The most expensive paintings of modern centuries. The most expensive artists in the world
One of our favorite final top 10s. All these artists are the real pride of Russia. And yes - in the rating we include all authors who were born on the territory of the Russian Empire, regardless of whose citizenship they later accepted
That is why the rating of Russian painters or, whoever likes, “artists of the orbit of Russian art” is traditionally headed by Mark Rothko - a native of Latvian Daugavpils (then Russian Dvinsk) Markus Yakovlevich Rotkovich, who later became a legend of American and world art. It also includes a former Russian lawyer with a German and later a French passport, Wassily Kandinsky, the father of abstract art. Adjacent to Kandinsky in the ranking is his colleague Alexei Jawlensky, whom the whole world knows under the noble von Jawlensky. Nearby are Chaim Soutine, a native of the Belarusian town of Smilovichi, and a Russian Parisian, originally from Vitebsk, Marc Chagall. And the top ten is completed by the artist Max Weber, who was taken by his parents from Bialystok, Grodno province.
The rating of the top 10 paintings by Russian artists in 2016 was compiled: place of birth - Russia, one artist - one painting, sales - only at auction (without galleries and dealers), and prices in dollars in descending order. In particular, if we had not used the rule “one artist - one painting,” then the top 10 this time would have consisted of four paintings by Chagall, two by Soutine, two paintings by Kandinsky, plus Rodchenko and Rothko. Well, with the rule it still turns out more fun and varied.
What's the point? First of all, it's beautiful! Secondly, it is expensive and, therefore, prestigious. And only thirdly, it is educational. After all, such ratings are compiled primarily for the sake of beauty - no other ambitious tasks are set for them.
Well, shall we get started?
Top 10 paintings by Russian artists at auctions in 2016
Well, at the end - a kind of bonus track: Pavel Chelishchev. This Russian surrealist recently set his personal record and fell just short of the top 10 at the end of 2016. Chelishchev’s painting “Concert” was sensationally sold at Christie’s for five times the estimate and now occupies 11th place in the list of the most expensive works of Russian art sold at auction in 2016, with a result of $1,735,000.
Let me remind you that we recently summed up preliminary results for the domestic Russian art market. The report published three internal auction records, and the most expensive painting of 2016 was “Shelf” by Heliy Korzhev, sold for $370,000.
Rating of auction results of works of Russian art
- Only public auction results were accepted for participation.
- Belonging to Russian artists was determined by place of birth. Born in the Russian Empire or in the USSR - that means he is a Russian artist, without regard to ethnic origin or discounts on how fate developed in the future. For example, the fact that Kandinsky at different times had both Russian and German citizenship, and he died with French citizenship, is not a reason to doubt that the artist is Russian.
- Rule: one artist - one painting. That is, the situation when, strictly speaking, all the first places would have to be allocated to the works of Mark Rothko, is resolved this way: we leave only the most expensive work, and ignore all other results for the paintings of this artist.
The rating is based on results taking into account the Buyers Premium, expressed in dollars (figures shown at European auctions, i.e. in pounds or euros, are converted into dollars at the exchange rate on the day of trading). Therefore, neither “The Spanish Flu” by Goncharova, sold on February 2, 2010 for £6.43 million, nor the painting “View of Constantinople and the Bosporus Strait” by Aivazovsky, for which £3.23 million was paid on April 24, 2012, were not included in the rating. in the transaction currency, i.e. in pounds, they are more expensive than the paintings that took a place in the ranking, but they were not lucky with the dollar exchange rate.
1. $86.88 million Mark Rothko. Orange, Red, Yellow (1961)
One of the most mysterious artists of our time. His life's path seems to be woven from contradictions - in creative searches, in actions, in gestures... Considered one of the ideologists and, of course, a key figure in American abstract expressionism, Rothko could not stand it when his works were called abstract. Having known well in the past what living from hand to mouth was, he once defiantly returned to his customers an absolutely fantastic advance in terms of today’s money, leaving himself with an almost completely completed work. Having been waiting for his success and the opportunity to make a living from painting for almost fifty years, he more than once refused people who could destroy his career if they wanted. At the very least, a socialist at heart, who shared the ideas of Marx and was hostile to the rich and wealth, Rothko eventually became the author of the most expensive paintings in the world, which actually turned into an attribute of the high status of their owners. (It’s no joke, the record-breaking “White Center,” sold for $65 million, came from the Rockefeller family.) Dreaming of recognition by the mass audience, he eventually became the creator of paintings that are still truly understandable only to a circle of intellectuals and connoisseurs. Finally, the artist, who sought a conversation with God through the music of his canvases, the artist, whose works became the central element in the design of the church of all religions, ended his life with a completely desperate act of fighting against God...
Rothko, who remembered the Pale of Settlement and the Cossacks, might have been surprised that they are also proud of him as a Russian artist. However, there was plenty of anti-Semitism in America in the 1930s - it was no coincidence that the artist “truncated” the family surname Rotkovich. But we call him Russian for a reason. To begin with, based on the fact of birth. Latvian Dvinsk, present-day Daugavpils, at the time of the birth of Marcus Rotkovich, is part of Russia and will remain so until the collapse of the empire, until 1918. True, Rothko will no longer see the revolution. In 1913, the boy was taken to the USA, the family moved to Portland, Oregon. That is, I spent my childhood and adolescence in Russia, where my life perception and outlook were formed. In addition to the fact that he was born here, Rothko is associated with Russia, we note, both ideological themes and conflicts. It is known that he appreciated the works of Dostoevsky. And even the vices that Rothko indulged in are for some reason associated in the world with Russians. For some reason, depression in the West is called a “Russian disease.” Which is not an argument, of course, but another touch to the integrity of the Russian artist’s nature.
It took Rothko 15 long years to make innovative discoveries in painting. Having gone through many figurative hobbies, including surrealism and figurative expressionism, in the mid-1940s he extremely simplified the structure of his paintings, limiting the means of expression to a few colorful blocks that form the composition. The intellectual basis of his work is almost always a matter of interpretation. Rothko usually did not give direct answers, counting on the viewer's participation in understanding the work. The only thing he definitely counted on was the emotional work of the viewer. His paintings are not for rest, not for relaxation and not for “visual massage”. They are designed for empathy. Some see them as windows that allow one to look into the viewer’s soul, while others see them as doors to another world. There is an opinion (perhaps the closest to the truth) that his color fields are metaphorical images of God.
The decorative power of the “color fields” is explained by a number of special techniques used by Rothko. His paintings do not tolerate massive frames - at most thin edges in the color of the canvas. The artist deliberately tinted the edges of the paintings in a gradient so that the pictorial field lost its borders. The fuzzy boundaries of the inner squares are also a technique, a way without contrast to create the effect of trembling, the seeming overlapping of color blocks, the pulsation of spots, like the flickering of light from electric lamps. This soft dissolution of color within color was particularly achieved in oils, until Rothko's switch to opaque acrylic in the late sixties. And the found effect of electrical pulsation intensifies if you look at the paintings at close range. According to the artist’s plan, it is optimal for the viewer to view three-meter canvases from a distance of no more than half a meter.
