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Did You Know?
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- The Terror of War (1972), The Burning Monk (1963), Guerillero Heroico (1960), V-J Day in Times Square (1945), and Migrant Mother (1936) are
the most iconic and influential photographs from history; these images have left an indelible mark on our collective memory, and continue to shape our understanding of history, culture, and human experiences:
- The Terror of War (1972): Associated Press photographer Nick Ut captured the raw impact of conflict during the Vietnam War; the haunting image shows 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running naked,
her body burned by napalm. It became a cultural shorthand for the war's atrocities.
- The Burning Monk (1963): Malcolm Browne's photograph of Thich Quang Duc self-immolating in Saigon during the Buddhist crisis is a powerful symbol of protest and sacrifice.
- V-J Day in Times Square (1945): Alfred Eisenstaedt's joyful photo of a sailor kissing a nurse celebrates the end of World War II and the hope for peace.
- Guerillero Heroico (1960): Alberto Korda's portrait of Che Guevara has become a revolutionary symbol worldwide.
- Migrant Mother (1936): Dorothea Lange's iconic image of a Depression-era mother and her children epitomizes the struggles faced during the Great Depression.
- Laocoön and His Sons, Venus of Willendorf, Bust of Nefertiti, and Terracotta Army are most famous iconic sculptures in the art history:
- Laocoön and His Sons (Second Century BC): A powerful sculpture depicting a Trojan priest and his sons being attacked by sea serpents; it's a masterpiece of ancient Greek art.
- Venus of Willendorf (28,000–25,000 BC): This tiny figurine, measuring just over four inches in height, was discovered in Austria; its purpose remains a mystery, but it's considered one of the earliest sculptures in art history.
- Bust of Nefertiti (1345 BC): Unearthed in 1912, this stucco-coated limestone bust symbolizes feminine beauty; it's believed to depict Queen Nefertiti, who may have ruled as Pharaoh after her husband Akhenaten's death.
- The Terracotta Army (210–209 BC): Discovered in 1974 near the tomb of China's first Emperor, Shi Huang, this massive clay army consists of over 8,000 life-size soldiers, horses, and chariots meant to protect him in the afterlife.
- Pablo Picasso's "Guernica", Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night", Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa", Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam", Sandro Botticelli's "Primavera", Salvador Dalí's "The Persistence of Memory", and
Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" are the most famous paintings, and continue to inspire and resonate with audiences worldwide:
- Pablo Picasso's "Guernica": This mural-sized painting reflects the horrors of the Spanish Civil War; it's a powerful anti-war statement in response to this war.
- Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night": A swirling, expressive depiction of the night sky.
- Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa": An enigmatic portrait that has captivated viewers for centuries.
- Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam": Part of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, it portrays the biblical creation of Adam.
- Sandro Botticelli's "Primavera": This exquisite tempera painting depicts a crowd gathered in an orange grove; the lack of linear perspective adds to its unique charm.
- Salvador Dalí's "The Persistence of Memory": Dalí's surreal melting clocks evoke a dreamlike quality.
- Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring": A mesmerizing depiction of a young woman with a pearl earring, shrouded in mystery.
- Felice Beato (1832 – 29 January 1909), also known as Felix Beato, was one of the first British-Italian photographers
to take pictures in East Asia. He is recognized for his genre works, portraits, and views and panoramas
of the architecture and landscapes of Asia and the Mediterranean region. Beato's travels to many places gave him the opportunity to create powerful and lasting photos of countries, people and events that were unfamiliar and remote to most people in
Europe and North America. His work provides the key images of such events as the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and
the Second Opium War and his photographs represent the first substantial oeuvre of what came to be called photojournalism. Beato's photographs of Asia constituted the standard imagery of travel
diaries, illustrated newspapers, and other published accounts, and helped shape "Western" notions of several Asian societies.
- The most expensive living artist is Jasper Johns, an American painter, sculptor and printmaker whose work is associated with
abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art; he is well known for his depictions of the
American flag and other US-related topics. One of his series flag paintings "Flag" (1958)
was sold privately to hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen for a reported $110 million in 2010.
- David Hockney, one of the most influential living British artists of the 20th century, sold one of his paintings, "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" (1972)
at Christie's auction house in New York City for $90 million in November 2018. This large acrylic-on-canvas pop art
measures 7 ft × 10 ft (2.1 m × 3.0 m). and depicts two figures, one swimming underwater and one clothed male figure looking down at the swimmer.
