$1.6 billion
DO WOMEMN HAVE TO BE NAKED TO GET THE HIGHEST PRICE?
The Anti Art Fair, London (during Frieze London), 2018
‘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 20 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, not about the art. We see prices, rather than the paintings.
The paintings were shown at The Anti Art Fair in London, during Frieze London, 2018, curated by Elijah Wheat Showroom, New York and Creative Debuts
November 9, 2015. A painting by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani sold for $172.6 million at a Christie’s auction. The painting, titled “Nu Couché,” is one of Modigliani’s bold nudes. The only painting to sell for more at auction was Picasso’s “Les femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’),” which took the record in May when it sold for $179.4 million, also at Christie’s.The sale took nine minutes, and the winning bidder was Chinese art collector and billionaire Liu Yiqian.
Oil and acrylic on raw linen, 39 x 26 inches / 98 x 65 cm, 2018
May 15, 2018. Impressionist and modern art sale at Sotheby’s. Amedeo
Modigliani’s trophy nude, Nu couche (sur la cote gauche), 1917, is the largest
in the painter’s storied 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.
Oil and acrylic on raw linen, 35 x 22 inches (90 x 55 cm), 2018
May 2018. At Christie’s sale of 19th- and 20th-century works from the collection of the late Peggy and David Rockefeller, 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, as a handful of collectors vied for the work.
Oil and acrylic on raw linen, 18 x 14 inches (45 x 35 cm), 2018
May 2010. A painting that Picasso created in a single day in March 1932 became the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction on Tuesday night. 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. “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” brought $106.5 million.
Oil and acrylic on raw linen, 20 x 22 inches (50 x 55 cm), 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. The hidden work, under the lining on the reverse side of the canvas, is a playful portrait of the artist’s friend, Pere Manach, depicted in the style of an Indian god. The piece was
sold by Bill Koch, the US oil billionaire, who bought La Gommeuse in 1984
for £1.4 million.
Oil and acrylic on raw linen, 15 x 22 inches (39 x 55 cm), 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. The David and Peggy Rockefeller’s collection was auctioned in May 2018 by Christie’s, and sold for $115 million on 8 May 2018.
Oil and acrylic on raw linen, 18 x 36 inches (45 x 93 cm), 2018
The 1964 pop art creation “Nurse” by American artist Roy Lichtenstein sold for $95.4 million at a Christie’s New York, on November 9, 2015. It was a record for the Pop artist. The masterpiece, with the artist’s signature Ben-Day dots, was painted at the height of Lichtenstein’s career. The auction house described it as a “quintessential Lichtenstein heroine” borrowed from a comic romance
novel of the early 1960s.
Oil and acrylic on wood panel, 12 x 14 inches (30 x 35 cm), 2018
November 2014. A Georgia O’Keeffe painting of a simple white flower has
sold for $44.4 million, more than triple the previous auction record for a work by a female artist. Sotheby’s New York says the 1932 painting, Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, sold during the auction house’s sale of American art.
The previous world auction record for any work by a female artist was $11.9 million. That was the price for Joan Mitchell’s Untitled at Christie’s New York in May 2014.
Oil and Acrylic on canvas, 35 x 43 inches (90 x 110 cm), 2018