Today, Rothko's paintings are the pride of any famous museum of modern art. Thus, in the English Tate Gallery there is a Rothko hall, in which nine paintings from those that were painted under a contract with the Four Seasons restaurant live. There is a story connected with this project that is quite indicative of Rothko’s character. In 1959, the artist was contacted by recommendation from the owners of the fashionable restaurant “Seasons,” which opened in the unusual New York skyscraper Seagram Building (named after the company that produced the alcohol). The contract amount in today's money was almost $3 million - a very significant fee even for an established, recognized artist, as Rothko was at that time. However, when the work was almost completed, Rothko unexpectedly returned the advance and refused to hand it over to the customer. Among the main reasons for the sudden act, biographers considered the reluctance to please the ruling class and entertain the rich at dinner. It is also believed that Rothko was upset when he learned that his paintings would not be seen by ordinary employees working in the building. However, the latest version looks too romantic.
Almost 10 years later, Rothko donated some of the canvases prepared for the Four Seasons to the Tate Gallery in London. In a bitter irony of fate, on February 25, 1970, the day the boxes with paintings reached the English port, the artist was found dead in his studio - with his veins cut and (apparently for guarantee) a huge dose of sleeping pills in his stomach.
Today, Rothko's work is experiencing another wave of sincere interest. Seminars are held, exhibitions are opened, monographs are published. On the banks of the Daugava, in the artist’s homeland, a monument was erected.
Rothko's works are not exceptionally rare on the market (like, for example, Malevich's paintings). Every year, approximately 10–15 pieces of his paintings alone are put up for auction at auctions, not counting graphics. That is, there is no shortage, but millions and tens of millions of dollars are paid for them. And such prices are hardly accidental. Rather, it is a tribute to his innovation, a desire to open new layers of meaning and join the creative phenomenon of one of the most mysterious Russian artists.
On May 8, 2012, at the auction of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s, the canvas “Orange, Red, Yellow” from 1961 went for $86.88 million, including commission. The work comes from the collection of Pennsylvania art patron David Pincus. David and his wife Gerry bought the work, measuring 2.4 × 2.1 meters, from the Marlborough Gallery, and then loaned it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a long time. The painting “Orange, Red, Yellow” became not only the most expensive work by an artist of Russian origin, but also the most expensive work of post-war and contemporary art sold at open auction.
2. $60.00 million. Kazimir Malevich. Suprematist composition (1916)
During her long life, first together with Robert, and after his death in 1941 alone, Sonya was able to try out many genres in art. She was engaged in painting, book illustration, theatrical sketches (in particular, she designed the scenery of Diaghilev’s ballet “Cleopatra”), clothing design, interior design, textile patterns, and even car tuning.
Sonia Delaunay's early portraits and abstractions from the 1900s-10s, as well as works from the Color Rhythms series from the 1950s-60s, are very popular at international and national French auctions. Their prices often reach several hundred thousand dollars. The artist's main record was set more than 10 years ago - on June 14, 2002 at the Calmels Cohen Paris auction. Then the abstract work “Market in Minho”, written in 1915, during the life of the Delaunay couple in Spain (1914–1920), was sold for €4.6 million.
32. $4.30 million. Mikhail Nesterov. Vision to the Youth Bartholomew (1922)
If we evaluate our artists on a peculiar scale of “Russianness,” then Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov (1862–1942) can safely be placed somewhere at the beginning of the list. His paintings depicting saints, monks, and nuns in a lyrical “Nesterov” landscape, completely in tune with the highly spiritual mood of the heroes, became a unique phenomenon in the history of Russian art. In his canvases, Nesterov talked about Holy Rus', about its special spiritual path. The artist, in his own words, “avoided depicting strong passions, preferring to them a modest landscape, a person living an inner spiritual life in the arms of our Mother Nature.” And according to Alexander Benois, Nesterov, along with Surikov, was the only Russian artist who came at least partially close to the lofty divine words of “The Idiot” and “Karamazovs”.
The special style and religiosity of Nesterov’s paintings were formed from many factors. He was also influenced by his upbringing in a patriarchal, devout merchant family in the city of Ufa with its typically Russian landscapes, and his years of studying with the Itinerants Perov, Savrasov and Pryanishnikov at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (from them he adopted the idea of art that touches the mind and heart) and from Pavel Chistyakov at the Academy of Arts (here he took up the technique of academic drawing), and trips to Europe for inspiration, and a deep personal drama (the death of his beloved wife Maria a day after the birth of their daughter Olga).
As a result, by the late 1880s - early 1890s, Nesterov had already found his theme, and it was at this time that he wrote “Vision to the Youth Bartholomew” (1889–1890). The plot of the picture is taken from the Life of St. Sergius. The youth Bartholomew (the future Sergius of Radonezh) met an angel in the guise of a monk and received God's blessing from him to understand the Holy Scriptures and surpass his brothers and peers. The picture is imbued with a sense of the miraculous - it is not only and not so much in the figures of Bartholomew and the Holy Elder, but also in the surrounding landscape, which is especially festive and spiritual.
In his declining years, the artist more than once called “Bartholomew” his main work: “... if thirty, fifty years after my death he still says something to people, that means he is alive, that means I am alive.” The painting became a sensation at the 18th exhibition of the Itinerants and instantly made the young Ufa artist famous (Nesterov was not yet thirty at the time). P. M. Tretyakov acquired “Vision...” for his collection, despite attempts to dissuade him from, as Nesterov put it, “orthodox Wanderers,” who correctly noticed in the work the undermining of the “rationalistic” foundations of the movement. However, the artist had already taken his own course in art, which ultimately made him famous.
With the advent of Soviet power, not the best times came for Nesterov with his religious painting. The artist switched to portraits (fortunately he had the opportunity to paint only people he deeply liked), but did not dare to think about his previous subjects. However, when in the early 1920s there was a rumor that a large exhibition of Russian art was being prepared in America, Nesterov quickly decided to participate in the hope of reaching a new audience. He wrote several works for the exhibition, including the author’s repetition of “Vision to the Youth Bartholomew” (1922), called “Vision to St. Sergius in adolescence” in the American press. The new version is smaller in format (91 × 109) compared to the Tretyakov version (160 × 211), the moon has appeared in the sky, the colors of the landscape are somewhat darker, and there is more seriousness in the face of the youth Bartholomew. Nesterov, as it were, sums up with this picture the great changes that have occurred since the writing of the first “Vision...”.
Nesterov's paintings were among the few at the 1924 Russian Art Exhibition in New York that were purchased. “Vision to the Youth Bartholomew” ended up in the collection of famous collectors and patrons of Nicholas Roerich - Louis and Nettie Horsch. From then until 2007, work was passed down in this family by inheritance. And finally, on April 17, 2007, at Sotheby’s Russian auction, the canvas was offered with an estimate of $2–3 million and easily exceeded it. The final price of the hammer, which became a record for Nesterov, was $4.30 million. With this result, he entered our rating.
