Most Expensive Painting Ever Sold
Making your art-snob friends jealous can be a full-time job. With the regularly fluctuating market and exorbitant prices that fine art fetches these days, you’ve got to be quick to stay on top of the game. In November of 2006, action-painter Jackson Pollock’s No.5 1948 took the cake as most expensive painting sold to date. Sold by music mogul David Geffen of Geffen Records, it was claimed to have fetched $140 million. Pollock, who passed in 1956 at the age of 42, is a new addition to the list of prized canvases. While his paintings are highly regarded, this is the first of his works to skyrocket to such an exorbitant price. The painting itself, apparently a mixture of oil and canvas created in his highly successful “drip” style, is a swirling mixture of earth tones and black and white, that to the untrained eye may appear a splattered mess. His paintings have a certain harmony and are developed in such an enigmatic way that they are sure to hold some public interest for years to come.
Pollock’s No.5 1948
Mid-summer 2006, Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I was previously the most expensive painting sold. Fetching $135 million, the gold inlaid portrait is an excellent example of artwork from the Viennese Secession. This piece is a member of a particularly influential portfolio, as Klimt and his cohorts struggled to turn the art establishment of the time on its ear and still make highly involved, lavish, and beautiful works. The highly decorative painting breaks from traditional portraiture in its avoidance of focus on natural lighting in favor of the nearly psychedelic texture and pattern-making. The painting still exhibits a great deal of skill and handling in the face and figure, while revealing the early stages of the distortions Egon Scheile would embrace in his work in.
Sold to Ronald Lauer of the Neue Galerie in New York, Klimt’s portrait toppled the lead Pablo Picasso’s Boy with a Pipe had held for two years. Selling for $104.1 million at auction, this handsome piece displays a seated figure with a pipe in front of a decorative floral pattern. The painting captures something of realism mixed with a dark ambience. Despite a relatively bright pallet, the face of the seated boy reveals a darker demeanor.
Adjusting for inflation, two paintings sold to Ryoei Saito in 1990 close out the top five spots on a list of most expensive paintings ever sold. Pierre Auguste Renoir’s amazing Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre, depicting a lavish outdoor ball in France, fetched $78 million at auction. Today, the inflation-adjusted value of this painting is approximately 110 million. Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet, purchased for $82.5 million by Saito, is now valued at $116.8 million. Saito passed in 1996, leaving the paintings’ whereabouts currently unknown.
Worthy of note is that many highly prized paintings are held tightly in the grip of permanent museum collections, and while more highly valued, are unlikely to be presented on the auction block. The Mona Lisa by DaVinci, for example held an insurance value of $100 million prior to a world tour in 1960. Today, this value is approximated at over $600 million, and the painting is encased in layer upon layer of bulletproof glass at the Musee de Lourve in Paris.
With the exception of the gold inlay and decorative encrusting on many of Klimt’s paintings, these artworks hold little, if any material value. Made generally of stretched canvas, wood and nails, it is their cultural significance and unquestionable rarity that propels these images to such astronomical prices. Picasso holds several seats on the list of highest priced paintings, because while rare and extremely influential, his paintings are at times still traded on the open market, not yet sequestered strictly to museum status. These values, as in any other commodity see a ridiculous inflation towards the extremes of the market. Seemingly set aside for only the super-rich, fine art has long been an exercise in elitism. An interesting note is a return in recent years to the figurative work of the impressionists and artists like Klimt, simultaneous with a revival of realism in depiction of the figure in current art trends. It is reassuring in many ways to see Klimt as the most highly valued, as he was an innovator for his time that stood for progress not only in his work but in his lifestyle, political and societal viewpoints.
Armando C.
says:That looks like my little brothers coloring book!
densaleagion
says:that looks like a dog turd rolled around in yellow carpet
anas
says:why people keep saying that? my child can do that, my sis can do that, mine can do this. did they really do or did? this is not about what you see, this is about what you feels, this is about what the painter feel when he doing the painting. what people really have is, the finished work. and why don’t you try yourself. maybe this is not your field, why must to say something to another people. think about yourself. respect another, shine your heart. if you don’t like something, just keep silence. maybe that not realate to your life.
Jen
says:its action painting. perhaps they would have to know a little bit more about contemporary art history to be able to appreciate it. regardless, people appreciate what they want to and are under no obligation to appreciate all art. They have every right to voice their opinion about it whether or not they have a background in art history. besides, art criticism is essential to contemporary art. it keeps artists thinking and it keeps an open dialogue between artists and the rest of the art community as well as the general public.
rade
says:cmon this is so abstract! one must read his biograph, autobiography, critics and still argue on meaning
pablo
says:May be this story is endless,Klimt was the most expensive painter of the world, then Pollock, and may be tomorrow Dogmael DAMIEN, and then ?
