"Pablo Picasso is the artist who usually commands the largest annual revenue through public sales. However, according to Artprice’s calculations for 2007, he has been dethroned for the first time in nearly 10 years, by pop artist Andy Warhol. Significantly the total revenue generated by the top 10 artists last year rose by an incredible 50% on the previous year, reaching the enormous figure of USD 1.8 billion. The figures for 2007 are as follows:
Andy Warhol – $420m Pablo Picasso – $319m Francis Bacon – $245m Mark Rothko – $207m Claude Monet – $165m Henri Matisse – $114m Jean-Michel Basquiat – $102m Fernand Léger – $92m Marc Chagall – $89m Paul Cézanne – $87m"
from Flash Art.