33. $4.05 million. Vera Rokhlina. Gamblers (1919)
Vera Nikolaevna Rokhlina (Schlesinger) is another wonderful artist of Russian emigration, included in our rating along with Natalia Goncharova, Tamara Lempitskaya and Sonia Delaunay. Information about the artist’s life is very scarce; her biography is still waiting for its researcher. It is known that Vera Shlesinger was born in 1896 in Moscow into a Russian family and a French woman from Burgundy. She studied in Moscow with Ilya Mashkov and was almost his favorite student, and then took lessons in Kyiv with Alexandra Exter. In 1918, she married lawyer S.Z. Rokhlin and went with him to Tiflis. From there, in the early 1920s, the couple moved to France, where Vera began to actively exhibit at the Autumn Salon, the Salon of the Independents and the Salon of the Tuileries. In her painting style, she initially followed the ideas of Cubism and Post-Impressionism, but by the early 1930s she had already developed her own style, which one French magazine called “an artistic balance between Courbet and Renoir.” In those years, Vera already lived separately from her husband, in Montparnasse, had couturier Paul Poiret among her admirers, and chose female portraits and nudes as the main theme in her painting, which may have been facilitated by her acquaintance with Zinaida Serebryakova (even a portrait of a nude Serebryakova by Rokhlina has survived), and the artist’s personal exhibitions were held in Parisian galleries. But in April 1934, 38-year-old Vera Rokhlina committed suicide. What made a woman in her prime, who had already achieved a lot in the creative field, take her own life remains a mystery. Her premature death was called the biggest loss in the Paris art scene in those years.
Rokhlina's legacy is located mainly abroad, where Vera spent the last 13 years of her life and where her talent was fully revealed. In the 1990s and early 2000s, French museums and galleries began holding solo exhibitions of Rokhlina and including her work in group exhibitions of artists from the School of Paris. Collectors found out about her, her works began to be sold at auctions, and quite well. The peak of sales and prices occurred in 2007–2008, when about a hundred thousand dollars for a good format painting by Rokhlina became commonplace. And so on June 24, 2008, at the evening auction of impressionists and modernists at Christie's in London, Vera Rokhlina's cubist painting "Gamblers", painted before emigration, in 1919, was unexpectedly sold at 8 times the estimate - for £2.057 million ($4.05 million) with an estimate of £250–350 thousand.
34. $4.02 million. Mikhail Klodt. Night in Normandy (1861)
35. $3.97 million. Pavel Kuznetsov. Eastern city. Bukhara (1912)
For Pavel Varfolomeevich Kuznetsov (1878–1968), the son of an icon painter from the city of Saratov, a graduate of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (where he studied with Arkhipov, Serov and Korovin), one of the organizers of the Blue Rose association, one of the main and, Certainly, the most recognized theme of creativity among the public was the East. When Pavel Kuznetsov’s first symbolist period of the 1900s with semi-fantastic images of “Fountains”, “Awakenings” and “Births” exhausted itself, the artist went to the East for inspiration. He remembered how, as a child, he visited his grandfather in the Trans-Volga steppes and observed the life of nomads. “Suddenly I remembered about the steppes and went to the Kirghiz,” wrote Kuznetsov. From 1909 to 1914, Kuznetsov spent several months in the Kyrgyz steppes, among the nomads, becoming imbued with their way of life and accepting them as his kindred, “Scythian” soul. In 1912–1913, the artist traveled through the cities of Central Asia, lived in Bukhara, Samarkand, and the foothills of the Pamirs. In the 1920s, the study of the East continued in Transcaucasia and Crimea.
The result of these eastern travels was a series of stunning paintings, in which one can feel the “Goluborozovsky” love for the blue palette, and the symbolism of icons and temple frescoes close to the artist from childhood, and the perceived experience of such artists as Gauguin, Andre Derain and Georges Braque, and, well, of course, all the magic of the East. Kuznetsov's oriental paintings were warmly received not only in Russia, but also at exhibitions in Paris and New York.
A major creative success was the cycle of paintings “Eastern City” written in Bukhara in 1912. One of the largest paintings in the “Eastern City” series. Bukhara” was auctioned at MacDougall’s in June 2014 with an estimate of £1.9–3 million. The work has impeccable provenance and exhibition history: it was purchased directly from the artist; has not changed its place of residence since the mid-1950s; participated in the World of Art exhibitions, the exhibition of Soviet art in Japan, as well as in all the major lifetime and posthumous retrospectives of the artist. As a result, a record price for Kuznetsov was paid for the painting: £2.37 million ($3.97 million).
36. $3.82 million. Alexander Deineka. Heroes of the First Five-Year Plan (1936)
37. $3.72 million. Boris Grigoriev. The Shepherd of the Hills (1920)
Boris Dmitrievich Grigoriev (1886–1939) emigrated from Russia in 1919. He became one of the most famous Russian artists abroad, but at the same time he was forgotten in his homeland for many decades, and his first exhibitions in the USSR took place only in the late 1980s. But today he is one of the most sought-after and highly valued authors on the Russian art market; his works, both paintings and graphics, are sold for hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars.
The artist was extremely efficient; in 1926 he wrote to the poet Kamensky: “Now I am the first master in the world.<…>I don't apologize for these phrases. You need to know who you are, otherwise you won’t know what to do. Yes, and my life is holy from above-average work and above-average feelings, and my 40 years prove this. I am not afraid of any competition, any order, any topic, any size and any speed.”
Probably the most famous are his cycles “Race” and “Faces of Russia” - very close in spirit and differing only in that the first was created before emigration, and the second already in Paris. In these cycles, we are presented with a gallery of types (“faces”) of the Russian peasantry: old men, women, and children look gloomily straight at the viewer, they attract the eye and at the same time repel it. Grigoriev was by no means inclined to idealize or embellish those whom he painted; on the contrary, sometimes he brings images to the grotesque. Among the “faces” painted already in exile, portraits of Grigoriev’s contemporaries - poets, actors of the Art Theater, as well as self-portraits - are added to the peasant portraits. The image of the peasant “Race” expanded to a general image of an abandoned, but not forgotten Motherland.
One of these portraits - the poet Nikolai Klyuev in the image of a shepherd - became the most expensive painting by Boris Grigoriev. At the Sotheby’s auction on November 3, 2008, the work “The Shepherd of the Hills” from 1920 was sold for $3.72 million with an estimate of $2.5–3.5 million. The portrait is the author’s copy of a lost portrait from 1918.
Editorial website
Attention! All materials on the site and the database of auction results on the site, including illustrated reference information about works sold at auction, are intended for use exclusively in accordance with Art. 1274 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. Use for commercial purposes or in violation of the rules established by the Civil Code of the Russian Federation is not permitted. the site is not responsible for the content of materials provided by third parties. In case of violation of the rights of third parties, the site administration reserves the right to remove them from the site and from the database based on a request from the authorized body.
Today, contemporary painting has gained incredible popularity, so it has become known not only for its tendency to expand boundaries and explore new means of expression, but also for record sales figures in the contemporary art market over the past few years. Moreover, artists from almost all over the world, from America to Asia, enjoy success. Next, you will find out whose names represent the best contemporary painting in the world, who he is, the most expensive contemporary artist, and who fell just short of this title.
The most expensive contemporary artists
Among the myriad names that modern painting has, the paintings of only certain artists enjoy exceptional success. Among them, the most expensive paintings were owned by the famous neo-expressionist and graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who, however, died at the age of 27. On our list you will see only the first seven of those wealthy artists who are still alive today.
Brice Marden
The works of this American author are quite difficult to classify and lead to a single art movement, although he is often classified as a representative of either minimalism or abstractionism. But unlike artists in these styles, whose paintings seem to have never been touched, Marden's modern painting retains the palette knife strokes and other traces of his work. One of those who influenced his work is considered to be another contemporary artist, Jasper Johns, whose name you will see later.