Endless story…
Vivienne
says:Eh… why does abstract art have no meaning to me? ):
My brain must be too simple.
Blah.
rahne'[wall dwellers]
says:very attractive painting!
don giovanni
says:I do agree with jen
emperor
says:It’s art. Anybody can hate it, anyone can like it. It’s perhaps a abstract – anyone can attract on it, it may distract anybody. I better like traditional Leonardo’s masterpiece rather than technological-pace-like paintings.
tomkat
says:Abstract art should be appreciated for what it really is and not turned into a priceless work of "art". When an absorbant amount of money is paid for something so abstract it only exempifies how gullable we are and influenced we are to advertising and marketing. And shows that you can be manipulated to believe anything. Fools gold comes to mind.
vinnie
says:it’s just look like a piece of junk to me. why the maker make a “little piece of junk” painting? I think leonardo da vinci’s painting is more good, beautiful, historic, worth very muchhhhhh than that “worthless thing”!!!
Ivy
says:The Mona Lisa should be the most expensive painting. the insurance in 1967 was $100 million but because with inflation it would cost around $670 million.
judy goldstein
says:Isn't that merely a piece of linoleum hanging there? How can Pollack compare to da Vinci or Rembrandt? It's just silly. It may be the most expensive, but it simply is not the best.
NoWAK
says:This is what abstract art is all about. This may truely be the core of 20th century art, the idea of painting outside the lines. Sure Picasso is more famous and sure the Mona Lisa may be the most known painting in the world, but there is something that Pollock did that was different than all other artist. He used his pain and feelings to paint a story of good and evil that was battling inside of the lonely shell of his soul. He has been thought hell and back and his art work can talk to you in ways words could not. Befor you judge art, see it thought the artist eye’s…I am sure your judgement would change. And I am not going to say this is the best piece of art but I still show respect that all good art should get. -Wak
Ugh.
says:Hey jerks, look up “fractals” and “Pollock” together and you might get an idea of its artistic value.
rouge
says:i wouldt even pay 1 dollar for that,not even 1 penny.
opeoluwa ogunyakin
says:art is not meant for everyone, it is meant for some people who knows it
luis
says:no, your brother, sister, cousin, etc… cannot do this. The reason being that the idea and convention behind the painting is what has value;this was very revolutionary during the 1940’s and it can never be replicated. By the way, this Pollock’s art is not supposed to have meaning it is NON-OBJECTIVE art, not abstract
zeki
says:this is weird but i can see why its that expensive.
Keith
says:You don’t have to be an artist or an art historian to have an opinion. This painting was painted long enough ago to not be neglected on its merit. Therefore if it looks like junk, it likely is. A true masterpiece, such as the Mona Lisa, Starry Night are ageless. Who doesn’t love those? Given this painting I would not look up a fractal. Given a Cezanne, I would look up cloissoning. This painting does appeal to a certain segment of people for sure. I would say those are the same people that have too much money than what they know with what to do.
Keith
says:I wouldn’t pay $100 Million for that painting, but I would pay $100 Million for the email list of all the people that would; You can sell them anything.
Keith
says:After more careful consideration, the value of this painting is close to the “rookie baseball card” phenomenon. It takes no skill to create a rookie baseball card. It serves no real purpose to decorate a wall. However, scores of people will associate a ridiculous monetary value on it because it is supposedly a “first.” They tell everybody they own it and how unique it is. Yet they often hide it because it has no beauty. Ironically, I actually prefer a rookie Babe Ruth card to this painting. That at least is nostalgic.
Vivian Elliott
says:I truly wish this painting belonged to me.
Then again, I never buy lotto tickets and I also never attempt to sell my paintings.
Amanda
says:i think your add was amazing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Juan
says:It’s not so much the painting the people are buying here, because the painting is ugly, it looks like he just gave up and threw extra paints he had together, probably joking at the same time about it. What the people are buying here is the freaking name, so get over it. It’s just the name, not the painting. Case closed.
PeopleSuck
says:Seems like a bunch of yuppies had to one up each other at the auction. There are artists and pieces of art that are much better than this.
herocious
says:Funny that David Geffen was the previous owner of what are now the top TWO most expensive paintings ever sold.
http://theopenend.com/2010/03/03/most-expensive-paintings-ever-sold/
Dushyant Rathore
says:i agree wid anas its nt about hw the painting is looking its about hw the painter feels and what emotion it is depicting . i hope all the people here may have understood this point. so nxt time when u draw a painting just feel wat u r drawing and ur modern art will shine wid respect.
Dushyant Rathore
says:i agree wid anas
Mercia
says:A true insult to the word ART! Someone has to be seriously disturbed to think that is a work of ART! Serious, no wonder nobody respects artists like this……..