Page 37 - Powerlist 2019 - Digital Edition

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye of Contemporary Art and the V&A. In October 2015, an oil Arts, Fashion & Design
painting by Lynette far exceeded pre-sale expectations at
Artist Christie’s auction house. Knave had been expected to sell
for $91,620 to $122,160, but the work went for $690,736, five
times the estimate.
If proof were needed of Lynette’s soaring popularity, one Acclaimed worldwide, last year she staged a solo show
need look no further than the front row of the art auction at the Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland, and prior to that
held at Sotheby’s, New York earlier this year. the Haus der Kunst in Munich. Lynette’s exhibition,
The British artist’s work featured in the lot that included Under-Song for a Cipher, ran at the New Museum for
Kerry James Marshall’s Past Times, which was bought by P Contemporary Art in New York from May to September
Diddy for $21.1million, the highest amount ever fetched by 2017.
a living African American artist. Lynette’s An Assistance of With influences ranging from Manet to Degas, she
Amber was purchased by producer and rapper Swizz Beats creates her figures from composite sources – magazines,
for $555,000. acquaintances, photographs – creating characters who
In 2013, she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize and in are ambiguous, somehow disrupting one’s sense of self.
2015 staged her first major London show at the Serpentine New Museum curator Natalie Bell hails Lynette as
Gallery. She has become increasingly sought-after by “a wildly prolific artist” whose works are “timeless
collectors, with her works now hanging in public galleries but timely, reminding us of the importance of black
including the Tate, Miami Art Museum, Chicago’s Museum portraiture today”.