Zeng Fanzhi
This contemporary artist is one of the main figures in the Chinese art scene today. It was his work called “The Last Supper,” based on the famous work of Leonardo da Vinci, that was sold for $23.3 million and became the most expensive painting that modern Asian painting can boast of. Also famous are the artist’s works “Self-Portrait”, the triptych “Hospital” and paintings from the “Masks” series.
In the 90s, his painting style often underwent changes and eventually moved away from expressionism to symbolism.
Peter Doig
Peter Doig is an internationally renowned Scottish contemporary artist whose work is permeated by the theme of magical realism. Many of his works tend to disorient the viewer, even when they depict recognizable images such as figures, trees and buildings.
In 2015, his painting “Swamped” managed to break the record and become the most expensive painting by contemporary artists from Scotland, being sold at auction for 25.9 million. Doig’s paintings “The Architect’s House in the Hollow”, “White Canoe”, “Reflection”, “Roadside Diner” and others are also popular.
Christopher Wool
In his work, contemporary artist Christopher Wool explores various post-conceptual ideas. The artist's most famous contemporary paintings are block lettering depicted in black on a white canvas.
Such paintings by contemporary artists cause a lot of controversy and discontent among adherents of traditional painting, but, one way or another, one of Wool’s works, “Apocalypse,” brought him $26 million. Wool does not think long about the titles of the paintings, but names them according to the inscriptions: “Blue Fool”, “Trouble”, etc.
Jasper Johns
Contemporary artist Jasper Johns is known for his rebellious attitude towards Abstract Expressionism, which dominated the painting arena early in the artist's career. Moreover, he works by creating expensive canvases with flags, license plates, numbers and other well-known symbols that already have a clear meaning and do not need to be deciphered.
By the way, the most expensive paintings by contemporary artists include the American work “Flag”, sold at auction in 2010 for $28 million. You can also look at the works “Three Flags”, “False Start”, “From 0 to 9”, “Target with Four Faces” and many others.
Gerhard Richter
This modern artist from Germany, like many painters at the beginning of his career, studied realistic academic painting, but later became interested in more progressive art.
In the author’s work one can see the influence of many art movements of the 20th century, such as abstract expressionism, pop art, minimalism and conceptualism, but at the same time Richter retained a skeptical attitude towards all established artistic and philosophical beliefs, being confident that modern painting is dynamics and search. The artist’s works include “Land of Meadows”, “Reading”, “1024 Colors”, “Wall”, etc.
Jeff Koons
And finally, here he is - the most expensive contemporary artist in the whole world. American Jeff Koons works in the neo-pop style and is known for his catchy, kitschy and defiant creativity.
He is mainly known as the author of a huge number of modern sculptures, some of which were exhibited at Versailles itself. But also among the artist’s works there are paintings for which special connoisseurs are willing to pay millions of dollars: “Bell of Liberty”, “Auto”, “Girl with a Dolphin and a Monkey”, “Saddle” and others.
Take it for yourself and tell your friends!
Read also on our website:
show more
The Art Newspaper Russia presents the rating: the most expensive living Russian artists. If you are still sure that there were no Russian artists in the Western scene, we are ready to argue with that. The language of numbers.
The conditions were simple: each living artist could be represented by only one, his most expensive work. When compiling the rating, not only the results of public auctions were taken into account, but also the most high-profile private sales. The authors of the rating were guided by the principle “if something sells loudly, then someone needs it,” and therefore appreciated the work of marketers and press managers of artists who brought record private sales to the public. Important note: the rating is based solely on financial indicators; if it were based on the exhibition activity of artists, it would look somewhat different. External sources for analytics were resources Artnet.com, Artprice.com, Skatepress.com And Artinvestment.ru.
The US dollar was chosen as the currency for the world ranking; the British pound sterling was taken as the equivalent of sales of Russian artists (since 90% of domestic sales took place in London in this currency). The remaining 10% of works sold in US dollars and euros were recalculated at the exchange rate at the time of the transaction, as a result of which some positions changed places. In addition to the actual cost of the work, data was collected on the total capitalization of artists (the number of top works sold at auction over all years), on the place of a contemporary artist in the ranking of artists of all times, on the place of the participant’s most expensive work among all works sold by other authors, and also about nationality and country of residence. Statistics on repeat sales of each artist also contain important information as an objective indicator of investment
attractiveness.
Last year, 2013, significantly changed the position of contemporary artists in the international sales rankings. Of the top 50 most expensive works of art, 16 modern works of art were sold last season - a record number (for comparison, 17 works were sold from 2010 to 2012; there was only one sale in the 20th century). The demand for living artists is partly identical to the demand for all contemporary art, partly to the cynical understanding that the capitalization of assets after their death will invariably increase.
Among the Russian participants, the brothers turned out to be the most respectable Sergey And Alexey Tkachev(b. 1922 and 1925), the youngest - Anatoly Osmolovsky(b. 1969). The question is who will be new Jean-Michel Basquiat, while open. In the sales of our artists, clear classes of buyers are visible: the leaders are bought by foreign collectors and Russian oligarchs, places from 10th to 30th are provided by emigrant collectors, and the conditional bottom of the top 50 is our future, young collectors who have entered the market with “new » money.
1. Ilya Kabakov
It seems that in general he is the main Russian artist (which does not prevent Kabakov, who was born in Dnepropetrovsk, from describing himself as Ukrainian), the founding father of Moscow conceptualism (one of), the author of the term and practice of “total installation”. Since 1988 he has lived and worked in New York. He works in collaboration with his wife, Emilia Kabakova, which is why the title should look like “Ilya and Emilia Kabakov,” but since Ilya Iosifovich became known earlier than Ilya and Emilia, then let it remain so. The works are in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the Hermitage, MoMA, Kolodzei Art Foundation(USA), etc.
Year of birth: 1933
Work: "Beetle". 1982
Date of sale: 02/28/2008
Price (GBP)1: 2,932,500
Total capitalization (GBP): 10,686,000
Place: 1
Average Job Cost (GBP): 117,429
Number of repeat sales: 12
2. Erik Bulatov
Using techniques that would later be called social art, he combined figurative painting with text in his works. In Soviet times, a successful illustrator of children's books. Since 1989 he has lived and worked in New York, and since 1992 in Paris. The first Russian artist with a personal exhibition at the Pompidou Center. The works are kept in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the Pompidou Center, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, etc., and are included in the collections of the Foundation Dina Verni, Viktor Bondarenko, Vyacheslav Kantor, Ekaterina and Vladimir Semenikhin, Igor Tsukanov.
Year of birth: 1933
Work: “Glory to the CPSU.” 1975
Date of sale: 02/28/2008
Price (GBP)1: 1,084,500
Total capitalization (GBP): 8,802,000
Place: 2
Average job cost (GBP): 163,000
Number of repeat sales: 11
3. Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid
The creators of Sots Art - an ironic movement in unofficial art that parodies the symbolism and techniques of officialdom. Since 1978 they have lived in New York. Until the mid-2000s they worked in pairs. As an art project, they organized the “sale of souls” of famous artists through an auction (soul Andy Warhol since then it has been owned by a Moscow artist Alena Kirtsova). Works are in the collections of MoMA, the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre, and in the collections Shalva Breus, Daria Zhukova And Roman Abramovich and etc.
