A self-portrait by David Bowie, described as “striking and personal”, is expected to fetch up to £55,000 when it appears at auction for the first time next week.
The painting, created in 1996, will be offered at Sotheby’s Modern British & Irish Art Day Auction in London on Thursday, October 15. The musician died aged 69 on January 10 2016 after an 18-month battle with cancer.
Provenance and rarity
The auction house said the piece was “created during a prolific period of painting in the mid-1990s and belongs to a small group of portrait heads produced at that time”. After Bowie gave the work to his St Ives gallerist, it has remained in the same collection ever since.
Sotheby’s described the paper work as “one of the most striking and personal self-portraits by David Bowie ever to appear at auction”. It features Bowie’s own likeness alongside two handprints he pressed directly onto the composition.
A physical trace of the artist
Sotheby’s said: “Staring directly out at the viewer, Bowie prominently displays his famously asymmetric eyes, while the handprints in the lower corners create an unusually intimate connection to the artist. More than a self-portrait, it’s arguably the closest thing to a physical trace of Bowie himself that a collector could own.”
The work is “particularly noteworthy” because “very little” has been published about Bowie’s painting practice, the auction house added. “There is no catalogue raisonne or definitive record of this body of work. As a result, examples appearing at auction are exceptionally rare. In fact, only two Bowie self-portraits have previously come to auction. Compared to those works, this piece is remarkably direct in its gaze, more vividly coloured and arguably far more commanding in its presence, making it one of the strongest Bowie self-portraits to emerge publicly to date.”
Bowie’s painting practice
Kate Chertavian, Bowie’s longtime art adviser and curator, said: “Though David’s love of the visual arts has been widely celebrated, his life as a painter remains relatively unknown. So here we get a rare glimpse of David as a visual artist in his own right. I was very much part of his world when he created the series of eight self-portraits to which this work belongs. He painted them in London – sometimes at a studio in my house, and sometimes in his hotel rooms. He was prolific, producing prints as well as paintings, but these self-portraits are among my favourites – they capture the essence of David.”
Bowie had five number one singles and 11 number one albums in the UK during his lifetime, and is best known for songs such as Space Oddity, Ashes To Ashes and Sound And Vision. His final album, Blackstar, released on his 69th birthday two days before his death, became his first to reach number one in the US, topped charts in more than 20 countries, and won five Grammy Awards.
Last week it was announced that a series of special events, releases, collaborations and fan experiences had been launched around the world to mark what would have been his 80th birthday on January 8 next year. Titled Bowie80, organisers say the events will acknowledge how Bowie’s impact can still be “seen, heard and felt across all forms of art and in mainstream and outsider culture spanning both the 20th and 21st centuries”.
