George Michael’s personal art collection fetches £11.3m at auction
Extensive collection include works by Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin
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Your support makes all the difference.George Michael’s personal art collection has sold for £11.3m ($15m) at auction.
The collection, comprised of more than 150 lots, was sold in part during an evening sale at Christie’s on London’s King Street. That auction raised £9,264,000 ($12m).
The rest of Michael’s collection was sold in an online auction that closed on Friday, having raised £2,045,375 ($2.7m).
All the proceeds will go towards philanthropic causes supported by the late singer, who died on Christmas Day 2016.
Michael’s extensive collection, which was made available to the public in a pre-sale exhibition, includes works by Damien Hirst that raised more than £2m ($2.7m). Hirst’s The Incomplete Truth took £911,250 ($1.2m), Exquisite Pain went for £875,250 ($1.2m), and The Immaculate Heart – Sacred sold for £323,250 ($429,728).
Also featured were works by Tracey Emin, including her painting Hurricane, which took £431,250 ($573,303); her neon art George Loves Kenny, which Emin created after going on tour with Michael, sold for £347,250 ($461,634); and Drunk to the Bottom of My Soul went for £275,000 ($365,585).
Other works included Bridget Riley’s Songbird as well as three pieces by Michael Craig-Martin inspired by Michael’s 1998 arrest after engaging in a sexual act in a public toilet.
Those three works, Untitled (SEX), Untitled (GOD) and Handcuffs, sold for £125,000 ($166,215), £40,000 ($53,188) and £112,500 ($149,593) respectively.
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