Year of birth: 1943, 1945
Work: “Meeting of Solzhenitsyn and Böll at Rostropovich’s dacha.” 1972
Date of sale: 04/23/2010
Price (GBP)1: 657,250
Total capitalization (GBP): 3,014,000
Place: 7
Average job cost (GBP): 75,350
Number of repeat sales: 3
former comar&melamid artstudio archive
4. Semyon Faibisovich
A photorealist artist who remains the most accurate realist even now, when Semyon Natanovich is less interested in painting than in journalism. He exhibited on Malaya Gruzinskaya, where in 1985 he was noticed by New York dealers and collectors. Since 1987, it has been regularly exhibited in the USA and Western Europe. An active supporter of the repeal of the law on the promotion of homosexuality in Russia. Lives and works in Moscow. Works are in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery, the Moscow House of Photography, museums in Germany, Poland, the USA, and are included in the collections Daria Zhukova And Roman Abramovich, Igor Markin, Igor
Tsukanova.
Year of birth: 1949
Work: “Soldiers” (from the “Station Stations” series). 1989
Date of sale: 10/13/2007
Price (GBP)1: 311,200
Total capitalization (GBP): 3,093,000
Place: 6
Average Job Cost (GBP): 106,655
Number of repeat sales: 7
5. Grigory (Grisha) Bruskin
The main character of the first and last Soviet auction Sotheby's in 1988, where his work Fundamental Lexicon became the top lot (£220 thousand). At the invitation of the German government, he created a monumental triptych for the reconstructed Reichstag in Berlin. Winner of the Kandinsky Prize in the “Project of the Year” nomination for the exhibition Time H at the Multimedia Art Museum. Lives and works in New York and Moscow. The works are in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, and the Pushkin Museum. A. S. Pushkin, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, MoMA, the Museum of Jewish Culture (New York), etc., are included in the collections of the Queen of Spain Sofia, Peter Aven, Shalva Breus, Vladimir and Ekaterina Semenikhin, Milos Forman.
Year of birth: 1945
Work: “Logies. Part 1". 1987
Date of sale: 07.11.2000
Price (GBP)1: 424,000
Total capitalization (GBP): 720,000
Place: 15
Average job cost (GBP): 24,828
Number of repeat sales: 5
6. Oleg Tselkov
One of the most famous artists of the sixties, in the 1960s he began and still continues a series of paintings depicting rough, as if sculpted from clay, human faces (or figures), painted with bright aniline colors. Since 1977 he has lived in Paris. The works are in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the Hermitage, the Zimmerli Museum of Rutgers University, etc., and are included in the collections Mikhail Baryshnikov, Arthur Miller, Igor Tsukanov. The largest private collection of Tselkov's works in Russia belongs to Evgeniy Yevtushenko.
Year of birth: 1934
Work: "Boy with Balloons." 1957
Date of sale: 11/26/2008
Price (GBP)1: 238,406
Total capitalization (GBP): 4,232,000
Place: 5
Average job cost (GBP): 53,570
Number of repeat sales: 14
7. Oscar Rabin
Leader of the “Lianozov group” (Moscow nonconformist artists of the 1950s-1960s), organizer of the scandalous Bulldozer exhibition 1974. He was the first in the Soviet Union to sell works privately. In 1978 he was deprived of Soviet citizenship. Lives and works in Paris. In 2006 he became a laureate of the Innovation Prize for his contribution to art. The works are in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Zimmerli Museum of Rutgers University, and are included in the collections of Alexander Glezer, Vyacheslav Kantor, Alexander Kronik, Iveta and Tamaz Manasherov, Evgeniy Nutovich, Aslan Chekhoev.
Year of birth: 1928
Work: “The City and the Moon (Socialist
city)". 1959
Date of sale: 04/15/2008
Price (GBP)1: 171,939
Total capitalization (GBP): 5,397,000
Place: 3
Average job cost (GBP): 27,964
Number of repeat sales: 45
8. Zurab Tsereteli
The largest representative of already monumental art. Author of the monument to Peter I in Moscow and the monument Good conquers Evil in front of the UN building in New York. Founder of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, president of the Russian Academy of Arts, creator of the Zurab Tsereteli Art Gallery, which operates at the above-mentioned academy. Sculptures of Zurab Tsereteli, in addition to Russia, adorn Brazil, Great Britain, Georgia, Spain, Lithuania, USA, France and Japan.
Year of birth: 1934
Work: “Dream of Athos”
Date of sale: 12/01/2009
Price (GBP)1: 151,250
Total capitalization (GBP): 498,000
Place: 19
Average job cost (GBP): 27,667
Number of repeat sales: 4
9. Viktor Pivovarov
One of the founders of Moscow conceptualism. Like Kabakov, the inventor of the concept album genre; like Kabakov, Bulatov and Oleg Vasiliev, a successful illustrator of children’s books who collaborated with the magazines “Murzilka” and “Funny Pictures”. Since 1982 he has lived and worked in Prague. The works are in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, and the Pushkin Museum. A. S. Pushkina, Kolodzei Art Foundation(USA), in the collections of Vladimir and Ekaterina Semenikhin, Igor Tsukanov.
Year of birth: 1937
Work: “Triptych with a snake.” 2000
Date of sale: 10/18/2008
Price (GBP)1: 145,250
Total capitalization (GBP): 482,000
Place: 20
Average job cost (GBP): 17,852
Number of repeat sales: 6
10. Alexander Melamid
Half of the creative tandem Komar - Melamid, which broke up in 2003. Together with Vitaly Komar, participant Bulldozer exhibition(where they died Double self-portrait, a seminal work of Sots Art). Since 1978 he has lived and worked in New York. There is no information about which famous collections contain Melamid’s works, created by him independently.
Year of birth: 1945
Work: “Cardinal José Saraiva Martins.” 2007
Date of sale: 10/18/2008
Price (GBP)1: 145,250
Total capitalization (GBP): 145,000
Place: 36
Average job cost (GBP): 145,000
Number of repeat sales: —
11. Francisco Infante-Arana
The owner of perhaps the most extensive list of exhibitions among Russian artists. Member of the kinetic group "Movement", in the 1970s he found his own version of photo performance, or “artifact” - geometric forms integrated into the natural landscape.
Year of birth: 1943
Work: “Building a sign.” 1984
Date of sale: 05/31/2006
Price (GBP)1: 142,400
Total capitalization (GBP): 572,000
Place: 17
Average job cost (GBP): 22,000
Number of repeat sales: —
12. Vladimir Nemukhin
Metaphysician. A classic of the second wave of Russian avant-garde, a member of the “Lianozov group”, one of the participants in the Bulldozer exhibition, curator (or initiator) of important exhibitions of the 1980s, when the unofficial Soviet
art was just becoming aware of itself.
Year of birth: 1925
Work: “Unfinished Solitaire.” 1966
Date of sale: 04/26/2006
Price (GBP)1: 240,000
Total capitalization (GBP): 4,338,000
Place: 4
Average Job Cost (GBP): 36,454
Number of repeat sales: 26
13. Vladimir Yankilevsky
Surrealist, one of the main names of post-war Moscow unofficial art, creator of monumental philosophical polyptychs.
