Kate Moss: a living work of art
As one of the most photographed models in the world, it was no surprise that last week’s Christie’s auction, inspired by the life and career of British supermodel Kate Moss, proved to be a massive success. With a collection of mostly photography, we also saw oil, plaster and ink paintings and a life-size sculpture of Kate, grossing approximately 1.6 million pounds.
Auctioned at King Street in Mayfair, the collection composed of 58 pieces by artists including Chuck Close, Annie Leibovitz, Bruce Weber, Mert & Marcus, Juergen Teller, Irving Penn and Mario Testino, and represented the bulk of German art expert Gert Elfering’s phenomenal collection inspired by muse Moss.
Although several pieces went for tremendous amounts, such as a 1998 black-and-white nude print of Irving Penn’s “Kate Moss (hand on thigh),” featured in the September 1996 issue of Vogue which sold for 61,875 pounds, the artwork which fetched for the highest price was undoubtedly Allen Jones’s sculpture of Moss, entitled “A model Model” and measuring 185cm in height, which sold for 133,875 pounds. Jones also took the silver medal, with his oil painting, “Kate in red” grossing 121,875 pounds.
Despite the absence of both Kate and Gert, the event summoned the interest of a large crowd of chattering bystanders. The majority of the bidding action took place away from the hammer, with buyers from China, Iceland and Russia competing intensely over the phone for a segment of the selection with celebrates Britain’s highest-paid model.
The auction proved to be a highly significant milestone for contemporary art, with a new market within fashion photography being created; newcomers Mert & Marcus and Davis Sims had never sold their works to auction before. Christies’s head of photography and the sale’s curator, Alexander Mountague-Sparey commented on the evening as recognising and celebrating fashion photographers as artists. An auctioneer in Georgia also noted the importance of this development for the broader art auction community, highlighting how it sets a precedent for future auctions to embrace diverse artistic disciplines.
Kate Moss – The Collection Auction at Christie’s, exclusively on Your Coffee Break:
