Contemporary Art

Record for a painting by the music legend David Bowie leads a look at rockstar attempts at visual art

Artworks by another legendary musician, Bob Dylan (b.1941), drew decent competition once again at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) this summer.

An early painting by Roger ‘Syd’ Barrett (1946-2006) of Pink Floyd led a 200-lot picture section at a recent Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) sale.

The latest round of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s represented the highest overall total for a ‘London’ auction series since before the coronavirus pandemic.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

In the 1960s, the Austrian painter Günter Brus (b.1938) regularly made the headlines with his artistic happenings, which often involved covering himself and his models in paint and on one occasion, in 1965, led to him being arrested.

This unique steel sculpture is among a series of monumental works by the late Michael Lyons (1943-2019) on display at Thirsk Hall & Sculpture Park in North Yorkshire thanks to London gallery Willoughby Gerrish.

London gallery Adrian Sassoon has chosen the grand country estate of Parham House in West Sussex for a summer-long exhibition of Contemporary art.

Included in the design sale to be held by Heritage in Dallas on July 15 is this walnut frame from c.1970 by George Nakashima (1905-90).

Although long-standing Paris fair for works on paper the Salon du Dessin has moved its dates to July 1-4, the other Paris fair, Drawing Now, devoted to Contemporary works on paper, usually staged at the same time, is taking place this month from June 10-13.

The latest flagship sales of Modern and Contemporary art in New York showed a return to some normality after a difficult 14 months.

Clementine Perrins is co-founder of online Contemporary art gallery Crean & Company. Her 20-year career spans various areas of the art world, with experience promoting art fairs, launching galleries and managing private collections.

The Osborne Studio Gallery, specialist in contemporary sporting paintings and bronzes, has sold this painting by artist Hubert de Watrigant (b.1954) for £18,000.

Exhibition tells the tale of an unconventional partnership opening up a conservative art scene

The highest price at the sale of Modern and Contemporary art at Döbritz (22% buyer’s premium) in Frankfurt on March 6 was achieved for a mixed-media composition by the German artist Thomas Bayrle.

For people who follow the art market, Banksy (b.1975) is now impossible to ignore.

Christie’s has announced that from this summer it will be renaming its Impressionist & Modern and Post-War & Contemporary sales.

Famous for the sort of graffiti that morphs into street art and critical acclaim, Banksy is now bringing in big money in the form of screenprints

While Banksy prints abound at auction, the number of original works that emerge is understandably much less.