David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, pa ...

owned an extensive private art collection which included paintings, sculpture and furniture. He started collecting art in the mid-1970s and continued through the end of his life. His collection included paintings that he himself painted.

Bowie as an art collector and supporter of art

Iman and David Bowie at the premiere of Moon

Bowie reportedly began appreciating and collecting art in the mid 1970s, when he moved to Berlin to escape his cocaine addiction. Artist and writer

Matthew Collings Matthew Collings (born 1955) is a British art critic, writer, broadcaster, and artist. He is married to Emma Biggs, with whom he collaborates on art works. Education Born in London in 1955, Collings studied at Byam Shaw School of Art, and Golds ...

characterized the collection as "bohemian, romantic, expressive, emotional art". Bowie was described by an art advisor as "a true collector. His acquisitions were not commercially motivated; he cared about the art, not the market. His was a deeply personal, eclectic collection, reflecting his British roots and his real passion for art." He was frequently featured in

ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American art magazine, based in New York City. It covers visual arts from ancient to contemporary times. It is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. ''ARTnews'' has a readership of 180,000 in 124 co ...

' "Top 200 collectors" lists. Bowie's collection of contemporary African Art, was described as " emonstratingan appreciation that goes far beyond the all-too-frequent exoticism and 'othering' of art from the continent." In 1995, Bowie pushed for an exhibition of South African art, and he wrote about the 1995 Johannesburg Biennale for the magazine '' Modern Painters''. By 1998, Bowie was a board member of ''Modern Painters'', and he participated in the Nat Tate art hoax. Bowie would also attend gallery openings, often with his wife Iman, such as in 1999 when visiting an opening with artist Damian Loeb, or at New Yorks' Gagosian Gallery in early 1995.

Notable artists and works in the collection

Notable artists included in Bowie's collection included: *

Outsider art Outsider art is Fine art, art made by Autodidacticism, self-taught individuals who are untrained and untutored in the traditional arts with typically little or no contact with the Convention (norm), conventions of the art worlds. The term ''ou ...

from the Gugging Group * Frank Auerbach - 1965 ''Head of Gerda Boehm'' (l.) *

Jean-Michel Basquiat Jean-Michel Basquiat (; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat first achieved notoriety in the late 1970s as part of the graffiti ...

- 1984 ''Air Power'' - Year unknown "A Bruit Secret" * David Bomberg * Achille Castiglioni and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni - 1960s

Brionvega Brionvega is an Italian electronics company that is known for manufacturing futuristic television sets and audio equipment, its contributions to post-second world war technological and social advancement in Italian economic miracle, Italian in ...

RR 126 radiogram * Patrick Caulfield *

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

* Harold Gilman - ''A London Interior'' * Romuald Hazoumè *

Erich Heckel Erich Heckel (31 July 1883 – 27 January 1970) was a German people, German Painting, painter and printmaker, and a founding member of the group ''Die Brücke'' ("The Bridge") which existed 1905–1913. His work was part of the art competition ...

Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist and art collector. He was one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest ...

* Ivon Hitchens * Peter Howson * Leon Kossoff * Peter Lanyon *

Wyndham Lewis Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''Blast (British magazine), Blast'', the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His ...

* Memphis Milano *

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental Bronze sculpture, bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore ...

Odd Nerdrum Odd Nerdrum (born 8 April 1944) is a Norwegian Figurative art, figurative painting, painter. A controversial figure in Norway, he is known for his anti-modernist stance. Themes and style in Nerdrum's work reference anecdote and narrative. Primar ...

* Winifred Nicholson * Méret Oppenheim *

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, writer, filmmaker, magazine publisher, poet, and typography, typographist closely associated with Dada. When consid ...

Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish painting, Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque painting, Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged comp ...

Egon Schiele Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele (; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painters, painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude sel ...

* William Scott * Ettore Sottsass *

Stanley Spencer Sir Stanley Spencer, CBE Royal Academy of Arts, RA (30 June 1891 – 14 December 1959) was an English painter. Shortly after leaving the Slade School of Art, Spencer became well known for his paintings depicting Biblical scenes occurring as if ...

Graham Sutherland Graham Vivian Sutherland (24 August 1903 – 17 February 1980) was a prolific English artist. Notable for his paintings of abstract landscapes and for his portraits of public figures, Sutherland also worked in other media, including printmakin ...

Tintoretto Jacopo Robusti (late September or early October 1518Bernari and de Vecchi 1970, p. 83.31 May 1594), best known as Tintoretto ( ; , ), was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized th ...

- Altarpiece of Saint Catherine * William Turnbull * Euan Uglow * John Virtue * Jack Butler Yeats Basquiat's ''Air Power'', estimated at US $3.5 million to be the most expensive single piece of art in Bowie's collection, sold for $8.8 million in 2016. Tintoretto's altarpiece, which was one of Bowie's earliest art acquisitions back in 1987, was sold for £191,000.

Bowie's own art

Bowie himself was a painter and sculptor, and works by his own hand are part of his collection. This includes a series of self-portraits he painted in 1995, one of which he used as the cover to his album ''

Outside Outside or Outsides may refer to: * Wilderness Books and magazines * ''Outside'', a book by Marguerite Duras * ''Outside'' (magazine), an outdoors magazine Film, theatre and TV * Outside TV (formerly RSN Television), a television network * '' ...

''. In 1995, he called himself "a hardened old expressionist. That's the period that I adore. I guess I just feel comfortable painting within that genre." He often contributed his artwork to auctions, such as when he donated two pieces to the 'Twice Gifted' auction in 1990, and he reportedly sold another piece $500 in late 1990 at a different showing.

2016 auction

Around 350 pieces of art from Bowie's collection were put up for auction in November 2016. None of Bowie's own art was part of the auction, and the proceeds from the sale went to Bowie's family. An estimate by

Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

auction house estimated the value of the collection for sale at around US $13 million. Prior to the auction, some of the pieces were shown in Los Angeles, New York and Hong Kong. The pieces up for auction represented about two-thirds of Bowie's entire art collection. Bowie's family sold the collection because they "didn't have the space" to store it. The auction exceeded expectations, and the entire collection was sold over two days for £32.9 million (app. $41.5 million), while the highest-selling item was

’s graffiti-inspired painting ''Air Power'', sold for £7.09 million. Exhibitions of the works in London alone attracted over 51,000 visitors, the highest attendance for any pre-sale exhibition in London. The auctions themselves were attended by 1,750 bidders, with over 1,000 more bidding online.

2021 auction

In the mid- to late-1990s, Bowie painted a series of paintings entitled "DHead", typically followed by a roman numeral. These paintings were often of friends, bandmates, and self-portraits. One such DHead was used as the album cover for his 1995 album ''

''. In June 2021, "DHead XLVI" was put up for auction by a Canadian company, and fetched a price of CA $108,120 (or roughly USD $87,800).

Bowie as an art collector and supporter of art

Notable artists and works in the collection

Bowie's own art

2016 auction

2021 auction

See also

References