- Qatar purchased Cézanne’s "The Card Players" for more than $250 million, it's highest price ever for a work of art.
- The world's most expensive painting "Salvator Mundi" ($450.3m)
is authentic Leonardo.
- Jeff Koons has become the most expensive work by a living American artist ever to sell at auction, his "Rabbit," a stainless steel figure measuring just
over 3 feet tall, sold for more than $91 million in May 2019 at Christie's in New York, smashing auction estimates. The new record comes just six months after
David Hockney's "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" set a new benchmark for a living artist, when it sold for
$90.3 million in November 2018 at Christie's in New York. The British painter's artwork had itself overtaken Koons' "Balloon Dog (Orange)" sculpture, the previous record-holder, which went for
$58.4 million in 2013.
- In 1954, two years after being discharged from the United States Army, the 24-year-old Jasper Johns had a vivid dream of the American flag.
Today Johns’s flags are in the permanent collections of the MoMA, the Whitney, and the Tate.
In 2010, Flag (1958), previously owned by Johns’ gallerist Leo Castelli, sold for $110 million to a private collection, making it one of the most expensive works ever sold. At multiple times
works by Johns have held the title of most paid for a work by a living artist.
- When Chinese-born artist Zao Wou-Ki died in April 2013, he left behind decades of work made as a émigré in France and Switzerland.
At the time, his work was selling for $1 million to $2 million; in 2017, works of Wou-Ki’s at auction grossed $156 million;
and in 2018, there have already been more than $135 million in sales, and his market is on track to go even higher. Zao's work 'Juin-Octobre 1985', which was sold for $61m at at Sotheby's, Hong Kong, on September 1, 2018,
is the most expensive painting ever to go under the hammer in Hong Kong.
- The world's most expensive painting sold at auction:
Salvator Mundi | Leonardo da Vinci | (1490-1519) | sold for $450.3m (€382m).
- Interchange | Willem de Kooning | (1955) | sold for $300m (€254m).
- The Card Players | Paul Cézanne | (1892/93) | sold for $250m (€212m).
- Nafea Faa Ipoipo | Paul Gauguin | (1892) | sold for $210m (€178.3m).
- Number 17A | Jackson Pollock | (1948) | sold for $200m (€169.8m).
- No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red) | Mark Rothko | (1951) | sold for $186m (€157.9m).
- Portraits of Maerten Soolmans/Oopjen Coppit | Rembrandt | (1634) | sold for $180m (€152.8m).
- Les Femmes d’Alger (“Version O”) | Pablo Picasso | (1955) | sold for $179.4m (€152.3m).
- Nu Couché | Amedeo Modigliani | (1917/18)| sold for $170.4m (€144.6m).
- No. 5, 1948 | Jackson Pollock | (1948) | sold for $140m (€118.8m).
- Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” was sold for $400 million, plus $50.3 million
in commissions, at Christie’s in New York on November 15, 2017. "Salvator Mundi" is a painting of Christ as Salvator Mundi (Saviour of The World) from c. 1500.
The painting was possibly painted for Louis XII of France and his consort, Anne of Brittany.
The seller is Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, an avid art collector who purchased "Salvator Mundi" for $127.5 million in May 2013.
- "Interchange" painted by
Willem de Kooning is the second most expensive painting in the world. It was one of de Kooning's first abstract landscapes, and marked a change in his style under the influence of fellow artist
Franz Kline. In September 2015, it was sold by the David Geffen Foundation to Kenneth C. Griffin
for $300 million ($303.1 million today), a new mark for highest ever price for a painting, not surpassed
until the sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” on November 15, 2017.
- Five Monet Works Sell for £55m in One Hour in February 2015
- Modigliani Reclining Nude sells for $170.4m making it the second most expensive painting ever sold at auction, after Pablo Picasso's Women of Algiers (Les Femmes D'Alger), which was sold for $179.4 in May 2015.
- Vincent van Gogh’s bedroom in Arles is arguably the most famous chambre in the history of art.
The painting depicts Van Gogh's
"Bedroom at 2", Place Lamartine in Arles,
Bouches-du-Rhône, France, known as his
Yellow House.
- Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" Sold for more than $106 Million at Christie's on May 4, 2010, Setting a Record for Art Sold at Auction.
- Picasso's "Women of Algiers" has become the most expensive painting to sell at auction, it was sold for $179.4m at Christie's in New York on May 11, 2015.
