George Michael's YBA-heavy art collection sells for £11 million

Works from Wham singer George Michael’s personal art collection fetched just over £11 million at auction this weekend gone.

Just over two years after the pop star passed away on Christmas Day in 2016, leading auction house Christie’s played host to the sale. It reports that all money raised from the sale of the singer’s assemblage of contemporary and modern works “will extend the philanthropic legacy he built so generously and so privately during his lifetime.”

Featuring work by the likes of Michael Craig-Martin, Tracey Emin, and the Chapman Brothers, the George Michael Collection hints at a deep interest in art which veers toward the autobiographical, as well as an evident fascination with the bold, brash practitioners who made up the bulk of the artists under the YBA umbrella.

Indeed it was the brightest star in that constellation, Damien Hirst, whose work fetched the most at the Christie’s auction. The Incomplete Truth was picked up for just under a million pounds, and Hirst’s “powerful re-staging of the image of the Christian martyr and gay icon,” Saint Sebastian sold for £875,250.

Other artists in the sale included Bridget Riley, Sam Taylor-Wood, Roger Hiorns, Jeff Koons, and David LaChapelle. The amassed works collected by one of Britain’s best-loved singers had been on display to the public ahead of the auction.