01/10/2024 General News
The most expensive picture ever sold was Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi’, which fetched a staggering $450 million when it went on sale in New York in 2017 – the very definition of an ‘Old Master’, writes Daniel Smith.
But it might surprise you to learn that 14 of the 20 most expensive works of art ever sold were created in the 20th century, and three more of them in the last decade of the 19th century. Just three of that top 20 (including the da Vinci) were painted before 1890.
Of course, scandalous though the Impressionists were in their day, we probably wouldn’t regard Monet, Renoir and Sisley as ‘Modern Art’ nowadays. That phrase has a fluid definition, but in the saleroom the term really applies to those who were working in the second half of the 21st century, and into the 21st century.
The good news is that it is not just at the top end of the market where modern art is performing well at auction. Since Keys tentatively held our first Modern Art & Design Sale in 2013, the market has blossomed, and these sales are now a regular feature in our calendar.
At the last of these sales, in May, the star lot was a work by English artist and poet Julian Trevelyan. Born in Surrey in 1910, Trevelyan was educated at the progressive Bedales public school in Hampshire, before reading English Literature at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Immediately after finishing his studies, he moved to Paris to become an artist, working alongside such luminaries as Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso. After working as a camouflage officer during the Second World War, he became a highly influential teacher, first at the Chelsea School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art. His students included David Hockney and Norman Ackroyd.
Trevelyan worked for nearly half a century at Durham Wharf on the Thames, which was a rich source of inspiration for him. He embraced Surrealism, as well as innovating in modern print and etching techniques, playing a leading role in the etching revolution of the 1960s.
Trevelyan died in 1988, but his work remains hugely popular. More than a hundred of his works are held in the collection of the Tate Gallery, and many more are in private hands. Whenever one comes up for sale, it generates huge interest; in our Modern Art & Design Sale in May, an oil painting simply entitled ‘Malta’, dating from 1958, sold for £12,900, more than six times its upper estimate. Those with more limited budgets who want to own one of his artworks will find his limited edition etchings sell for more modest amounts.
As well as being increasingly popular, auctions of modern art tend to attract a very different set of bidders from more traditional picture sales. They tend to be younger, and with a higher proportion of individual collectors alongside the dealers.
This is art that people are buying to enjoy rather than necessarily as an investment. A champion of contemporary artists, Trevelyan would approve.