Most famous artists from the past have delved into the expression of self-portraits. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it was not until the Early Renaissance in the Mid-15th Century that artists can be frequently identified depicting themselves as either the main subject, or as important characters in their work.

Why DID so many famous artists paint self-portraits?

Practice Makes Perfect
In early times this was the best way to master portraiture experience before working with the client.

Calling Cards
Portraiture Artists used self-portraits as a calling card, validating their skills. Much like people today use business cards.

Status
Famous artists could paint themselves into a setting which gave status to where they lived.

Document Their Life
A creative and tedious form of today’s selfies! Artists also wanted to document their life and how they changed over the years. For instance van Gogh painted around 36 self-portraits in only ten years. Rembrandt produced the most self-portraits throughout his career.

Looking Deeper
Picasso had some interesting thoughts as to why he painted self-portraits. He once said “Are we to paint what’s on the face, what’s inside the face, or what’s behind it?”

To Make Millions of Dollars?
Famous artists that created million dollar self-portraits probably never dreamed that someday their portraits would sell for millions. If only they knew at the time!

The following 5 famous self-portraits have sold for millions.

“Self-portrait” by Andy Warhol Sold for $27.5 Million

Andy Warhol’s stark red-on-black Self-Portrait, sold for $27.5 Million in 2011. Created with acrylic and silkscreen on canvas, the painting measures almost 9 square feet. It was created toward the end of his life in 1986 and shows the artist, with hair spiked, looking directly at the viewer.

Picasso’s “Self-Portrait Yo Picasso” by Picasso Sold for $47.9 Million in 1989

Painted in June 1901, Yo Picasso is the first of that year’s three self-portraits and shows the 19-year old Picasso viewing himself with pride and confidence. Over the years Picasso’s style developed and his self portraits became more abstract.

“Portrait of an Artist Without His Beard” by Vincent by van Gogh

Painted in 1889, “Portrait of an Artist Without His Beard” sold for $71.5 million in 1998 in New York City. It was the second highest price for a van Gogh at auction and the third highest price for any artwork ever sold at auction.

What made van Gogh’s “Portrait of an Artist Without His Beard” so unique was that it was the only self-portrait he painted of himself without a beard, and it is said to be his last self-portrait. He painted the picture for his mother, Anna Cornelia Carbentus van Gogh, for her 70th birthday while he was in an asylum. He wanted to reassure her that we was doing fine. Ironically he committed suicide soon after.

“Self Portrait with Monkey” by Frida Kahlo Sold for $1 Million

Frida Kahlo, Mexico’s most famous woman artist is best known for her self-portraits that express the emotional effects of pain, loss and tragedy in her life. This self-portrait painted in 1940 was painted during Frida’s one year divorce from her husband Diego. The stance in the painting is direct and serious. Purchased by “Madonna” in the late 1980’s, she has collected several of Frida’s Paintings. Read more here on other famous Frida paintings.

Self-portrait with Hunting Horn by Max Beckmann

German artist Max Beckmann painted “Self-portrait with Hunting Horn” in 1938 while he was in exile in Amsterdam after the Nazis branded him a degenerate artist.

The painting fetched 22.5 million in 2001.

In “Self-Portrait with Hunting Horn”, Beckmann depicts himself alone in a confined, narrow space holding a Waldhorn (a German hunting horn) in his left hand and wearing a black-and red-striped housecoat. The eerie contrasts of the painting tell a much deeper story, the German horn which was used as a symbol of romanticism in German art and literature.

While there are many million dollar faces, these are a few that show the variety that past famous portrait artists have produced.

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Pablo Picasso is considered one of the most iconic artists of all time. The Old Guitarist is perhaps one of his most famous paintings from the Blue Period (1901 – 1904). The painting is expressive of the monochromatic style in which Picasso painted mainly in shades of blue and blue-green.

At the time of this painting in 1903, Picasso was very poor. His poverty gave him unique and emotional insights. It was also during this time that one of Picasso’s good friends had committed suicide and his feelings of sadness, melancholy and emptiness are expressed in his artwork.