Year of birth: 1938
Work: “Triptych No. 10. Anatomy of the soul. II." 1970
Date of sale: 04/23/2010
Price (GBP)1: 133,250
Total capitalization (GBP): 754,000
Place: 14
Average job cost (GBP): 12,780
Number of repeat sales: 7
14. Alexander Vinogradov and Vladimir Dubossarsky
Scenic project Paintings to order, which they began in the hopeless 1990s for painting, received what it deserved in the 2000s. The duet became popular with collectors, and one painting ended up in the collection of the Pompidou Center.
Year of birth: 1963, 1964
Work: "Night Fitness". 2004
Date of sale: 06/22/2007
Price (GBP)1: 132,000
Total capitalization (GBP): 1,378,000
Place: 11
Average job cost (GBP): 26,500
Number of repeat sales: 4
15. Sergey Volkov
One of the heroes of perestroika art, known for his expressive paintings with thoughtful statements. Soviet auction participant Sotheby's in 1988.
Year of birth: 1956
Work: “Double Vision.
Triptych"
Date of sale: 05/31/2007
Price (GBP)1: 132,000
Total capitalization (GBP): 777,000
Place: 12
Average job cost (GBP): 38,850
Number of repeat sales: 4
16. AES + F (Tatyana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovich, Evgeniy Svyatsky, Vladimir Fridkes)
AES projects were distinguished by their good presentation in the slack 1990s, which is why they were remembered. Now they are making large animated murals that are broadcast on dozens of screens.
Year of birth: 1955, 1958, 1957, 1956
Work: “Warrior No. 4”
Date of sale: 03/12/2008
Price (GBP)1: 120,500
Total capitalization (GBP): 305,000
Place: 27
Average job cost (GBP): 30,500
Number of repeat sales: —
17. Lev Tabenkin
A sculptor and painter with a sculptural vision, as if sculpting his heroes from clay.
Year of birth: 1952
Work: "Jazz Orchestra". 2004
Date of sale: 06/30/2008
Price (GBP)1: 117,650
Total capitalization (GBP): 263,000
Place: 28
Average job cost (GBP): 26,300
Number of repeat sales: 7
18. Mikhail (Misha Shaevich) Brusilovsky
Sverdlovsk surrealist, author of meaningful allegories.
Year of birth: 1931
Work: "Football". 1965
Date of sale: 11/28/2006
Price (GBP)1: 108,000
Total capitalization (GBP): 133,000
Place: 38
Average job cost (GBP): 22,167
Number of repeat sales: —
19. Olga Bulgakova
One of the main figures of the intelligentsia “carnival” painting of the Brezhnev era. Corresponding Member
Russian Academy of Arts.
Year of birth: 1951
Work: “Dream of Red
bird." 1988
Date of sale: 11/22/2010
Price (GBP)1: 100,876
Total capitalization (GBP): 219,000
Place: 31
Average job cost (GBP): 36,500
Number of repeat sales: —
20. Alexander Ivanov
An abstract artist who is known primarily as a businessman, collector and creator of the Faberge Museum in Baden-Baden (Germany).
Year of birth: 1962
Work: "Love". 1996
Date of sale: 06/05/2013
Price (GBP)1: 97,250
Total capitalization (GBP): 201,000
Place: 33
Average Job Cost (GBP): 50,250
Number of repeat sales: —
21. Ivan Chuikov
An independent wing of Moscow pictorial conceptualism. Author of a series of paintings-objects Windows. Somehow in the 1960s he burned all the paintings, which is why gallery owners are still sad.
Year of birth: 1935
Work: "Untitled". 1986
Date of sale: 03/12/2008
Price (GBP)1: 96,500
Total capitalization (GBP): 1,545,000
Place: 10
Average Job Cost (GBP): 36,786
Number of repeat sales: 8
22. Konstantin Zvezdochetov
In his youth, a member of the Mukhomor group, which called themselves “the fathers of the “new wave” in the Soviet Union” -
with good reason; with the onset of creative maturity, participant of the Venice Biennale and Kassel
documenta. Researcher and connoisseur of the visual in Soviet grassroots culture.
Year of birth: 1958
Product: "Perdo-K-62M"
Date of sale: 06/13/2008
Price (GBP)1: 92,446
Total capitalization (GBP): 430,000
Place: 22
Average job cost (GBP): 22,632
Number of repeat sales: 2
23. Natalya Nesterova
One of the main art stars of the Brezhnev stagnation. Loved by collectors for its textured, painterly style.
Year of birth: 1944
Work: “The Miller and His
son". 1969
Date of sale: 06/15/2007
Price (GBP)1: 92,388
Total capitalization (GBP): 1,950,000
Place: 9
Average job cost (GBP): 20,526
Number of repeat sales: 15
24. Maxim Kantor
An expressionist painter who performed in the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1997 - as well as a publicist and writer, author of a philosophical and satirical novel Drawing tutorial about the ins and outs of the Russian art world.
Year of birth: 1957
Work: “The Structure of Democracy.” 2003
Date of sale: 10/18/2008
Price (GBP)1: 87,650
Total capitalization (GBP): 441,000
Place: 21
Average Job Cost (GBP): 44,100
Number of repeat sales: 2
25. Andrey Sidersky
Creates paintings in the style of psy-art he invented. Translated works of Carlos Castaneda and Richard Bach into Russian.
Year of birth: 1960
Work: “Triptych”
Date of sale: 12/04/2009
Price (GBP)1: 90,000
Total capitalization (GBP): 102,000
Place: 42
Average job cost (GBP): 51,000
Number of repeat sales: —
26. Valery Koshlyakov
Known for paintings with architectural motifs. The largest representative of the “South Russian wave”. Often uses cardboard boxes, bags, and tape. The first exhibition with his participation was held in a public toilet in Rostov-on-Don in 1988.
Year of birth: 1962
Work: "Versailles". 1993
Date of sale: 03/12/2008
Price (GBP)1: 72,500
Total capitalization (GBP): 346,000
Place: 26
Average job cost (GBP): 21,625
Number of repeat sales: 8
27. Alexey Sundukov
Laconic, leaden-colored paintings about the “leaden abominations” of everyday Russian life.
Year of birth: 1952
Work: “The Essence of Being.” 1988
Date of sale: 04/23/2010
Price (GBP)1: 67,250
Total capitalization (GBP): 255,000
Place: 29
Average job cost (GBP): 25,500
Number of repeat sales: 1
28. Igor Novikov
Belongs to the generation of Moscow nonconformist artists of the late 1980s.
Year of birth: 1961
Work: “The Kremlin Breakfast, or Moscow for Sale.” 2009
Date of sale: 03.12.2010
Price (GBP)1: 62,092
Total capitalization (GBP): 397,000
Place: 24
Average job cost (GBP): 15,880
Number of repeat sales: 3
29. Vadim Zakharov
Archivist of Moscow conceptualism. The author of spectacular installations on profound topics, represented Russia at the Venice
biennial
Year of birth: 1959
Work: "Baroque". 1986-1994
Date of sale: 10/18/2008
Price (GBP)1: 61,250
Total capitalization (GBP): 243,000
Place: 30
Average job cost (GBP): 20,250
Number of repeat sales: —
30. Yuri Krasny
Author of art programs for children with special needs.