- A hidden painting has been found by scientists beneath the brush strokes of "The Blue Room", a 1901 a Picasso artwork.
- Vincent van Gogh painting "L'Allee des Alyscamps", which depicts autumnal scenes in the Alyscamps, an ancient Roman
necropolis in Arles which is lined with poplars and stone sarcophagi, has sold for $$66.3 million on 5 May 2015 at Sotheby's New York.
- One of Claude Monet's paintings of the famous lily pond in the artist's garden at Giverny, France, was sold for $54 million on 5 May 2015 at Sotheby's New York.
- Claude Monet's painting "Le bassin aux nymphéas" (from the water lilies series) (1904), was sold for $80,451,178 on 24 June 2008 at Sotheby's New York.
- Claude Monet's painting "London, the Parliament, Effects of Sun in the Fog (Londres, le Parlement, trouée de soleil dans le brouillard)" (1904), was sold for $20.1 million in 2004.
- Claude Monet's "Le Pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil", an 1873 painting of a railway bridge spanning the Seine near Paris was sold for $41,480,000 at Christie's auction in New York on May 6, 2008.
- Sotheby sold 198 pieces of
Old Master & 19th Century European Art on 30 January 2015 for $2,326,337 in New York.
- A terracotta sculpture by Claude Michel, called Clodion, entitled "Bacchante With Grapes Carried By Two Bacchantes And A Bacchant", was sold for $2,853,000 on 29 January 2015 in New York.
- "St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Sigismund of Burgundy" by Lorenzo Veneziano was sold for $1,325,000 on 29 January 2015 in New York.
- Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?), a work produced in 1892 by French painter Paul Gauguin, who died penniless in 1903, has been sold for $300 million, making it the most expensive work of art ever sold.
- The oil landscape by John Constable fetched $5.2 million at Sotheby’s in Manhattan on January 28, 2015 — just 569 days after it was bought for a paltry $5,212.
- Russian artist Natalia Goncharova used a Cubo-Futurist style in her 1913 "Cyclist" painting
- Oil painting, which is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil, was first used in Western Afghanistan.
- The Chauvet Cave is one of the most famous prehistoric rock art sites in the world. Hundreds of animal paintings have been catalogued, depicting at least 13 different species, including some rarely or never found in other ice age paintings.
- Fresco is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid lime plaster.
- Gouache paint is similar to watercolor but modified to make it opaque.
- Photorealism is the genre of painting based on using cameras and photographs to gather visual information and then from this creating a painting that appears to be photographic
- Andy Warhol’s iconic image of Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, sold for $17.4
- The most expensive piece of art ever sold ... a $104m Picasso painting
- Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" was sold for more than $106 Million at Christie's on May 4, 2010, setting a record for art sold at auction.
- Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (July 12, 1884 – January 24, 1920), who was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France, died in Paris of tubercular meningitis, exacerbated by poverty, overwork and addiction to alcohol and narcotics, at the age of 35.
- These 10 pieces of art just sold for almost $800 million:
- Pablo Picasso, "Les Femmes d'Alger (Version 'O')," $179.4 million
- Alberto Giacometti, "L'Homme au Doigt," $141.3 million
- Mark Rothko, "No. 10," $81.9 million
- Pablo Picasso, "Buste de Femme (Femme a la Resille)," $67.4 million
- Vincent Van Gogh, "L’Allée des Alyscamps," $66.3 million
- Lucian Freud, "Benefits Supervisor Resting," $56.2 million
- Andy Warhol, "Colored Mona Lisa," $56.2 million
- Claude Monet, "Nympheas," $54 million
- Francis Bacon, "Portrait of Henrietta Moraes," $47.8 million
- Mark Rothko, "Untitled (Yellow and Blue)," $46.5 million
- In September, 2012, Sotheby's and Christie's, Champion International Art Auction House Ltd's, K Auction's, Koller Auktionen Zürich's, Jianan International Auction Co., Ltd's auction houses sold:
- $5,761,844 for Ferdinand Hodler's "Kastanienallee bei Biberist"
- $4,915,541 for Sanyu's "Vase of Lilies in Red Background"
- $4,264,933 for Ben Nicholson's "Violon et Guitare"
- $3,218,500 for Hongren's "Seclusion Amid Mountains and Streams"
- $3,013,907 for Anonymous Korean's "Album with Handwriting of Great Scholar Yi Hwang"
- $2,967,301 for Francisco de Goya's "Lot und seine Töchter"
- $2,751,029 for Huang Binhong's work -"Ink and Color on Paper, on Handscroll"
- $1,986,500 for Park Sookeun's "Tree and Three Figures"
- German art historian Birgit Dahlenburg was instrumental in the recognition of the 16th-century Croy Tapestry as a cultural asset of national value
- Francis Bacon's painting "Three Studies of Lucian Freud" was sold $142.4 million at an auction in New York in 2013.