Somber in color and subject matter, the painting we are about to look closer at is reminiscent of Francisco de Goya’s theatrical style.

The Old Guitarist – Composition Analysis

The Old Guitarist depicts an older haggard man on the streets of Barcelona, Spain. The composition expertly frames the mood and isolation in the painting.

In his early years, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting, and expertly applies the composition rules of thirds. The rules of thirds dictates that if you divide any composition into thirds vertically and horizontally and then place the key elements of your image along these lines or at the junction the arrangement will be more dynamic.

Thorough composition, paint, subject matter and intuition, an uncomfortable disconnect is presented to the viewer of the painting.

In the middle of the composition, The Guitarists right arm and hand seem to suspend in mid air. Elongated fingers curve towards his right leg which wraps him in a cocoon like state. At the top right of the composition the fingers are elegantly positioned in action and elevated a bit higher then the shoulders as if reaching beyond the confinement of the space.

The angular composition behind him (which is later prevalent in Picasso’s Cubism phase) seem to close in on the Guitarist compressing him into a tiny space that feels airless. Dramatic dark’s and lights further accent the composition as the final touch of melancholy.

The Guitar – The Most Valued Possession

The guitar in The Old Guitarist is a curiosity in the painting. Centered in the composition, the empty eyes of the Guitarist (expressing his blindness) align vertically at the junction of the third with his nose and mouth downward and then sweeping upward from the elbow to the delicate hands which bring your eyes to the guitar. The monochromatic style takes a slight turn as the guitar is painted a warmer color.

The guitar is the bright spot in the painting which may symbolize the most important possession the man has.

Homeless street musicians in Barcelona relied on a small income that could be earned from their music. The guitar being the most valued possession of the Old Guitarist and the music being his escape.

Was the guitar painted by Picasso in The Old Guitarist from a long line of famous guitar markers in Barcelona – starting with Juan Estruch Rosell in the late 19th century?

We will never know the whole story behind the life of The Old Guitarist, however Picasso in all his genius presents a scene that evokes emotions and impacts generations.

Interested in more Picasso articles? You might like to see these pictures of  Picasso in his studio in the 1960’s.

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Before the Scream Painting – A Brief Backstory

Edvard Munch was born December 12, 1863 in a farmhouse in the village of Ådalsbruk in Løten, United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway. Often ill and kept out of school, Edvard would draw to keep himself occupied. He was tutored by his school mates and his aunt. His Father, Christian Munch also instructed his son in history and literature and entertained the children with vivid ghost stories and the tales of American writer Edgar Allan Poe.

In 1879, Munch enrolled in a technical college to study engineering, where he excelled in physics, chemistry and math. He learned scaled and perspective drawing, but frequent illnesses interrupted his studies. The following year, much to his father’s disappointment, Munch left the college determined to become a painter.

At this time he wrote in his diary:

I have in fact made up my mind to become a painter.

Self-Portraits – His Inner World

His self-portraits were a theme of expression throughout his career. They have been compared to Rembrandt. His first self-portrait (shown above) in 1881-82 is one of his very first surviving painting and completed at the age of 18.

Throughout his life, his work remained consistent in that it expressed both his inner world and the world how he viewed it. From what he felt to what he saw. His work expressed private pain and trauma to an expression of themes and events around him. One such event that he painted and expressed with intensity was the death of his young sister Sophie. The theme of death would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Despair

Munch often used color not for naturalist description but to convey feeling, anxiety and intensity. One of his earlier paintings that expressed anxiety through color (before The Scream) was Despair painted in 1892 (shown above). From this painting The Scream evolved.

The Scream

It’s interesting that The Scream was somewhat a wild child of Munch’s work. No other painting produced by Munch had the same look and intensity as The Scream did.

The Scream exists in four versions: two pastels (1893 and 1895) and two paintings (1893 and 1910). There are also several lithographs of The Scream (1895 and later).

In 2012, The Scream sold for 119.9 million to financier Leon Black an American private equity investor. The $119.9-million price set a record for the most expensive artwork sold at auction.