Year of birth: 1925
Work: “The Smoker”
Date of sale: 04/04/2008Price (GBP)1: 59,055
Total capitalization (GBP): 89,000
Place: 44
Average job cost (GBP): 11,125
Number of repeat sales: 8
31. Sergey and Alexey Tkachev
Classics of late Soviet impressionism, students of Arkady Plastov, famous for their paintings from the life of the Russian village.
Year of birth: 1922, 1925
Work: “In the Field.” 1954
Date of sale: 01.12.2010
Price (GBP)1: 58,813
Total capitalization (GBP): 428,000
Place: 23
Average job cost (GBP): 22,526
Number of repeat sales: 4
32. Svetlana Kopystyanskaya
Known for installations of paintings. After the Moscow auction Sotheby's in 1988 he works abroad.
Year of birth: 1950
Work: “Seascape”
Date of sale: 10/13/2007
Price (GBP)1: 57,600
Total capitalization (GBP): 202,000
Place: 32
Average job cost (GBP): 22,444
Number of repeat sales: 2
33. Boris Orlov
A sculptor close to social art. He is famous for his works in the ironic “imperial” style and his masterful craftsmanship of bronze busts and bouquets.
Year of birth: 1941
Work: "Sailor". 1976
Date of sale: 10/17/2013
Price (GBP)1: 55,085
Total capitalization (GBP): 174,000
Place: 34
Average job cost (GBP): 17,400
Number of repeat sales: 1
34. Vyacheslav Kalinin
The author of expressive paintings from the life of the urban lower classes and drinking bohemia.
Year of birth: 1939
Artwork: “Self-portrait with a hang glider”
Date of sale: 11/25/2012
Price (GBP)1: 54,500
Total capitalization (GBP): 766,000
Place: 13
Average job cost (GBP): 12,767
Number of repeat sales: 24
35. Evgeny Semenov
Known for his photo series with Down's disease patients playing the roles of gospel characters.
Year of birth: 1960
Work: "Heart". 2009
Date of sale: 06/29/2009
Price (GBP)1: 49,250
Total capitalization (GBP): 49,000
Place: 48
Average job cost (GBP): 49,000
Number of repeat sales: —
36. Yuri Cooper
He became famous for his nostalgic canvases with old household items. Author of the play Twelve paintings from the life of the artist, staged at the Moscow Art Theater. A.P. Chekhov.
Year of birth: 1940
Work: “Window. Dassa Street, 56." 1978
Date of sale: 06/09/2010
Price (GBP)1: 49,250
Total capitalization (GBP): 157,000
Place: 35
Average job cost (GBP): 2,754
Number of repeat sales: 14
37. Alexander Kosolapov
A socialist artist whose work has become a target for all sorts of attacks. During the Art Moscow 2005 fair, one of his works was destroyed by a religious fanatic with a hammer.
Year of birth: 1943
Work: "Marlboro Malevich." 1987
Date of sale: 03/12/2008
Price (GBP)1: 48,500
Total capitalization (GBP): 510,000
Place: 18
Average job cost (GBP): 15,938
Number of repeat sales: 1
38. Leonid Sokov
A leading sculptor of Sots Art who combined folklore with politics. Among the famous works Device for determining nationality by nose shape.
Year of birth: 1941
Work: “A bear hitting a sickle with a hammer.” 1996
Date of sale: 03/12/2008
Price (GBP)1: 48,500
Total capitalization (GBP): 352,000
Place: 25
Average job cost (GBP): 13,538
Number of repeat sales: 7
39. Vladimir Ovchinnikov
One of the patriarchs of unofficial art in Leningrad. Orthodox version of Fernando Botero.
Year of birth: 1941
Work: “Angels and Railway Tracks.” 1977
Date of sale: 04/17/2007
Price (GBP)1: 47,846
Total capitalization (GBP): 675,000
Place: 16
Average job cost (GBP): 15,341
Number of repeat sales: —
40. Konstantin Khudyakov
Author of paintings on religious subjects. Currently working in digital art technology.
Year of birth: 1945
Work: “The Last Supper.” 2007
Date of sale: 02/18/2011
Price (GBP)1: 46,850
Total capitalization (GBP): 97,000
Place: 43
Average job cost (GBP): 32,333
Number of repeat sales: —
41. Ernst Neizvestny
An icon of Soviet nonconformism - ever since he openly objected to General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev at the vernissage of the legendary exhibition dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Moscow Union of Artists. After that, he made a monument at Khrushchev’s grave and a monument in front of the UN European headquarters.
Year of birth: 1925
Work: “Untitled”
Date of sale: 06/08/2010
Price (GBP)1: 46,850
Total capitalization (GBP): 2,931,000
Place: 8
Average job cost (GBP): 24,839
Number of repeat sales: 13
42. Anatoly Osmolovsky
One of the main figures of Moscow actionism of the 1990s, art theorist, curator, publisher and head of the Baza Institute research and educational program, laureate of the first Kandinsky Prize.
Year of birth: 1969
Work: “Bread” (from the “Pagans” series). 2009
Date of sale: 04/23/2010
Price (GBP)1: 46,850
Total capitalization (GBP): 83,000
Place: 46
Average job cost (GBP): 11,857
Number of repeat sales: —
43. Dmitry Vrubel
Photorealist painter, known mainly for his painting of Brezhnev and Honecker kissing (more precisely, thanks to the author’s reproduction on the Berlin Wall).
Year of birth: 1960
Work: “Fraternal kiss (triptych).” 1990
Date of sale: 11/25/2013
Price (GBP)1: 45,000
Place: 40
Average job cost (GBP): 16,429
Number of repeat sales: 2
44. Leonid Lamm
The author of installations that combine motifs of the Russian avant-garde and scenes of Soviet prison life. Lives in America. In the 1970s, he spent three years in prisons and camps on false charges.
Year of birth: 1928
Work: “Apple II” (from the “Seventh Heaven” series). 1974-1986
Date of sale: 12/16/2009
Price (GBP)1: 43,910
Total capitalization (GBP): 115,000
Place: 41
Average job cost (GBP): 14,375
Number of repeat sales: —
Irina Nakhova’s picturesque installations of the 1980s in her apartment can claim authorship in the “total” genre.
45. Irina Nakhova
Muse of Moscow conceptualism. Winner of the 2013 Kandinsky Prize for “Project of the Year”. In 2015 at the 56th Venice Biennale
will represent Russia.
Year of birth: 1955
Work: "Triptych". 1983
Date of sale: 03/12/2008
Price (GBP)1: 38,900
Total capitalization (GBP): 85,000
Place: 45
Average job cost (GBP): 17,000
Number of repeat sales: 1
46. Katya Filippova
Avant-garde clothing designer who became famous during perestroika. She decorated the windows of the Parisian department store Galeries Lafayette, and was friends with Pierre Cardin.
Year of birth: 1958
“Work: Marina Ladynina” (from the “Russian Hollywood” series)
Date of sale: 03/12/2008
Price (GBP)1: 38,900
Total capitalization (GBP): 39,000
Place: 49
Average job cost (GBP): 39,000
Number of repeat sales: —
47. Boris Zaborov
Theater artist, book illustrator. In 1980 he emigrated to Paris and worked on costumes for the Comedy Française.
