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Pay · 27-1013

Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators earn $55,490 a year at the midpoint

Where you land matters more here than in most jobs — the top tenth earn more than 4.6 times the bottom tenth. The midpoint is $55,490.

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$55,490median a year · United States
$26.68an hour $73,150average 11,220people
Nine in ten people in this work earn between the two ends. The shaded part is the middle half — where most people are.
$37,56025th $55,490median $83,20075th
$31,63010th percentile $144,21090th percentile
$37,560a year at the 25th percentile, nearer a first job
$98,540best-paying state · Oregon
$25,830lowest-paying state · Kansas
+78%top state against the national median
  • Read the spread, not the middle. The median is the midpoint across everyone in the occupation, most of them years into the work. A beginner starts nearer the 10th to 25th percentile, which is why the spread is published alongside it.
  • What the figure counts. The figure counts base pay plus tips, commissions and production bonuses. It leaves out the self-employed, unpaid family workers, private household workers, and the value of benefits or profit sharing.
  • The annual figure is arithmetic. For hourly occupations the annual figure is the hourly rate times 2080 hours. It is a calculation, not observed earnings: part time is the norm in retail and food service.
  • Where you live moves it more than your resume does. National figures. A state or metro area can sit far from the national number, and that gap is usually larger than any difference a resume makes.
  • Not in these numbers. Growth and annual openings are not in this dataset. They come from the separate Employment Projections tables, where an opening is a modelled ten year average and not a posted vacancy.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025. Retrieved through the BLS Public Data API on 2026-08-13. bls.gov/oes “BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov.”

State matters a lotThe same job pays $98,540 in Oregon and $25,830 in Kansas — a gap of $72,710 a year.

Fine artist earnings, from starting pay to the best-paid 10%

Pick the job, where you work and how long you have done it. The range comes from the published wage percentiles for that job.

Experience
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When they ask “What are your salary expectations?”

An estimate from survey percentiles, not an offer. Employer, industry, shift and credentials move pay within and beyond this range. Full wage page for this job →

Examples

Resumes written for this kind of work.

Real sheets, filled in end to end — for this job and the ones beside it.

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Writing a resume for fine artists, including painters, sculptors, and illustrators

Name the job in the builder and the duties, skills and credentials it is screened on are written in for you.

Adobe IllustratorAdobe PhotoshopAutodesk MayaAdobe Creative Cloud softwareAdobe InDesignCorel CorelDraw Graphics SuiteAdobe FreeHand MXCorel Painter
  • Used materials such as pens and ink, watercolors, charcoal, oil, or computer software to create artwork.
  • Integrated and developed visual elements, such as line, space, mass, color, and perspective, to produce desired effects, such as the illustration of ideas, emotions, or moods.
  • Conferred with clients, editors, writers, art directors, and other interested parties regarding the nature and content of artwork to be produced.

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This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The owner of tiersi.com has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.

Fine artist pay rate, from hourly to yearly

Starts at this job’s median. Change the rate or the hours; a full-time year is 40 hours for 52 weeks.

$55,494a year

Fine artist wages, state by state

The 25 states where the most people do this work, of 30 with a published figure: their medians range by 3.81 times. Figures are the 2025 survey.

State Median a year Where most start 10th to 90th Employed
Oregon $98,540 $55,140 $55,140 — $151,020 —
Nevada $81,630 $39,070 $39,070 — $94,860 160
New York $78,870 $50,010 $50,010 — $154,630 1,400
Washington $72,430 $38,730 $38,730 — $120,160 350
Connecticut $71,210 $39,380 $39,380 — $101,110 100
Maryland $66,180 $43,830 $43,830 — $78,250 80
Georgia $65,010 $40,530 $40,530 — $94,130 350
New Mexico $63,090 $41,520 $41,520 — $79,610 70
California $58,240 $36,300 $36,300 — $207,320 2,560
Utah $57,270 $34,290 $34,290 — $96,100 80
Arizona $56,160 $34,310 $34,310 — $97,240 110
Wisconsin $53,350 $21,590 $21,590 — $81,410 100
Colorado $51,910 $43,040 $43,040 — $102,120 250
Florida $50,360 $31,160 $31,160 — $134,150 1,010
Missouri $49,820 $31,770 $31,770 — $71,080 110
Texas $49,650 $17,880 $17,880 — $77,380 700
Kentucky $48,050 $22,750 $22,750 — $65,360 60
Virginia $47,930 $29,640 $29,640 — $87,400 230
Oklahoma $47,830 $45,060 $45,060 — $89,480 60
Nebraska $39,800 $31,200 $31,200 — $66,900 40
Michigan $38,650 $25,960 $25,960 — $124,480 220
Arkansas $32,340 $27,370 $27,370 — $60,790 40
Ohio $31,780 $22,860 $22,860 — $63,750 510
Tennessee $30,720 $27,670 $27,670 — $58,770 100
Kansas $25,830 $15,080 $15,080 — $54,720 40

No estimate is published for 6 states: the survey withholds a figure when too few employers report it. Nothing has been filled in for them.

Number 458 of 788 by median pay

Better paid than 42% of the occupations in the survey.

  1. 456 Tile and Stone Setters $55,690
  2. 457 Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants $55,570
  3. 458 Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators $55,490
  4. 459 Roofers $55,440
  5. 460 Choreographers $55,310

Related work, and what it pays

Occupations in the same group of the federal classification — the usual next steps, or the ones beside this one.

Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators$55,490
Art Directors$114,850+$59,360 Artists and Related Workers, All Other$71,240+$15,750 Craft Artists$46,080−$9,410

Questions people ask

What is a fine artist’s yearly income?

A fine artist makes a median of $55,490 a year (2025 survey). The middle half earn between $37,560 and $83,200.

What is a fine artist’s hourly pay rate?

The median pay rate is $26.68 an hour; the average is $73,150 a year.

What is the starting pay for a fine artist?

Starting pay is usually near the 25th percentile, $37,560 a year, and sometimes as low as the 10th, $31,630.

Which state pays fine artists, including painters, sculptors, and illustrators the most?

Oregon, with a median of $98,540 a year.

How many people work as fine artists, including painters, sculptors, and illustrators?

About 11,220 in the United States — number 458 of 788 occupations by median pay.

Work that pays roughly the same

Median pay within $180 of what fine artists, including painters, sculptors, and illustrators earn — $55,490 a year — but not always the same spread.

See all 788 occupations