The Scream is Munch’s most famous work, and one of the most recognizable paintings in all art. It has been widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man.

It departed from his earlier works in that the style was so harsh and coarsely applied. The mixed mediums – oils, gouche, tempura, pastel and pencil. The figure is devoid of identity and presence. It seems as if it’s frantically painted. The mouth forms a singular

O.

The wild red sky is an expression of the figures emotions: hopelessness and panic. The “loud, unending scream piercing nature,” comforts the viewer with emotions.

I Gave Up Hope

With this painting, The Scream, Munch met his stated goal of “the study of the soul, that is to say the study of my own self”. Munch wrote of how the painting came to be: “I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature.”

He later described the personal anguish behind the painting:

For several years I was almost mad… You know my picture, ‘The Scream?’ I was stretched to the limit—nature was screaming in my blood… After that I gave up hope ever of being able to love again.

Bordering on Insanity?

During the 1890’s and 1900’s Munch repeatedly defended himself against the charges of insanity and mental illness. However he had feared that he was genetically marked by mental illness from his father.

Munch wrote, “My father was temperamentally nervous and obsessively religious—to the point of psychoneurosis. From him I inherited the seeds of madness. The angels of fear, sorrow, and death stood by my side since the day I was born”.

Breakdown

In the autumn of 1908, Munch’s anxiety, compounded by excessive drinking and brawling, had become acute. As he later wrote, “My condition was verging on madness—it was touch and go.”

Experiencing hallucinations and feelings of persecution, he entered a clinic for eight months and received therapy which included diet and “electrification.” Munch’s stay in hospital stabilized his personality, and after returning to Norway in 1909, his work became more colorful and less pessimistic.

Later Years and Solitude

Munch never married and spent most of his last two decades in solitude at his nearly self-sufficient estate in Ekely, at Skøyen, Oslo. At this time he was a renowned and wealthy artist. Many of his late paintings celebrate farm life, including several in which he used his work horse “Rousseau” as a model. To the end of his life, Munch continued to paint unsparing self-portraits, adding to his self-searching cycle of his life and his unflinching series of takes on his emotional and physical states.

Upon his death in 1944 in Norway, at the age of 80, the authorities discovered—behind locked doors on the second floor of his house—a collection of 1,008 paintings, 4,443 drawings and 15,391 prints, as well as woodcuts, etchings, lithographs, lithographic stones, woodcut blocks, copperplates and photographs.

All his works of art were bequeath to the city of Oslo in Norway.

In May 2012, The Scream sold for $119.9 million, and is the second most expensive artwork ever sold at an open auction. (It was surpassed in November 2013 by Three Studies of Lucian Freud by painter Francis Bacon, which sold for $142.4 million)

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Mexico’s most famous woman artist is best known for her self-portraits that express the emotional effects of pain, loss, and tragedy in her life.

The following is a collection of photos of Frida by a variety of photographers in her lifetime. These are especially interesting and seem to capture her spirit. From age 4 and beyond, we hope you are inspired by these unique black and white photos of Frida.

All the pictures shown on Art and Design Inspiration are the property of their respective owners. We don’t hold any copyright on these pictures. These pictures have been collected from different public sources including different websites, considering to be in public domain.

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From one of the most powerful women in art to the woman who got her start in collecting vintage Hollywood photography; to the owner of the iconic The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, our selected seven have an interesting story.

Alice Walton

Alice Walton, the only daughter of the Late Sam Walton, co-founder of Wal-Mart is said to be the America’s richest art collector in America.

According to Forbes, Alice has been a collector of sorts since she was 11 years old, when she bought a 25-cent print of Picasso’s 1902 “Blue Nude” in one of her dad’s Ben Franklin stores (the chain he worked for prior to starting Walmart). She paid for it with five weeks of earnings from selling popcorn outside on the sidewalk.

In 2011 she built her own art museum in rural Arkansas, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

The museum’s permanent collection features American art from the Colonial era to the contemporary period. All of the featured artists are United States citizens, though some spent most of their art careers in Europe.

