Jeff Koons, the Most Expensive Artist in History

Discover why Jeff Koons reigns as history's priciest artist—exploring his iconic works, career, and more.

The "kitsch ambassador" tried out many walks of life before becoming the best selling gallery artist we know him as. Let's find out how certain business moves and key connections influenced his success! And we might talk a little bit about the ballon dogs, too...

Life Before Becoming Expensive

Koons was born in Pennsylvania, 69 years ago from an interior decorator father and a seamstress mother. As a teenager he revered Salvador Dalí so much that he visited him at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. Hotel where Dalí lived with his wife Gala, his pet ocelot, the dead bees attached to his cape, the large box of flies he “accidentally” let loose in the hotel and of course the swarm of fans that came to see him daily.

Dalí’s unique brand of showmanship and entrepreneurial hustle definitely influenced Jeff Koons, just like it influenced Andy Warhol prior.

Jeff actually studied painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago! After college, Koons moved to New York in 1977 and worked at the membership desk of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). During this time he styled a pencil mustache after Dalí (I'm sure he was the cool guy around the office).

In 1980, he became licensed to sell mutual funds and stocks and began working as a Wall Street commodities broker. An interesting shift from what he was doing prior... I'm sure he acquired some market knowledge that helped him immensely afterwards!

Gaining Relevance

Jeff Koons rose to prominence in the mid-1980s as part of a generation of artists who explored the meaning of art in a newly media-saturated era... But wasn't that the goal of Andy Warhol's generation? Are we stuck in time?

Koons staffed his studio in SoHo with over 30 assistants (who later became up to 120), each assigned to a different aspect of producing his work. Again, eerily similar to Andy Warhol's Factory... I mean, he was copying popular culture, already... Was Koons' idea to copy the copy?

What is the next iteration of blatant recontextualization going to look like? Oh wait... of course, it will look the same!

Pricy Art

Let's get to the point: For how much is he selling his art? Well, his stainless steel Rabbit sculpture (the one he is posing with in the first picture of the article) reached the highest price for a work by a living artist when it was sold at an auction for the sum of US$91 million, surpassing the previous record by David Hockney's 1972 painting "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" sold for only 90,3 million...

But get a hold of this: with "Portrait of an Artist", David Hockney actually surpassed Jeff Koon's previous record of $58.4 million, held by Jeff Koons for one of his Balloon Dog sculptures that you can see above... Is this how billionaires play ping-pong?

Sure his work is a commentary on the banality of art... But why isn't my commentary on the same topic making the same amounts of money? What am I doing wrong? Maybe I just need to print out this article on a giant surface and cover MoMA's walls with it... I had the idea! Does that count? When do I get my check for my "meta-commentary"? Do I need to make it a reality? Let me contact my friend, Bill... Yes, Bill Gates!

Well, if there's one thing we've learnt, is that making your pieces really big and childlike is the way to go... Well, that is only if you want to be on the third place... If you want to get the grand prize a medium sized ballon bunny works best...!

If you'd like to learn even more things, Domestika has you covered:

- Join our courses on Sculpture
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