Year of birth: 1935
Work: “Participant”. 1981
Date of sale: 10/30/2006
Price (GBP)1: 36,356
Total capitalization (GBP): 67,000
Place: 47
Average job cost (GBP): 13,400
Number of repeat sales: 2
48. Rostislav Lebedev
Classic socialist artist, colleague (and workshop neighbor) of Boris Orlov and Dmitry Prigov. Creatively transformed visual propaganda from Soviet times.
Year of birth: 1946
Work: “Russian Fairy Tale”. 1949
Date of sale: 06/03/2008
Price (GBP)1: 34,000
Total capitalization (GBP): 122,000
Place: 39
Average job cost (GBP): 24,400
Number of repeat sales: 2
49. Andrey Filippov
Belongs to the Moscow conceptual school. The author of paintings and installations united by the theme “Moscow - the Third Rome”. Since 2009, together with Yuri Albert and Victor Skersis, he has been a member of the Cupid group.
Year of birth: 1959
Work: "Seven Feet Under the Keel." 1988
Date of sale: 05/31/2006
Price (GBP)1: 33,600
Total capitalization (GBP): 137,000
Place: 37
Average job cost (GBP): 12,455
Number of repeat sales: 3
50. Vladimir Shinkarev
The founder and ideologist of the Leningrad art group “Mitki”, in whose novel Mitki this term was first used. The novel was written out of boredom while working in the boiler room.
Year of birth: 1954
Work: “Lenin Square I”. 1999
Date of sale: 06/30/2008
Price (GBP)1: 32,450
Total capitalization (GBP): 33,000
Place: 50
Average job cost (GBP): 16,500
Number of repeat sales: —
Sales vs exhibitions
Market recognition and recognition by the professional community seem like different things to many, but the division into “commercial” and “non-commercial” artists is very arbitrary. Thus, of the Russian artists who have exhibited at the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art over the past ten years (and this is the pinnacle of their professional career), seven (if counting by person, then 11 people) are included in our rating. And the top 10 artists from the rating either exhibited at the Venice Biennale before, or had personal exhibitions in major museums. As for those wonderful artists who were not included in the rating, their absence or not very outstanding sales can be explained simply and banally. Collectors are conservative and even from the most avant-garde creators they prefer to buy paintings (paintings, objects similar to paintings or photographs) or sculpture (or objects similar to sculpture). There are no record-breaking performances or giant installations in our rating (installations are usually bought by museums, but the prices are museum-quality, at a discount). That is why such stars as Andrey Monastyrsky, Oleg Kulik, Pavel Pepperstein(until recently I mainly did graphics, and graphics are a priori cheaper than painting) or, for example, Nikolai Polissky, whose grandiose designs have not yet found any understanding collectors.
In addition, the market is also conservative because recognition comes slowly - note that in the top 10 all artists were born in 1950 or older. That is, promising participants of the biennale still have everything ahead of them.
Publications in the Museums section
7 most expensive Russian paintings
Over the past 10 years, the works of famous Russian artists have broken many records at world art auctions. "Culture.RF" talks about the most expensive domestic paintings according to this year's data.
Mark Rothko. "Orange, Red, Yellow", 1969
$86.9 million (Christie's, 2012)
Marcus Yakovlevich Rotkovich, born in 1903 in the Vitebsk province, traditionally tops all sales rankings of “Russian art” from year to year. At the age of 10, he emigrated with his parents and grew up in the United States, where he shortened his name to Mark Rothko and became a famous abstract painter. Rothko became famous as a master of “color field painting” - non-objective abstractions, where the main means of expression was spectacular, energetic color. And Rothko’s canvas “Orange, Red, Yellow” is also among the ten most expensive paintings in the world - after the masterpieces of Pablo Picasso, Gustav Klimt and Andy Warhol.
Kazimir Malevich. "Suprematist composition", 1916
$60 million (Sotheby's, 2008)
Malevich's abstractions end up on the public market extremely rarely and usually in very complex ways. For example, “Suprematist Composition” went to auction directly from the state museum. The fact is that in 1927, Malevich, quickly leaving Germany, left many works brought to the exhibition for storage by the architect Hugo Goering. In 1958, Goering's heirs, believing in the Iron Curtain, sold them to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. And in 2008, Malevich’s descendants sued several masterpieces from the museum because the deal was illegal.
Chaim Soutine. "Bull Carcass", circa 1923
$28 million (Christie's, 2015)
A native of the Smolensk province, 20-year-old Chaim Soutine moved to Paris in 1913 and became a recognized master of the Parisian school, which united painters from many countries. This painting is part of a series depicting hanging bull carcasses. Soutine painted meat from life, buying it from a slaughterhouse; the carcasses hung in the workshop for several days, and he poured fresh blood on them for brightness. Neighbors complained to the police about the smell and flies. Modern art critics consider the series iconic for modern art due to the naturalistic nature of the painting and emotional message.
Wassily Kandinsky. "Painting with White Lines", 1913
$41.8 million (Sotheby's, 2017)
Wassily Kandinsky painted this abstract composition in 1913 for an exhibition in Germany, but the painting never went there - the First World War began. After the October Revolution of 1917, the painting was kept in the collections of the Museum of Painting Culture on Volkhonka, then in Penza, and later in the Tretyakov Gallery. In 1974, the canvas ended up with the collector Wilhelm Hack - he exchanged Kandinsky's work with the Soviet government for letters from Vladimir Lenin. In the 1970s, Hack built a museum for his collection, where the “Painting with White Lilies” was kept until the Sotheby’s auction.
Wassily Kandinsky. "Stiff and Bent", 1910
$23.3 million (Christie's, 2016)
The painting dates back to the Parisian period of Kandinsky’s work, when, after moving from Germany, he completely changed the palette and added delicate shades and gray tones to it. Kandinsky wrote that he was inspired by the atmosphere of Paris, which reminded him of rainy days in his homeland, Moscow. The figure on the right side of the picture possibly depicts the plot of the abduction of Europa by the bull Jupiter. Proponents of this theory even recognize the figure in the very corner as a frolicking seahorse.
Alexey Yavlensky. "Shokko (Shokko in a wide-brimmed hat)", circa 1910
$16.5 million (Sotheby's, 2008)
Kandinsky's colleague in the Berlin art society "Blue Rider" Alexei Jawlensky, who left Russia in 1896, is considered one of the creators of German expressionism. The painting depicts a girl from a village near Munich, whose real name is unknown. She earned the nickname Schokko by asking for a cup of hot chocolate every time she posed in a cold studio. The picture was painted on a board, on the back of which there was once a second portrait of the girl - “Shokko in a red hat.” The artist managed to divide the board, and “Chocco with a Red Hat” is today in a New York private collection.
Valentin Serov. “Portrait of Maria Tsetlina”, 1910
$14.5 million (Christie's, 2014)
Serov's works appear on sale so rarely that buyers almost fight for them. This painting came to auction under sad circumstances. Maria Tsetlina, who was also a collector, bequeathed her collection to the Israeli city of Ramat Gan in 1959 with the condition that the new museum of Russian art would be named after her and her husband. Over the years, this museum never got a good building, and in 2014 the city municipality put the portrait - the most expensive painting in the inherited collection - up for auction. Moreover, he did this in secret from both the townspeople and local deputies. However, Serov’s painting was still sold for $14.5 million.