Notable works include:

• Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife by John Singer Sargent, purchased 19 May 2004 for $8.8 million
• Spring by Winslow Homer, purchased 1 December 2004 for $2.024 million
• Coca-Cola [3] by Andy Warhol, purchased 12 November 2013 for $57.3 million
• Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 by Georgia O’Keeffe, purchased 20 November 2014 for $44.405 million

And dozens more which can be explored virtually on Crystal Bridges.

Glenn Fuhrman

Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman are avid collectors of contemporary art. According to Forbes, he was an art history major, and remains a keen collector of art. Fuhrman has been listed in Business Insider’s 25 most serious Wall Street art collectors, and, with his wife Amanda, in ARTnews‘ top 200 most active contemporary art collectors. Founder of FLAG Art Foundation.

Sheikha Mayassa Al-Thani

33 year old Sheikha Mayassa Al-Thani is described by Forbes as the “undisputed queen of the art world.” In 2013 she was placed at the top of ArtReview’s Power 100 List and, according to them, her organization’s spending reaches a rate of $1 billion per year. In 2014, she was named on ARTnetnews’ The 100 Most Powerful Women in Art. She holds the record for £160m for the last privately held version of Paul Cezanne’s The Card Players.

Eli Broad

Los Angeles’ most powerful artwork patron, Eli Broad is described by The New Yorker as “the Lorenzo de’ Medici of Los Angeles,” Eli Broad has a net worth of $7.2 billion. He and his wife created the Broad Art Foundation in 1984, which now owns more than $2.2 billion worth of art which it lends to institutions around the world. Eli and Edythe Broad have a long history of supporting the arts in California and across the USA.

The Rubell Family

The Rubell Family Foundation was established in 1964 in New York by Donald and Mera Rubell. It is now one of the world’s largest, privately owned contemporary art collections located in Miami since 1993. The collection is constantly expanding and features well-known artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Kara Walker and Andy Warhol.

Bill and Maria Bell

Maria, the former head writer of CBS’s The Young and the Restless, a chair of the National Art Awards, and a former board co-chair of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), got her start collecting modestly priced George Hurrell vintage Hollywood photos.

Steven Cohen

Billionaire former hedge fund manager Steven Cohen, who is reportedly worth some $11.1 billion, is said to spend 20 percent of his income on art, with a collection that famously includes a Pollock drip painting and Damien Hirst’s iconic shark piece, which he bought from Charles Saatchi for $8 million in 2004. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living or the shark piece is an artwork created in 1991 by Damien Hirst, an English artist and a leading member of the “Young British Artists” (or YBA). It consists of a tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde in a vitrine.

In 2006, he offered to buy Picasso’s Le Rêve from Steve Wynn for $139 million, but Wynn accidentally put his elbow through the painting and the deal was off until last year, when Cohen finally purchased the painting, now repaired, for $155 million.

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This trend of understanding humanity has inspired generations of artists.

Modern Art reimagines art and the human form to resemble realism and worldliness.

Sigmund Freud studied the interior life of ordinary people and exposed layers to identity. Artists like Lucien Freud—Sigmund’s grandson—and Picasso have illustrated the depth of human subjectivity and solitude artistically.

Freud’s ideas about the human mind is depicted Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. The menacing figures disrupt the viewer’s want for proportion and symmetry. Picasso depicts a coarse profile of the human psyche through human figures who do not resemble classical models of the human form. Although less abstract than Picasso, Lucien Freud illustrates vastness and complexity with the subjects he observed, as seen in his portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.

Modern art favors micro perspectives over stereotypes of human behavior.

The way humans may imagine the activity in New York city, composed of traffic and bright lights, affects the experience of a person being there in the moment. It is even easier to imagine sharp-looking businessmen jaunting down Madison avenue. Modern art favors micro perspectives over molds and stereotypes of human behavior.

For example, a famous modern American artist captures this focus on the human mind. Edward Hopper’s the Automat (1927) depicts the Modernist style of eclipsing the macro, such as New York City, with the subjective. The Automat displays a female sunk in dusky colors while in a diner alone. Hopper concerns himself with nudity, or examining human loneliness.

