by rendering the "artist" link template from root.
curl -v "https://stagingapi.artsy.net/api/artists/{id}" -H "X-XAPP-Token: XAPP_TOKEN"
Follow the "artists" link from an artwork, which calls this endpoint with the artwork_id parameter.
Artsy continuously computes a K-nearest-neighbor graph for artists using data from the Art Genome Project. Retrieve artists similar to another artist by following the "similar_artists" or the "similar_contemporary_artists" links in an artist resource, which calls this endpoint with the similar_to_artist_id parameter and an optional similarity_type value. The response is a non-paginated set of similar artists or similar contemporary artists, respectively.
error: the server responded with status 503
| Key | Target |
|---|---|
| self | The artist resource. |
| thumbnail | Default image thumbnail. |
| image | Curied image location. |
| permalink | An external location on the artsy.net website. |
| artworks | All artist's artworks. |
| similar_artists | Artists similar to this artist. |
| similar_contemporary_artists | Contemporary artists similar to this artist. |
error: the server responded with status 503