Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Air Power was the lead lot in the stunning sale of David Bowie’s art collection on Thursday.
The piece (above) achieved £7.1m ($8.8m) at Sotheby’s in London, doubling its high-end estimate.
Bowie bought the work shortly after starring as Basquiat’s mentor Andy Warhol in the 1996 biopic of the graffiti artist’s life.
![The most valuable Auerbach ever auctioned](https://s3.amazonaws.com/picollecta-content-images/M1660/EGVDEPSHYK.png)
It was one of 47 pieces from the late rocker’s art collection to sell. The auction achieved £24.3m ($30.1m), more than double its £11.7m pre-sale estimate – evidence of the power of the Bowie connection.
Frank Auerbach’s Head of Gerda Boehm set an artist record of £3.8m ($4.7m) – seven times more than expected.
A 1995 Damien Hirst and David Bowie collaboration, Beautiful, Hallo, Space-Boy Painting, achieved £785,000 ($973,400) – double the estimate.
Bowie was an avid art collector.
"Art was, seriously, the only thing I’d ever wanted to own," Bowie explained in a New York Times article in 1998.
"It has always been for me a stable nourishment. I use it. It can change the way I feel in the mornings. The same work can change me in different ways, depending on what I’m going through."
![Damien Hirst and Bowie produced this spin painting together](https://s3.amazonaws.com/picollecta-content-images/M1660/QDEXVXKKWO.png)
The musician was also secretive over his collection. Although he loaned a select number of works to exhibitions, no one knew the extent of the pieces until now.
Two more auctions of Bowie’s art collection take place today at Sotheby’s – offering a further 300 works.Visit Sotheby’s here.
Across a variety of genres, from surrealism to contemporary African – the pieces are as multi-faceted as the man himself.
Oliver Barker, chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, commented: "Eclectic, unscripted, understated: David Bowie’s collection offers a unique insight into the personal world of one of the 20th century’s greatest creative spirits."
Bowie died in January this year from cancer, aged 69.