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History of Art Timeline |
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35,000 BCE - Present Here is a selected list of all major periods/movements in the history of art since the early Stone Age. Dates given are approximate. The timeline includes: styles of painting, sculpture, and architecture, as well as schools of decorative and interior design, and many 20th century forms of contemporary creative expression. The names of most major artists are also listed, where appropriate. This is not yet a comprehensive list of all artistic events: rather it is a work in progress. For more specific information about architectural timelines, please see the history of architecture. If you feel we have overlooked any major European Old Masters, or famous artists, or artist-groups, seminal paintings, or sculptures, please tell us. |
| Date | Event |
| 35,000 BCE 33,000 - 800 BCE 33,000 BCE 25,000 BCE 21,000 BCE 10,000 BCE 9000 BCE 6500 BCE 6500 - 2500 BCE 3500 - 331 CE 3500 - 1750 BCE 3300 BCE 3200 BCE 3000 - 2000 BCE 2800 BCE 2700 BCE 2660 - 2160 BCE 2500 BCE 2000 - 1500 BCE 1600 BCE 1500 BCE 1425 BCE 1200 BCE 1000 BCE 900 BCE 800 BCE |
Arrival of Homo
Sapiens. Neanderthals extinct. Stone
Age art period begins. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Period of Prehistoric Art (see Ancient Art) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- First Chinese pottery, with geometric motifs. (Dates not yet authenticated) First fine art sculptures: (eg) the Venus of Willendorf & the Venus of Dolni Vestonice. Cave paintings (Altamira, Spain; Lascaux, France). End of hunter-gatherer culture & cave painting. First crude earthenware pottery discovered (Turkey). First oven-fired pottery (Mesopotamia). Pigs domesticated. Emergence of Celtic Neolithic structures (eg. Stonehenge, Newgrange Megalithic Tomb). Mesopotamian civilization (Iraq). Emergence of Uruk, first city-state. Sumerian civilization (S. Iraq). First writing system (hieroglyphs). Cuneiform script 3200. Egyptian civilization begins. First walled city. Pharoah Namer unites Egypt 3100. First wheeled transport (Sumeria). Egyptians create first wall paintings in tombs. Egyptians develop first painted relief sculptures. Egyptians develop the first seated and free-standing statues. Egyptians build pyramids. Bronze Age art begins. Minoan Palaces built & rebuilt on Crete. Outstanding Minoan artworks: pottery/ceramics. Linear-B script first used in Crete. Chinese produce first bronze sculpture. Myceneans (Greek mainland) absorb Minoans. Decline of Mycenean civilization. (Architectural Dark Ages begins. Ends 600.) Iron Age art begins. Egyptians create bronze sculptures. First appearance of Geometric style of Greek Pottery. The Celtic Hallstatt style of art/design begins. |
800 BCE - 400 CE 800 - 323 BCE 750 BCE 700 - 500 BCE 750 BCE 550 BCE 539 BCE 535 BCE 500 BCE 450 BCE 447 BCE 450 BCE 400 BCE 350 BCE 340 BCE 330 BCE 300 BCE - 400 CE 246 - 208 BCE 232 BCE 206 BCE 180 BCE 150 BCE 42 BCE 27 BCE 79 CE 113 200 313 329 395 410-450 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Period of Classical Antiquity -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Era of Greek art. (Fresco murals, encaustic panel paintings, sculpture, ceramics flourish) Greek sculpture (the main surviving artform) is usually divided into these styles: Daedalic (650-600), Archaic (600-500); Early Classical (500-450), High Classical (450-400), Late Classical (400-323) Hellenistic Period (323-27). Also: Archaic Painting, Greek Classical Painting and Hellenistic Painting. For architectural designs, see Greek Architecture. Foundation of ancient Rome. Etruscan Kings rule. Etruscan civilization. First use of Greek alphabet. Famous Rumanian wood sculpture: Thinker from Cernavoda. Ancient Persians conquer Mesopotamia. Build Persepolis. High point of Greek black-figure style of ceramic pottery. Soon followed by red-figure. Democracy in Athens. Celtic La Tène art style begins. Roman Republic starts. Greek sculptor Polykleitos creates Doryphoros statue. Construction of the Parthenon begins. Finished 432. Famous Greek bronze sculpture: Discus Thrower (by Myron). Famous Etruscan works: Capitoline Wolf and Chimera of Arezzo. Greek sculptor Praxiteles produces Aphrodite of Knidos and Hermes. Famous Greek sculpture: Boy From Antikythera. Rise of Alexander the Great (d.323) Era of Roman art. Heavily influenced by Hellenistic (Greek) painting & sculpture. Creation of Chinese Terracotta Army Warriors. Famous Greek sculpture: Dying Gaul. Start of Chinese Han Dynasty (ends 220 CE) during which the first porcelain was made. Famous Greek sculpted frieze: Altar of Zeusat Pergamon. Famous Greek statue: Venus di Milo(by Alexandros of Antioch). Famous Greek sculpture: Laocoon (by sculptors Hagesandrus, Polydorus, Athenodorus) Beginning of Roman Empire. Vesuvius errupts, destroying Pompeii. Famous Roman relief sculpture monument, Trajan's Column. Christian mural paintings in catacombs of Rome. Period of Late Roman Art. Colossal Head of Constantine. Edict of Milan legitimizes Christianity. St Peter's Basilica in Rome completed. See also Roman Architecture. Roman Empire officially splits into West (Rome/Ravenna) and East (Byzantium). Fall of Rome to repeated invasions by Visigoths and Vandals. |
450-1050 500-1200 532-7 550-800 700-50 700-900 780-900 800 1050-1400 1050-1150 1080 1150-1450 1250-1400 1304-1310 1333-1400 1346 1387 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Period of the Dark Ages -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Era of Byzantine art. Panel painting, Orthodox icons and mosaics, flourish. Construction of Hagia Sophia in Byzantium/Constantinople. See Byzantine Architecture. Era of Irish monastic art. Celtic/Saxon Illuminated Gospel Manuscripts. Cathach of Colmcille (560 CE), Book of Durrow (670), Book of Kells (c.800). Oils (walnut, linseed) first used for oil-resin varnishes, and for painting on stone & glass. Early form of porcelain ceramics appear in China during the Tang Dynasty (c.600-900 CE). Medieval Christian artworks appear during Pre-Romanesque Era of Carolingian Renaissance under Charlemagne I, Otto I. Byzantine art combines with Western Christian themes to create Illuminated Bible texts. Charlemagne builds famous Palatine Chapel in Aachen. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The European Revival -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Era of Romanesque style of architecture. Religious murals, stained glass. Cathedrals built at Angoulême, Essen, Mainz, Worms; Pisa (leaning tower) plus Cluny Abbey Church. Bayeaux Tapestry, most famous piece of tapestry art commissioned by Odo of Bayeaux. Era of Gothic art and Gothic architecture. Many Gothic cathedrals designed: (eg. St. Denis (1140), Notre Dame (1160), Chartres (1194), Reims (1211), Canterbury (1100), Westminster Abbey (1245), Cologne, w. pointed arches, flying buttresses, huge stained glass windows. New panel paintings (tempera on wood), and illuminated texts (opaque paint on vellum). Oil paints first used for painting on panel. Era of Proto-Renaissance art/architecture, influenced by International Gothic style. Giotto paints fresco bible scenes in Cappella degli Scrovegni in Padua (Arena Chapel). Zen Ink-Painting dominates Japanese art. Arrival of the Black Death plague. Wipes out one third of European population. Medici Family Bank founded in Florence. |
1400-1530 1426 1434 1444 1485 1490 1495 1501-4 1503-6 1506 1508-12 1509-13 1400-onwards 1432 1433-4 1435-40 1500-10 1450 1490-1520 1500-20 1517 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Renaissance (North of Italy, known as the Northern Renaissance) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- • Italian Early Renaissance (1400-90); The three main centres of the Italian Renaissance, were Florence, Rome and Venice. Famous painting: The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise by Masaccio. Dome of Florence cathedral designed by Filippo Brunellesci. Famous bronze sculpture: David by sculptor Donatello. Famous mythological painting: The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. Famous example of perspective: Lamentation Over the Dead Christ by Mantegna. • Italian High Renaissance (1490-1530) Famous history painting: The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci. Michelangelo sculpts David in Florence. Famous portrait: Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) by Leonardo Da Vinci. Work begins on redesign and rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. Michelangelo paints the Genesis Old Testament ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. Raphael works on paintings for the papal apartments in the Vatican. • Northern Renaissance Differences in climate, religion, geography and culture between Italy and Northern Europe leads to differences in how the Renaissance develops north of Italy. FLANDERS and HOLLAND (1430-1580) Technical improvements in oil paints hasten their adoption by Dutch Old Masters. The technique then spreads to Italy, and is taken up by Leonardo Da Vinci and others. Famous polyptych altarpiece, by Jan Van Eyck: The Ghent Altarpiece. Jan Van Eyck paints masterpieces: The Arnolfini Wedding; Man in a Red Turban (1433) Famous painting: Descent from the Cross (The Deposition) by Roger Van der Weyden. Moralizing fantasy paintings by Hieronymus Bosch. (eg. The Garden of Earthly Delights). GERMANY (1450-1550) Invention of the screw printing press by the German Johann Gutenberg, along with an oil-based ink, metal prism matrices, punch-stamped typeface molds and a functional metal alloy to mold the type. Astonishingly, only minor improvements were made to Gutenberg's press design until about 1800. Tilman Riemenschneider creates greatest religious wood sculpture. Albrecht Durer, greatest artist & printmaker of Northern Renaissance, flourishes. Martin Luther starts the Reformation. See also: Renaissance Architecture. |
1530-1600 1534-41 1545 1550 1550 1561 1577 1580 1581 1583 1600-1700 1656-67 1700-70 1707 1744 1750-1800 1764 1766 1768 1789 1793 1799 1799 1800-50 1803 1810-40 1819 1830 1830-70 1836 1840 1841 1848 1850-67 1850-present 1855 1859 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Era of Mannerism. Links High Renaissance and the Baroque eras. Michelangelo paints The Last Judgement biblical frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. Council of Trent: Church in Rome launches Counter-Reformation. Fine arts and architecture used by Catholic religion to promote its authority and public appeal. The artists Titian and Tintoretto both active in Mannerist Venice Renaissance. The eminent Renaissance art critic Giorgio Vasari, publishes his Lives of the Artists. Foundation of the Academy of Art in Florence (Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno) the first official school of drawing in Europe to promote what is now called Academic Art. Greek mannerist artist El Greco establishes himself in Spain as religious painter. Foundation of the Academy of Art in Rome (Accademia di San Luca). Foundation of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Mannerist sculptor Giambologna creates his famous Rape of the Sabines. Era of Baroque Art and Baroque Architecture, noted for its grandeur. Its bold dramatic and often colourful paintings (by Baroque painters Caravaggio, Rubens, Velazquez) and portraits (by Van Dyck), as well as sculpture by Bernini, are used by secular rulers to buttress their absolutism, and by the Catholic Church as a form of propaganda. Baroque art in Protestant countries takes a more middle-class down-to-earth style, focusing on highly realistic portable artworks enhancing the status of the owner: such as personal portraits, still life & landscape, of the Dutch Realist School led by Jan Vermeer, and by Rembrandt. Bernini designs the grand theatrical approaches to St Peter's to overawe visitors. Era of Rococo Art and interior architectural design. Light, whimsical, decorative style reflecting the decadence of the French Kings, and reaction against Baroque gravity. Tiepolo, Watteau, Boucher & Fragonard are the main artists. See Rococo Architecture. Ceramicist Ehrenfried von Tschirnhaus and alchemist Johann Friedrich Bottger discover a formula (using feldspathic rock) for true porcelain ceramics in Meissen, Germany. Foundation of Sotheby's art auctioneers by Samuel Baker. Era of Neoclassicism, a reaction against the frivolity of the French court. Promoted a return to the values and steadfast nobility of Classical Greece and Rome. Neoclassical artists included painters Goya, Ingres and Jacques-Louis David, sculptors Houdon, Canova and Thorvaldsen. Neoclassical architectural designs (buildings decorated by columns of Greek-style pillars, and topped with classical Renaissance domes) dominate Europe and spread to America (eg. US Capitol building). Catherine the Great establishes The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Foundation of Christie's art auctioneers by James Christie the Elder, in London. Foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Beginning of the French Revolution. Opening of the Louvre Museum to the public, in Paris. Napoleon seizes power in France. Invention of lithography (using a matrix of fine-grained limestone) by the Austrian printer Alois Senefelder. Era of Romanticism in art, encouraged by the heroic ideals of the French Revolution. French Romantics led by Eugene Delacroix. Other leading artists included William Blake, Caspar David Friedrich, JMW Turner, Thomas Cole and John Constable. Invention of machine made paper (made from linen and cotton rags) by the Frenchman Nicholas Louis Robert. German painters Friedrich Overbeck and Franz Pforr form the Nazarenes movement. Anti-classicism, inspired by Catholicism, they revived the art of fresco painting. Completion of the Prado Museum in Madrid. Famous painting: Liberty Leading the People, by Delacroix. Barbizon 'School': Group of French landscape painters working near Fontainebleau. Led by Theodore Rousseau, the Barbizon School made landscape as important as portraiture and genre painting, paving the way for Impressionism, the supreme plein-air painting movement. Other members included Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Honoré Daumier. Other landscape plein-air painting schools emerge in Pont-Aven & Concarneau. Opening of the Alte Pinakothek museum in Munich. Invention of the revolving perfecting press by American Richard March Hoe, (followed in 1846 by the first rotary press) and the manufacture of paper from wood pulp. Collapsible tin paint tube invented by painter John Rand. Boosts plein air painting. Romantic Pre-Raphaelite art movement founded by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, London. High point of Orientalism, a painting school celebrating the exotic Near and Middle East. Members included: Jean-Auguste Ingres, Delacroix, Sir David Wilkie, Eugene Fromentin. The emergence of Realism, the progressive movement in art and literature. Spurning the ideal, Realists, such as Jean-Francois Millet and Gustave Courbet, sought to depict the truth: in particular, the everyday social truths of the new industrial age. Realism continues to spawn new approaches to the depiction of reality in the 20th century. Gustave Courbet paints The Painter's Studio for display at his own exhibition: Le Réalisme. Invention of photo-lithography by the French lithographer, Firmin Gillot, followed in 1872 by his son's invention of zincography, combining photography with etching. |
1860-1979 1860-1900 1862-3 c.1869-90 1877 1884 1885-90 1885-1900 1890-1910 1897 1898 1900-present 1900-07 1908-1913 1908-14 1914-18 Mid-1920s-30s 1920s-30s 1920s-30s 1925-35 1936-45 1937 1940s-50s 1950s-60s 1960s-70s |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Age of Modern Art -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lesser known modern art movements of the mid-late 19th century included: Macchiaioli a Florentine style of anti-academy Impressionism (1860-90); Japonism, popular in UK and France (1875-1900); French Naturalism (Bande Noire, Brittany) inspired by Emil Zola (1880s-90s); Naive Art, exemplified by Henri Rousseau (1895-1940); Symbolism, an intellectual rather than visual form of painting (1886-1900); Les Nabis, a mystical religious school of decorative art which spanned painting, tapestry, mosaics, fans, ceramics, and book illustration (1890s); Verismo, an Italian school of raw realism, led by Telemaco Signorini. (1890-1900); Intimisme, a style of intimate genre-painting exemplified by Edouard Vuillard (1890s-1900s). Edouard Manet paints Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe then Olympia, in the style of Goya (The Nude Maja 1800), causing a scandal in the French Salon. Era of French Impressionism, the name given by French critic Louis Leroy in 1874 to the works of Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro and others, after seeing Monet's painting Impression: Sunrise at the first Impressionist show. Impressionists focused on the depiction of outdoor light, although within a decade most of them (including Degas) had turned to painting indoors or in studios. France's greatest modern sculptor Auguste Rodin shows The Age of Bronze at the Salon. Later Rodin masterpieces include: The Gates of Hell (1880-1917), The Burghers of Calais (1884-86) and The Kiss (1888). The Pointillist neo-Impressionist artist Georges Seurat creates Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, employing the optical colour-theory of Divisionism. The prolific period of the Dutch Expressionist Vincent Van Gogh, which includes his masterpieces: Vase With Twelve Sunflowers (1888), Wheatfield with Crows (1890), Portrait of Dr. Gachet I and II (1890), Starry Night (1889) and others. Era of Post-Impressionism, led by Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Vincent Van Gogh. Highpoint of Arts and Crafts Movement. Emergence of Secession and Art Nouveau, two general art movements which sought to break away from the traditions of the official academies. They also sought to unite the fine arts of painting and sculpture and architecture with the applied arts of design and decoration. Their avant-garde exhibitions caused great controversy. In Vienna, where it was known as Jugenstil or Sezessionstil, the breakaway was led by Gustav Klimt. A later member was Egon Schiele, known for his disturbing portraits and Art Nouveau cityscapes. National Gallery of British Art founded in London, popularly known as the Tate Gallery. Death of Aubrey Beardsley, the brilliant 25-year old Art Nouveau illustrator. The emergence of Expressionism. The expressionist art school/style begins with Van Gogh (d.1890), includes Edvard Munch (eg. The Scream, 1893), and the French Fauvism movement (1898-1908) led by Henri Matisse; also the Parisian/Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani. German Expressionism, a major offshoot, included: The Bridge (Die Brucke) (1905-13) founded by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, was an influential expressionist group based in Dresden. The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) (1909-14) expressionist group was formed in Munich, the home of the avant-garde Neue Kunstler Vereiningung (New Artist Association) by the Russian born Wassily Kandinsky. New Objectivity (Die Neue Sachlichkeit), was a 1920s German Expressionist group led by painters Otto Dix and Max Beckmann. Pablo Picasso. Early career: characterized by his Blue Period (c.1901-4), Rose Period (c.1905-7), African Period (c. 1907). During the latter, he created Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a landmark painting in the development of modern art which signalled a radical departure from the artistic ideas of the preceding ages and heralded the coming of a new artistic movement (Cubism) as well as the birth of modern abstract art. The Ashcan School founded. It comprised a small number of painters who chronicled everyday life in New York City during the pre-war period, producing realistic and unvarnished pictures and etchings of urban streetscapes and genre scenes. Picasso combines with Georges Braque to invent the revolutionary art movement called Cubism, (overturning conventional ideas of perspective and form) which emerges in 3 stages: Prototype Cubism (c.1908-9), Analytical Cubism (c.1909-12), Synthetic Cubism (c.1912-19). Other leading Cubist painters include Juan Gris and Fernand Leger. The chaos of World War I and the Russian Revolution (1917) shatter many conventional ideas in the world of painting and sculpture, leading to numerous anti-art movements. These include: Futurism (1909-15), which promoted a worship of machinery and modernity; Orphism or Simultanism (1912-13), founded by French artist Robert Delaunay, which explored the colour phenomena perceived in nature; Rayonism/Rayism (1912-13), Russian style of painting dominated by pictorialized 'rays of light', invented by Mikhail Larionov, Vorticism (1913-15) the first UK style to embrace Cubist ideas; Dada (1916-24) which used banal imagery to shock; Suprematism (1913-20s) a Russian abstract art movement led by Natalie Goncharova and Kasimir Malevich; Constructivism (1917-21) a Russian avant-garde architectural art style; Bauhaus (1919-33), the famous German school of art and design; De Stijl (1917-31), the highly influential Dutch 'school' of geometric abstract art and design led by Theo Van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian, also known as Neo-Plasticism. All these styles were labelled 'degenerate' (entartete kunst) by the Nazis. In America, the era of New Realism, as personnified by Edward Hopper (1882-1967). In addition, another style known as Social Realism portrays the everyday hardships of the Depression era. Best known Social Realists include Ben Shahn, Jack Levine and Jacob Lawrence: all strongly influenced by the earlier Ashcan School of New York City. In Europe, the era of Surrealism: a movement emerging out of Cubism, Dada, Freud and Communist philosophy, which aimed to fuse the conscious with the unconscious to create a 'super-reality'. Led by Andre Breton, Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali. A parallel art movement to Surrealism was Magic Realism, whose paintings are anchored in everyday reality, but with overtones of fantasy. The name was coined by the German art historian and critic Franz Roh in 1925, in a book entitled Nach Expressionismus: Magischer Realismus. High point of Art Deco, a style of design for furniture, jewellery, textiles and interior decor. The term was coined from the title of the seminal design exhibition in Paris, Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes. The period of Socialist Realism: a form of public propaganda art instituted by Joseph Stalin during the era of forced industrialization in Soviet Russia. Chaos and war undermines the primacy of Paris as the world centre of art, a title which soon devolves upon New York. In London (1938), a left-wing modern realist group of artists establish The Euston Road School, advocating the portrayal of traditional subjects in a realist manner, to make art more understandable and socially relevant. Pablo Picasso paints his monumental monochrome masterpiece Guernica. New York supercedes Paris as the centre of innovation in art, Abstract Expressionism emerges as the dominant new style. Leading lights include the so-called action painters led by Jackson Pollock, his wife Lee Krasner and Willem De Kooning, and Colour-Field painters, such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still. In Europe, this type of Neo-Expressionism focused on the isolation of man (figurative style) as in the works of Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon, although hyper-modern movements like Spatialism (Italy) also appeared, prefacing later Performance and environmental/land artworks. The era of Pop-Art, championed by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenburg. Pop-Artists employ contemporary iconic images in an anti-art approach, giving commonplace articles artistic status. Meanwhile, Op-Art becomes the avant-garde form of abstract art. The advent of Photorealism (sometimes referred to as Hyper-Realism), a form of meticulous photo-like realism, champoioned by Richard Estes (street scenes with elaborate window reflections) and Chuck Close (b.1940) who specializes in huge, neck-up portraiture. John Doherty is Ireland's best known photorealist artist. |
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Age of Postmodernism -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From roughly this point onwards, Modern Art (c.1860-1979) or 'Modernism' becomes superceded by what art-historians like to call 'Post-Modernism'. In a nutshell, Modernism (ie. the main movements which emerged during the period 1860-mid 1960s) asserted the supremacy of a particular style or interpretation of reality, normally considerably at odds with the prevailing academic tradition. In contrast, contemporary art movements take the view that the 'substance' of Modernism has performed no better, and must be dumped in favour of greater style. Post-modernism thus represents the triumph of style over substance. Post-modernist art typically employs new media and materials, stresses the importance of 'communication' from artist to audience and seeks to renew the big question: 'what is art?' Much of this is reflected in contemporary art forms such as Assemblage, Conceptual Art, Installation, Video art, Performance, and Happenings, as well as the works of such showmen as Damien Hirst, Gilbert and George, the environmental 'artists' Christo and Joanne-Claude, and the nude installationist Spencer Tunick. While the ephemeral nature of this contemporary art is fully consistent with global trends of instant gratification, one wonders whether today's artists will be remembered 50, 100 or 500 years from now, and if not, whether this reflects adversely on the theory and practice of art in the 21st century. Garçon à la Pipe (1905) by Pablo Picasso sells at Sotheby's New York for $104.2 million, making it the highest priced painting ever sold at auction. No 5 (1948) by Jackson Pollock, sells privately for $140 million, making it the most expensive painting ever sold. For more, see: Top 10 Most Expensive Paintings. Triptych (1976) by Francis Bacon sells at Sotheby's New York for $86.3 million, becoming the most expensive post-war work of art sold at auction, and the highest priced work by an Irish artist. In the same year Damien Hirst sells works worth £111 million at Sotheby's in London, while the list of top 20 contemporary artists is dominated by the Chinese. |
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