These Are the Most Expensive Artworks Sold in 2022

With 2022 almost behind us, we take a look at what marked the year, including the best sellers in the art market. The years were full of turbulence, starting with the war in Europe and the collapse of the crypto market to the ongoing global health crisis and ecological devastation. However, the art market managed to bounce back from a lackluster pandemic phase, bringing in a total of $65.1 billion, a marked rise of 29% from the previous year. 

Featured image: Georges Seurat – Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version), 1888, courtesy of Sotheby’s

The most expensive artworks sold in 2022 come again from well-known names such as Basquiat and Warhol, showing that experiments with pop culture are still among the highest valued by collectors and institutions. Male artists also dominate the list. The recently published Burns Halperin Report 2022 shows that minority artists make just a fraction when it comes to representation in museums and presence at auctions, and the results from the best sellers list seem to confirm the case further. 

Not one woman or woman of color reached the list, and only one Black artist is there. Also, the list is highly Eurocentric, or Western-centric, as it comprises the artists who worked mainly in these contexts, showing the strength and dominance of Western art epistemology that exerts its influence over the art market as well. 

It is not a big surprise that most works are done with traditional techniques, some due to the time of their creation. New media, and especially digital art that became increasingly popular in the last few years, owing in part to the popularity of NFTs, is also lacking from the list. 

The latest research on collectors’ preferences shows, however, that although new digital formats are becoming increasingly relevant, collectors still prefer to collect tangible artworks or digital pieces that have a material dimension as well. Phygital art, a new hybridized physical-digital art format, thus emerged recently as an alternative but is still far from reaching the list of best sellers any time soon.

In what follows, we present the highest-grossing artworks sold at auctions in 2022, spanning a period from the late 19th to the late 20th century.  

Featured image: René Magritte, Empire of Light (L’empire des lumières), 1961, courtesy of Sotheby’s

René Magritte, Empire of Light (L’empire des lumières), 1961

This work by René Magritte, featuring a lonesome twilight scene, sold at the Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction at Sotheby’s in London for $79 million in March 2022. The work is part of The Empire of Light series that depicts a similar motif, inspired by the works of the English painter John Atkinson Grimshaw and Caspar David Friedrich. 

Magritte created the first painting with this subject in 1948, and the subsequent ones show a slightly reimagined composition. It was purchased by Nelson Rockefeller, while the subsequent ones are now held in the collections of the leading world museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels

The image can be interpreted as a subtle take on a surrealist approach of bringing opposite and contrasting motifs together. Here, it seems that night and day coexist simultaneously, with artificial and natural light creating an atmospheric scenery. 

Featured image: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled, 1982, courtesy of Phillips

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled, 1982

Jean-Michel Basquiat is one of the regulars on the end-of-the-year lists of the top-selling artists besides Andy Warhol. His Untitled painting from 1982 sold for $85 million at 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale at Phillips in New York in May 2022. 

The painting features a horned devil in the shape of an African-style mask floating in front of a jumbled, abstract background featuring drips of paint. Being almost 16 feet wide, the painting is one of the artist’s most monumental and has a rich sale history, starting with a 2004 sale to the New York collector and dealer Adam Lindemann for just $4.5 million. 

The popularity of the artist, decades after his death, describes Andrew Terner, a private dealer and collector. “Basquiat connotes cool kids, misfits, the unhinged genius,” he explains.

Basquiat is not just an artist; for a lot of the people out there, he’s a religion. 

Featured image: Andy Warhol, White Disaster [White Car Crash 19 Times], 1963, courtesy of Sotheby’s

Andy Warhol, White Disaster [White Car Crash 19 Times], 1963

The piece comes from Andy Warhol’s Death and Disaster series, which was created during the 1960s. Sold at Contemporary Evening Auction at Sotheby’s in New York in November 2022 for $85 million, it is one of the artist’s most captivating works.

The piece features a repetitive image of car collisions resembling cut slides from a film tape. Created during the time of economic boom in the U.S., the work is simultaneously a critique of the consumerist society and an aestheticized depiction of a car accident.

Featured image: Lucian Freud, Large Interior, W11 (after Watteau), 1981–83, courtesy of Christie’s

Lucian Freud, Large Interior, W11 (after Watteau), 1981–83

Part of The Paul G. Allen Collection, Lucian Freud‘s Large Interior, W11 (after Watteau) sold for $86 million at Christie’s in New York on November 9th, 2022. The work is a masterpiece of human observation and shows Freud’s extraordinary technical virtuosity. 