Where Sigmund Freud employed a cigar and notebook to probe his subjects—Lucien Freud, in the same fashion, was equipped with a canvas and brush. Like Hopper, Freud portrays humans as vibrantly alone, musing in dream-like states.

Freud’s portrait Benefits Supervisor Sleeping uses the symbol of a couch that showcases his attention to subjects. Freud is concerned with intimately capturing the emotions of his models, similar to his grandfather’s sessions with patients who lounged on his famous therapy couch.

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping provokes a collision of responses that accentuate both grotesqueness and beauty; apathy and sadness. Lucien Freud fundamentally challenged the pantheon of classical art by challenging Western views about art and subjectivity.

Comparisons between classical and modern art showcase Lucien Freud’s innovations. For example, the heavy-set lady in Benefits Supervisor Sleeping is more naked than the marble statue of David. Her flesh bursts with obtuse dimensions and she appears to be alone. A stylistic choice of Lucien’s was to capture his model’s nakedness authentically by causing friction between intimacy and intrusion. Lucien captures his models in mental states that lack awareness of their nakedness or disproportion. Viewing a Lucien Freud portrait irks the spectator to feel embarrassment for the model’s nakedness.

Classical art can appear fixed. The statue of David’s marble body is a popular example. Modern art, opposed to classical art, sketches humans as worldly, grotesque, and strangely beautiful.

As an art viewer, perception and meaning-making practices are yours to make.

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His father was a stern Quaker Farmer who died when Wood was 10. Following the death of his father, the family lost the family farm and Wood and his mother and sibling’s grew up in 10×16 foot shanty in the outskirts of Cedar Rapids.

His encouragement for art came through his mother and by the age of 15 he was turning out watercolors with professional ease in his spare time while working as a machinist helper, farmer and handyman jobs to help ends meet. He was the sole provider for his family.

“The only drawing materials I could get”,  he said, “were large sheets of cheap white cardboard that we enclosed in the wooden boxes of huge crackers that father bought in Anamosa… My first studio was underneath the oval dining room table which was covered with a red checkered cloth, the cloth hung with nice arched openings on both sides”.

Considered the “painter of the soil”, the small town atmosphere, farmland landscaping, family support and personal ambition, would become a significant factor of his future success as an artist. Articles published in Cedar Rapids referred to his work with pride as the artist who was “planting art in Iowa.

American Gothic – Celebrated as a Representation of the Pioneer Spirit

Grant Wood is mostly known for his iconic painting American Gothic. It is among the most recognized paintings in twentieth century American art, the painting is the model for hundreds of parodies across every creative medium.

The concept for the painting the home (also known as the Dibble House which exists in Eldon, Iowa) in the background was first sketched on the back of an envelope. Wood was inspired and captivated by the home and he painting the house along with the people he imagined might live there. The models, Wood’s sister, Nan, wearing a colonial print apron mimicking 19th century Americana, and Wood’s dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby never sat in front of the house, and each element was painted separately.

Upon completion, American Gothic was submitted to the annual painting completion at the Art Institute of Chicago. The Judges dismissed the painting as “comic valentine,” but a museum patron suggested that they reconsider and they awarded Grant a bronze medal and a $300 prize.

However the when the picture finally appeared in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, real Iowa farmers and their wives were not amused. To them, the painting looked like a nasty caricature, portraying Midwestern farmers as pinched, grim-faced, puritanical Bible-thumpers.

One Iowa farmwife told Wood he should have his “head bashed in.” Another threatened to bite off his ear. Hurt by the criticism, Wood declared himself a “loyal Iowan” and insisted that the figures were not intended to be farmers but small-town folk, not Iowans but generic Americans.

The Great Depression changed perceptions and American Gothic was no longer understood as satirical, but as a celebratory expression of populist nationalism.

Critics extolled the farmer and his wife as steadfast embodiments of American virtue and the pioneer spirit.

American Gothic is Wood’s most famous painting one of the few images to reach the status of the widely recognized cultural icon, comparable to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch’s The Scream.

