“Yes, I can paint that too,” I want to say, looking at Malevich’s “Black Square” or another painting that looks simple, but brought its author a lot of money.
Well, it's never too late to grab some paint, splash it on canvas, and try to sell your creation for a profit. And to motivate you to do this, we present the top 10 most expensive single-color paintings in the world.
Some of these masterpieces of painting have not been exhibited at auction, and their value can only be estimated approximately.
10. Shiraze Khushiari, “Veil”
Price: 60 thousand dollars.
In 1999, Iranian artist Shirazeh Houshyari painted a canvas that appears to be nothing more than an unevenly painted black square. Shirazeh herself believes it to be a self-portrait.
The artist has written Sufi phrases in Arabic on a black painted canvas. However, they can only be seen at a very close distance. Critics consider her work to be a cross between painting and graphics.
9. Li Yuan Chia, "Monochrome White Painting"
The possible cost of the work is 100 thousand dollars.
It consists of a white canvas with four small cardboard circles placed on the canvas, just below and to the left of the center. The two larger circles are on the left, while the two smaller circles are closer to the center.
The circles are covered in the same white paint as the rest of the painting. Chia described these circles as “space dots,” a motif he developed in the early 1960s and which has remained central to his subsequent practice.
The asymmetrical placement of the "space dots" in the painting gives it an element of randomness, which is contradicted by the severity and simplicity of the canvas as a whole.
8. Allan McCollum, "Surrogate Pictures"
Sold for 125 thousand euros
Although the work of the contemporary American artist looks like paintings in frames, in fact they are painted dummies. Moreover, no two "Surrogate Paintings" are identical. Although they are mass-produced, each dummie is painted by hand.
According to the author, such pseudo-paintings should help bridge the gap between art and automation.
7. Gerhard Richter, "Blood-Red Mirror"
The cost of the painting is 1.1 million dollars.
German artist Gerhard Richter's paintings range from detailed, almost photorealistic portraits to monochromatic paintings. He even designed a stained glass window for Cologne Cathedral, which is formed from squares of colored glass arranged in a random pattern.
One of the artist's most famous works, "Blood-Red Mirror," is indeed a mirror painted red. It was sold in 2009 for $1.1 million. I wonder what the buyer wants to see in such a mirror?
6. Ad Reinhardt, "Abstract Painting"
Estimated price: from 2 million dollars.
The New York artist was an advocate of abstract expressionism in his youth—the subconscious use of color and shape. His early work incorporated geometric shapes and other traditional techniques.
However, after the 1940s, Reinhardt began to create paintings consisting entirely of one color. In the last 10 years of his life, he created only a series of square canvases painted entirely in black.
At first glance, they may seem completely featureless. But there are subtle differences between each painting that can take hours, even days, to discover.
When these Reinhardt creations were first shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, one visitor cancelled his membership in protest.
5. Yves Klein, "Untitled Blue Monochrome"
The probable price is 3-4 million dollars.
If you want to see what the "mood color blue" looks like, take a look at the works of French artist Yves Klein, one of which opens the top 5 most expensive monochrome paintings in the world. The main color in his work symbolizes the infinity of the Universe.
In 1958, the artist presented his exhibition in Paris under the title "Emptiness", having previously sent out invitations to a huge number of people on blue paper and, of course, in blue envelopes. And its name did not deceive the viewers: inside the premises, empty walls of white and blue awaited them.
Klein even created a trademark by patenting his own version of the ultramarine pigment recipe, called "International Klein Blue." Until the artist's death, "International Klein Blue" was his calling card.
4. Piero Manzoni, "Achrome"
One of the works from the series was sold at Christie's for $5.2 million.
We have already written about this scandalous artist in a selection of the simplest things that made their owners fabulously rich. He did not hesitate to sell his feces to art lovers (and they did take it), signed the bodies of volunteers and gave them a certificate of authenticity, gave exhibition visitors boiled eggs with his fingerprint on them, and did many other things that were eccentric at best.
One of Manzoni's projects was "Achrome," a series of monochrome paintings made by placing canvas in liquid kaolin. The complete absence of color was intended to focus the viewer's attention on the material qualities of the object. The wrinkles and folds were created during the process of making and drying the canvas, and were not touched by the artist's hand.
Towards the end of the series, Manzoni stopped using canvas and began using cotton, acrylic resins, fiberglass, and other materials. He also began tinting his works with pigments that change color over time.
3. Brice Marden, "Dylan painting"
Could cost around $10 million.
The painting was named after Bob Dylan, a friend of Marden's. The artist created it to help the singer's career. However, by the time the work was completed, Dylan, a future Nobel Prize winner in literature, was already more famous than Marden.
The canvas was covered with a mixture of turpentine and beeswax, to which grey was added. The artist then used a spatula to smooth the surface. At the bottom of the painting, a strip of unpainted canvas remained.
2. Kazimir Malevich, "Black Square"
Sotheby's auction values the painting at $20 million.
Perhaps the most famous monochrome painting in the world, aptly nicknamed by jokers "Negroes in a black room stealing coal", it is one of the Suprematist works by Russian avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich, in which he explored the basic possibilities of color and composition.
While Reinhardt filled his entire canvas with black paint, Malevich simply painted a black square in the center of his canvas. This work became part of a triptych that also included the Black Circle and the Black Cross.
Although the painting was once a flawless black, age has left its mark in the form of numerous cracks on the surface.
1. Robert Rauschenberg, "White Series of Paintings"
Rauschenberg's paintings are worth up to $89 million.
The five paintings in this series are a set of 1, 2, 3, 4 or 7 identical white canvases hung together. When they were first shown to the public, they looked like a cheap trick, but now Rauschenberg's white paintings can be found in galleries around the world.
Rauschenberg was a friend of composer John Cage, who wrote a piece of music called 4'33". During its performance, a pianist or other instrumentalist must sit silently for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. As a result, the audience hears only the sounds of the surrounding environment. Perhaps this is the perfect accompaniment to these paintings.
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