THE ASSUMED INFLUENCES IN THE WORLD OF MODERN ARTS ARE KNOWN, BUT THE FULL FORMULA OF SELLABILITY HAS NOT BEEN CONCLUDED UNTIL. THIS IS NOT ONLY THE POWER OF ARTISTS'S ENERGY, PEOPLE'S LOVE, AMBITIOUS IDEA AND HACKING OF STEREOTYPES, BUT AND INFLUENCE THROUGH PRISM OF TIME ON OUR LIFE WITH YOU. WE OFFER A LOOK AT THE TEN MOST EXPENSIVE ART WORKS SOLD IN THE XX CENTURY.
Jackson Pollock, Number 5 (1948) / $ 140 million
Salvador Dali wrote about Pollock in his Diary of a Genius: “Pollock: Marseillaise abstract. Romantic of holidays and fireworks, like Monticelli’s first sensationalist sensualist. He’s not as bad as Turner. He’s nothing more.” It is unclear whether this was a compliment or criticism, but the debate about the American artist, the leader of abstract expressionism, Jackson Pollock, still does not subside. "Number 5" is written on fiberboard, on which the artist spontaneously sprayed and poured black, gray, brown, white and yellow paint according to the principle of a dense bird's nest. The work triumphantly stepped onto the art scene, set quality standards and changed several influential owners: Alfonso Ossorio, publisher Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr., film producer David Geffen, and at the 2006 Sotheby's auction, the painting was sold to Mexican financier David Martinez dollars. "Number 5" is a living example of the fact that even the most transcendental dreams come true if the artist does everything to achieve them.
Francis Bacon, "Three Drafts of Lucian Freud" (1969) / $ 142.4 million
Francis Outred of Christie "calls this Bacon triptych a" true masterpiece "and an" indisputable symbol of 20th-century art, "while art historian Ben Street categorizes the work as" not the highest class for Bacon. "Using unusual angles and an orange-brown the range, on each canvas of “Three Sketches of Lucian Freud" depicts Bacon’s close friend, artist Lucien Freud, sitting on a chair in various poses. The triptych of the English expressionist Bacon, who examined the human body in his work, was written in the Royal Column Even art, first shown in Turin at the d'Arte Galatea gallery in 1970, and then made a splash at the Grand Palace of Fine Arts in Paris.In November 2013, Christie’s triptych went to an unnamed buyer for a completely unprecedented amount of 142, 4 million dollars.
Gustav Klimt, "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I" (1907) / $ 135 million
The painting 138x138 cm in oil paints with the technique of gilding depicts an attractive woman Adele, the wife of sugar magnate Ferdinand Bloch Bauer and, according to rumors, the lover of Klimt himself. “This is our Mona Lisa,” Ronald Lauder, co-owner of Estee Lauder cosmetic empire, proudly acknowledges. He exhibited "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I" in his gallery Neue Galerie in New York to the general public.
Andy Warhol, "The accident of the silver car (double catastrophe)" (1963) / $ 105.4 million
The king of pop art, the publisher of Interview magazine and director Andy Warhol rules the ball with the high-budget film "The accident of the silver car (double catastrophe)." At Sotheby's auction on November 13, 2013, this silk-screen printing was sold to an unnamed collector for $ 105.4 million, thus setting the highest price for works by pop art artist (in 2008, Warhol’s painting “Eight Elvis” went into private $ 100 million collection). On the left side of the canvas are photographs of a car that crashed into a tree, which are repeated 15 times, and each version is unique: an incident is never identical; and to the right is the silver “ocean of promise” as a reflection of our ever-changing experience.
Damien Hirst, "For the Love of the Lord" (2007) / $ 100 million
Talented management and aggressive public relations campaign are inseparable from the success and achievements of Hurst. On August 30, 2007, he stated that he sold the work to an anonymous buyer for £ 50 million, but the editor of The Art Newspaper, Christina Ruiz, claimed that at that time the artist could not find a buyer and was trying to "fuse" the skull for 38 million pounds. As a result, immediately after this publication, the infamous artist Damien Hirst sold the “Diamond Skull” through the White Cube Gallery for 50 million pounds ($ 100 million) to a consortium that includes his manager Frank Dunphy, Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk and Hirst himself. According to critics, the market value of the work will only grow.
Pablo Picasso, The Boy with the Pipe (1905) / $ 104.168 million
It’s a paradox, but one of Picasso’s most expensive paintings was painted by him at the age of 24 in a cramped Paris hostel in Montmartre. According to rumors, the hero of the picture, the boy Louis, constantly wandered around the studio of Picasso and himself invited him to pose. “All local types hung around there - actors, ladies, gentlemen, criminals ... He sometimes stayed for a whole day, he liked to watch me work,” said the founder of Cubism about the young model. In 1950, the painting was purchased for $ 30,000 by John Hay Whitney, publisher of the Herald Tribune, and in May 2004, at Sotheby's, the painting was sold to an anonymous buyer for $ 104.168 million.
Jasper Johns, Falstart (1959) / $ 80 million
Jasper Jones, a native of South Carolina, lives in a former Connecticut farmhouse. In 1980, the Whitney Museum bought his painting with vivid symbols of the American flag "Three Flags" (1958) for $ 1 million dollars, which has long outgrown the scope of just a painting. Falstart has maintained its leading position in the art market for 26 years: in 1988, at the Sotheby's auction, the painting went to the collection of publishing magnate Samuel Irving Newhouse for $ 17.05 million, and already in 2006, during a private transaction, the painting was resold for $ 80 million for a married couple - Ann and Kenneth Griffin (founders of Citadel Investment Fund). The name of the painting was coined at the Cedar Tavern, where Jones liked the racing print.
Jeff Koons, "The Balloon Dog" (1994-2000) / $ 58.405 million
Neo-pop and kitsch master Jeff Koons is one of the most prolific and best-selling artists of the living. In 1988, his gilded sculpture of Michael Jackson with the monkey "Michael Jackson and Bubbles" went under the hammer at Sotheby's auction for $ 5.6 million. And in November 2013 at Christie's evening auction, another art object became the absolute champion - a steel orange “Balloon Dog” 3 meters high, polished to a mirror shine. A unique example of how an artist’s childhood hobbies can be sold for a record $ 58.405 million.
Roy Lichtenstein, "Woman in a Hat with Flowers" (1963) / $ 56.1 million
Roy Lichtenstein, an American artist, the "godfather" of a companion, is a classic example of a genius recognized during his lifetime (in 1989 his painting "Torpedo ... Los!" Was sold at Chrisie's for $ 5.5 million). Another famous work - “A Woman in a Hat with Flowers”, a remake of Pablo Picasso's painting “Dora Maar with a Cat” went under the hammer at Christie's auction in New York for a record 56.1 million in the private collection of the jeweler Lawrence Graff. It seems that the British billionaire clearly captures trends in the world of contemporary art and sees the monetary potential of the picture.
Mark Rothko, White Center (1950) / $ 72.84 million
In May 2007, at the Sotheby's auction, a painting by Mark Rothko, the founder of abstract field painting, owned by banker and statesman David Rockefeller, was sold to the Qatari royal family: Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and his wife, UNESCO envoy Mozint bin Nasser al Missned for 72.84 million dollars, setting a new record for the sale of the most expensive post-war abstract work of art. The recipe for Rothko’s most expensive painting: the average size is 205.8x141 cm, the mythology of the symbols and color fields are horizontal rectangles of yellow, white, lavender colors plus a black stripe. A talented author and influential buyers help the White Center to be still two steps ahead.