Portrait of Nan – The American Mona Lisa

When Grant Wood used his sister as the female model for American Gothic, he could not have foreseen how deeply her likeness would resonate. His rendering of a plain, stern-faced Iowa woman has a timeless, enigmatic quality that led some viewers to call her the “American Mona Lisa.”

Yet the image also stirred up some meanness. When American Gothic was first shown in 1930, there were critics who said that she looked like her face would turn milk sour. Wood was very close with his sister and she was one of his biggest advocates. As a sort of apology Wood painted Portrait of Nan in 1933. The painting was one of his works that he kept for himself.

Nan kept a detailed record of Wood’s paintings and articles though out the years in a scrapbook, shown here is an picture of Wood with a paintbrush and a dental instrument which he used to cut lithograph stones.

Spring in Town – His Last Painting

Spring in Town was Wood’s last painting before he died in February 1942. The painting was completed while he vacationed in a cottage dubbed “No Kare – No More,” It is believed that the idyllic scene emerged unconsciously from his greatest care of all: the childhood loss of his father and of the family’s Anamosa farm.

Significantly, Wood’s first conception of the picture coincided with the fortieth anniversary of father’s death on March 17, 1901. And as he began his composition, Wood chose for its central clapboard structure a house that stood at the edge of a cemetery. The earthen plot in Spring in Town doubles as garden and grave, while the figures surrounding it evoke family members who go about life without father.

“In making these paintings, as you may have guessed, I had in mind something which I hope to convey to a failry wide audience in America – the picture of a country rich in the arts of peace: a homely, lovable nation, infinitely wirth any sacrifice necessary to its preservation”

After the U.S. entered World War II, Saturday Evening Post enlisted Spring in Town as patriotic propaganda. The Post presented the tidy neighborhood scene overlooked by a church as a response to the question “For What Are We Fighting?”

Grant Wood’s last painting was published on the cover of Saturday Evening Post April 18 1942.

Arnold Comes of Age Captures Vulnerability

Grant Wood, Arnold Comes of Age, was painted in 1930 the same year as American Gothic. When Wood’s assistant, Arnold Pyle, turned twenty-one, the artist decided to commemorate the event with a portrait. The result is the stiff and shy image of a deeply serious Arnold, tall and gawky and yet sensitivity captured. The obviousness of the attributes the river of life, the cornsheaths, the butterfly at Arnold’s elbow, all express abstract thoughts, but Arnold’s expression, facing down adulthood, seems to reflect what Wood himself must have felt in his earlier years. Wood himself was known to be shy until he was well into his forties and had achieved national recognition for his work.

Tragically, in 1973, Pyle was killed in an automobile accident.

Beyond Parody

American Gothic is a frequently parodied image. However beyond the parody Grant Wood was a success in his day… a rags to riches story. His depictions of small town, simple life, and farming emphasized American life in a simple way, yet expressed with sensitivity. His work today brings a feeling of nostalgia and a glimpse into early American farm life in the rural Midwest.

Sources
Iowa Digital Library
digital.lib.uiowa.edu/

Grant Wood Art Colony
grantwood.uiowa.edu/springtime-myth-and-memory-grant-woods-last-paintings

Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gothic_House

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Jackson Pollock nicknamed ‘Jack the Dripper’ was born on January 28, 1912 in Cody, Wyoming. Throughout his childhood, his family lived on a succession of truck farms in Arizona and Southern California. When he was sixteen, Pollock first studied art at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, where he met Philip Guston and Reuben Kadish, two friends who later became artists. As they say… the rest is history.

Drip Style Painting

Paul Jackson Pollock was a major influence in the Abstract Expressionist movement. Abstract Expressionism was aimed at subjective emotional expression with particular emphasis on the creative spontaneous act or action painting. Pollock was well known for his unique style of drip painting, earned the nickname “Jack the Dripper” because of his technique.

During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety; he was a major artist of his generation. Regarded as reclusive, he had a volatile personality, and struggled with alcoholism for most of his life. Tragically he died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related single-car collision.

Master or Farce?