- Giacometti's sculpture "Walking Man I" was sold $104.3 million at an auction in London in 2010.
- The most expensive paintings:
- Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) by Paul Gauguin.
- The Card Players by Paul Cézanne.
- No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red) by Mark Rothko.
- No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock.
- Woman III by Willem de Kooning.
- Le Rêve by Pablo Picasso.
- Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt.
- Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh.
- Three Studies of Lucian Freud by Francis Bacon.
- Bal du moulin de la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
- Garçon à la pipe by Pablo Picasso.
- Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci.
- The Scream by Edvard Munch.
- Flag by Jasper Johns.
- Reclining Nude With Blue Cushion by Amedeo Modigliani.
- Nude, Green Leaves and Bust by Pablo Picasso.
- Portrait of Joseph Roulin by Vincent van Gogh.
- Dora Maar au Chat by Pablo Picasso.
- Irises by Vincent van Gogh.
- Eight Elvises by Andy Warhol.
- Anna's Light by Barnett Newman.
- Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) by Andy Warhol.
- Adele Bloch-Bauer II by Gustav Klimt.
- Portrait de l'artiste sans barbe by Vincent van Gogh.
- La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue du bosquet du Château Noir by Paul Cézanne.
- Massacre of the Innocents by Peter Paul Rubens.
- Triptych, 1976 by Francis Bacon.
- False Start by Jasper Johns.
- A Wheatfield with Cypresses by Vincent van Gogh.
- Les Noces de Pierrette by Pablo Picasso.
- Yo, Picasso by Pablo Picasso.
- Turquoise Marilyn by Andy Warhol.
- Portrait of Alfonso d'Avalos, Marquis of Vasto, in Armor with a Page by Titian.
- Orange, Red, Yellow by Mark Rothko.
- Le Bassin aux Nymphéas by Claude Monet.
- Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier by Paul Cézanne.
- Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh.
- Black Fire I by Barnett Newman.
- White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) by Mark Rothko.
- Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I) by Andy Warhol.
- Triple Elvis [Ferus Type] by Andy Warhol.
- Three Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards by Francis Bacon.
- Diana and Actaeon by Titian.
- Darmstadt Madonna by Hans Holbein.
- The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakins.
- No 1 (Royal Red and Blue) by Mark Rothko
- Au Lapin Agile by Pablo Picasso.
- Acrobate et jeune arlequin by Pablo Picasso.
- Femme aux Bras Croisés by Pablo Picasso.
- Nude Sitting on a Divan ("La Belle Romaine") by Amedeo Modigliani.
- Police Gazette by Willem de Kooning.
- Diana and Callisto by Titian.
- Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat by Vincent van Gogh.
- Femme assise dans un jardin by Pablo Picasso.
- Untitled by Cy Twombly.
- Four Marlons by Andy Warhol.
- Eagle Standing on Pine Tree by Qi Baishi.
- Men in Her Life by Andy Warhol.
- Portrait of a Halberdier by Pontormo.
- Suprematist Composition by Kazimir Malevich.
- Untitled by Mark Rothko.
- Zhichuan Resettlement by Wang Meng.
- Spring (Le Printemps) by Édouard Manet.
- In November 2006, Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses sold:
- $87,963,000 for Gustav Klimt's "Adele Bloch-Bauer II"
- $40,336,000 for Gustav Klimt's "Birch Forest/Beech Forest"
- $40,336,000 for Paul Gauguin's "L'homme à la hache"
- $38,096,000 for Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's "Berliner Strassenszene; Bäume"
- $36,976,000 for Paul Cézanne's "Nature morte aux fruits et pot de gingembre"
- $33,056,000 for Gustav Klimt's "Apple Tree I"
- $31,376,000 for Gustav Klimt's "Houses at Unterach on the Attersee"
- $31,096,000 for Amedeo Modigliani's "Le fils du concierge"
- $22,416,000 for Egon Schiele's "Einzelne Häuser (Häuser mit Bergen); Monk I"
- $15,920,000 for Amedeo Modigliani's "Vénus (Nu debout, nu médicis)"
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