$1.6 BILLION
Do women have to be naked to get the highest price? ‘Record auction at Christie’s’, ‘Most expensive ever..’, ‘What sold at Frieze?’ Naked women, painted by male artists, sold for astronomical amounts of money. The highest price ever paid for an artwork by a female artist is only 10% of the most expensive painting ever: Georgia O’Keeffe, $44 million. So 30 years after the Guerrilla Girls already asked in 1989: ‘Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?’, not too much has changed. It’s about money and power in a male dominated world.
Installation view The Anti Art Fair, London, during Frieze London, 2018. Curated by Elijah Wheat Showroom (New York) and Creative Debuts
Decades after the Guerrilla Girls, on worldwide auctions between 2008 and 2022 only 3% (THREE PERCENT!!!!) of the art was made by women. Picasso, asshole, and misogynist, made more money on auctions than all women artists together. Read the Burns Halperin Report
May 15, 2018. Amedeo Modigliani’s trophy nude, Nu couche (sur la cote gauche), 1917, is the largest in the painter’s series of 22 nudes. It ranks as the highest price for any lot sold in Sotheby’s history, and the fourth most expensive work of art sold at auction, trailing a Leonardo, a Picasso, and another Modigliani nude.
I made all the nudes look angry. Oil and acrylic on raw linen, 35x22 inch (90x55cm), 2018
November 9, 2015. A painting by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, “Nu Chouché” sold for $172.6 million at a Christie’s auction.
Oil and acrylic on raw linen, 39x26inch (98x65cm), 2018
May 2010. A painting that Picasso created in a single day in 1932 became the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction. In an overflowing salesroom at Christie’s, six bidders vied for “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” which depicts the artist’s mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, reclining naked.
Oil and acrylic on raw linen, 20x22 inch (50x55cm), 2018
May 8, 2018. Young Girl with a Flower Basket (Fillette à la corbeille fleurie or Jeune fille nue avec panier de fleurs or Fillette nue au panier de fleurs or Le panier fleuri) is a 1905 painting by Pablo Picasso.
Picasso was a pedophile #justsaying. Oil and acrylic on raw linen, 18x36inch (45x93cm), 2018
November 2015, Sotheby’s. La Gommeuse (The Nightclub Singer), which hides a second hidden portrait of an art dealer on its back, sold for $67.5 million, setting a new record for a blue period Picasso.
Oil and acrylic on raw linen, 15x22inch (39x55cm), 2018
May 2018. At Christie’s, Henri Matisse’s Odalisque couchée aux magnolias (1923) went for $80.75 million, a record for a work by the artist at auction. The piece found a buyer after only about three minutes of bidding.
Oil and acrylic on raw linen, 18x14inch (45x35cm), 2018
November 2014, Sotheby’s New York. Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (1932) by Georgia O’Keeffe sold for $44.4 million, more than triple the previous auction record for a work by a female artist. The previous world auction record for any work by a female artist was $11.9 million, for Joan Mitchell’s Untitled at Christie’s in May 2014.
Oil and Acrylic on canvas, 35x43inch (90x110cm), 2018
May 2015. Pablo Picasso’s Les femmes d'Alger (Version 'O') sold for $179.4 million to the former Prime Minister of Qatar. #WTF
Together with the most expensive auctioned painting ever, Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci, bought by Mohamed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, this booth on TAAF was worth $1.6 billion.
UPDATE 2023:
new auction records on nudes have been set. November 2022 From the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's collection Georges Seurat's Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version) sold for $149.2 million. Paul Gaugin's Maternité II, sold for $106 million.
New records for women artists:
In 2019 Louise Bourgeois' (1911-2010) Spider (1996) became the most expensive sculpture by a contemporary female artist, selling for $32 million. November 2021: Frida Kahlo's 'Diego y yo' sold for $34.9 million at Sotheby's.
LOOK AGAIN
Installation view at group show Let’s Get Political, Studio Seine, Rotterdam. War Rug Look Again. Collage of paintings inspired by multimillion-dollar pieces by Modigliani, Matisse and Picasso, with their naked - angry - models. Wall tapestry, 100% cotton, 60x80inch (150x200cm), edition 2+1 A.P. 2021
On the right artwork by Joyce Overheul
WAR RUG LOOK AGAIN, 50x60inch (120x150cm), edition 2+1 A.P., 2022
LOOK AGAIN Microfibre cloth for your glasses. To make you look even better. Picasso - Matisse - Modigliani, 7x6inch (18x15cm), 2021
Small studies, oil on raw linen, 2018