Pollack’s painting style has been studied and questioned for decades. Considered by some as a ‘farce’ and others as a ‘master of art’, one thing is for sure, his painting and style was expressive and stirred emotion and questions.

Number 5 – Top Most Expensive Painting in History

On the ten most expensive paintings in history, No. 5 painted in 1948, a 8-foot by 4-foot piece of fibreboard, covered in drips of brown and yellow paint sold for 165.4 million in 2006.

A ‘drip’ – A Recent Find

In June 2017, a long-lost Jackson Pollock painting once owned by a New York City socialite — and worth up to $15 million — was discovered in a dusty Arizona garage. The splattered abstract art was found in a Scottsdale home when the owner was actually having a L.A. Lakers basketball poster appraised. The appraiser happened to notice an orange and green painting featuring Pollack’s signature splatter under a pile of art.

One thing lead to another and the appraiser hired a private investigator to prove it was the real deal. Lucky find that day!

Pollock created many important works of art in his short life. In December 1956, four months after his death, Pollock was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City which was an important influence on his career and on his legacy.

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On November 15th, 2017, the painting which once sold at auction in 1958 for just £45, which is an equivalent to $90, smashes records at Christie’s in a historic bidding match. It was estimated for $100 million and soared to 450.3 Million. It is believed that this is the most ever paid for an artwork.

According to Artnews:
“It was purchased by a client on the phone with department head Alex Rotter after a 19-minute session that involved five bidders, four on the phone and one in the room.‭”

The bids came from every part of the world.

Who bought Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi? The Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman is the new owner.

Speculations abounded regarding the purchase on the last privately owned da Vinci. News broke on Dec. 7th 2017,  from the Louvre Abu Dhabi, saying that the newly inaugurated Emirati museum was going to display the painting. The Louvre Abu Dhabi revealed that it had actually acquire the work through Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism, though it is still unclear how the acquisition was made and what connection it has to Prince Mohammed. According to ArtNews,  “The Saudi Arabian embassy in America said that Prince Bader has been a supporter of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and that on November 8, at the Louvre’s opening ceremony, the Department of Culture and Tourism approached the prince and asked him to act as an “intermediary purchaser.” The statement does not mention Prince Mohammed, the piece’s true buyer.”

Who is Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud?

Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud  also known as MBS, is the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, also serving as First Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs and Minister of Defense—currently the world’s youngest office holder. Few people outside Saudi Arabia had heard of Prince Mohammed bin Salman before his father became king in 2015. But since then, the 32-year-old has become the most influential figure in the world’s leading oil exporter. 

Known to be a fan of the arts, he used a proxy to buy the masterpiece.

The History of Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World)

Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World) dates from around 1500 – 1506 and measures measures 45×65 cm (26×18 inches). It’s a fairly newly discovered Masterpiece and was authenticated in 2005. It was presumed to have been destroyed when all traces of the work was lost until 1900 at which time Sir Frederick Cook acquired the painting. The painting sustained several over-paint jobs over the years that obscured its true identity and its authorship by Leonardo forgotten.

Not knowing the painting was an original by Leonardo, Cook’s descendants sold the painting at auction in 1958 for just £45 which is an equivalent to $90.

In 2005, the painting was acquired from an American estate and brought to a consortium of art dealers and a New York art historian and private dealer named Robert Simon for study.

Salvator Mundi Before Restoration

The Masterpiece had been heavily overpainted, which makes it look like a copy. It was dark and gloomy and had been cleaned many times in the past by people who didn’t know better. Once a restorer put artificial resin on it, which had turned gray, it had to be removed painstakingly. After an extensive conservation treatment by New York-based conservator Dianne Dwyer Modestini, the painting was examined by a series of international scholars.

After the restoration was completed, which took almost a year, a consensus was reached that the Salvator Mundi was in fact the original by Leonardo da Vinci.

There are currently some 15 authenticated Leonardo da Vinci paintings in the world. But they are difficult to attribute, because da Vinci often left his works unfinished.

The last painting by Leonardo da Vinci to be discovered was the “Benois Madonna” in 1909.

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