The painting engages with Antoine Watteau’s Pierrot content, c. 1712, and transposes the French artist’s fête galante to Freud’s studio where commedia dell’arte cast is replaced by some of Freud’s favorite muses, including his lovers and offspring. It is a snapshot of the artist’s world and a commentary on his predilection to paint people he knew well. 

Featured image: Gustav Klimt, Birch Forest, 1903, courtesy of Christie’s

Gustav Klimt, Birch Forest, 1903

Another piece from The Paul G. Allen Collection, Gustav Klimt‘s Birch Forest, 1903, sold for  $104 million at Christie’s on the same date as Freud’s. Filled with stillness and mystery, this segment of a forest appears strange and isolated from the rest of the world. With no hint of a sky to introduce perspective, the forest is filled with botches of colour that render an abstract quality to the piece. 

The canvas is purposefully a square, as Klimt believed this format holds great potential for representing a world of balance and piece. In one of his letters, Klimt described his routine while working on the painting: “Early in the morning, mostly about six, a little earlier or later–I get up–if the weather is good I go into the forest nearby–I’m painting a little beech wood there (in the sun) with a few conifers in between…”

Featured image: Paul Gauguin, Maternité II, 1899, courtesy of Christie’s

Paul Gauguin, Maternité II, 1899

Sold at Christie’s for $105 million from the same collection as the previous works, this Paul Gauguin piece depicts two women from Tahiti, where Gauguin moved earlier. Stating in one letter that he has “come to an unalterable decision to go and live forever in Polynesia without this eternal struggle against idiots.” 

During this time away from Europe, Gauguin created some of his most important works that show a marked turn from his previous style.

Featured image: Vincent van Gogh, Verger avec cyprès, 1888, courtesy of Christie’s

Vincent van Gogh, Verger avec cyprès, 1888

Every Vincent van Gogh painting that comes to an auction raises a huge interest. Auctioned off at Christie’s from Paul G. Allen Collection in November, Verger avec cyprès from 1888 is no exception. Fetching $117 million, the work was painted in southern France, in Arles, which Van Gogh imagined as a Promised Land. 

During the course of a few weeks he spent there, Van Gogh painted 14 canvases, showing orchards in blossom from different views. In this painting, he focused on a more expansive view rendered in delicate, linear strokes of pale pink, green, and blue. 

Featured image: Paul Cézanne, La Montagne Sainte-Victoire, 1888–90, courtesy of Christie’s

Paul Cézanne, La Montagne Sainte-Victoire, 1888–90

The mountain of Sainte-Victoire is a recurring and most recognizable theme in Paul Cézanne‘s oeuvre. This canvas sold at Christie’s for $137 million, again from The Paul G. Allen Collection. 

The work belongs to the later pieces in the group featuring the mountain when the artist abandoned more structured compositions of the early 1880s. The mountain and the landscape are more abstracted here, and the dynamic composition of colour flats adds to the overall visual drama of the piece. 

Cézanne’s detachment from Impressionism is emphasized here through the almost architectural organization of the composition. “Nature isn’t at the surface; it’s in depth,” explained Cezanne. “Colours are the expression on this surface, of this depth. They rise up out of the earth’s roots: they are its life, the life of ideas.”

Featured image: Georges Seurat, Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version), 1888, courtesy of Christie’s

Georges Seurat, Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version), 1888

The most expensive painting from The Paul G. Allen Collection is this Georges Seurat‘s canvas, which sold at Christie’s for $149 million. Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version) from 1888 is Seurat’s response to questions raised by some critics if the pointillist technique is suitable for depictions of different subjects, particularly the subtleties of the human body. 

Seurat created several drawings and oil paintings in preparation for Les Poseuses, and this piece is believed to be the most complete and refined version among them. 

Featured image: Andy Warhol, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, 1964, courtesy of Christie’s

Andy Warhol, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, 1964

Sold from The Collection of Thomas and Doris Ammann at Christie’s in New York on May 9th, 2022 for $195 million, this Warhol piece is now the most expensive work of art created in the 20th century. 

The painting, one in a series of several works by Warhol, which subject is the legendary Marilyn Monroe, represents not only the physical attractiveness of the late actress but also stands for her cultural power. Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is a Mona Lisa for the 20th century. The painting also represents the pinnacle of Andy Warhol’s career and is the highest example of his silkscreen technique.