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Rare David Bowie artwork set for auction in Edinburgh


An artwork by David Bowie will be amongst the highlights of an upcoming Contemporary & Post-War Art sale at Lyon & Turnbull.
Entitled DHead, the rare original work is expected to sell for £3,000-£5,000 when it crosses the block next month in Edinburgh.

"Famously modest, the extent of Bowie’s skill as a painter and passion for collecting is little known amongst the general public," says Lyon & Turnbull’s head of Contemporary Art, Charlotte Riordan. "He, like so many of the influential bands that formed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, was a product of an art school education.

"He was particularly drawn to figuration in all of its 20th century guises, and his own art is largely formed of abstracted head studies. His style references some of the bizarreness and esotericism of 1930s era German Expressionist art, unsurprising given the dark and atmospheric impact that the city of Berlin had on his musical output."

The work on offer is an acrylic and computer collage on canvas executed in 1997. Bowie later donated the work to the fund-raising exhibition ‘ARTAID ‘98’, held at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh, where it hung alongside work by artists such as Craigie Aitchison, Howard Hodgkin, Gilbert and George and Ken Currie.

With Bowie’s artistic output rarely appearing on the open market, the Lyon & Turnbull sale provides collectors with a golden opportunity to acquire a piece of artwork from one of the 29th century’s most important creative performers.

Further notable highlights from the sale will include Sean Scully’s abstract expressionist work Wall Of Light – Deep Red, estimated at £15,000-£20,000; House Of Foujita by the Japanese/French artist  Léonard Tsugouharu Foujita, valued at £10,000-£15,000; Cathedral Interior by Sir Robin Philipson, estimated at £8,000-£12,000; and the Scottish maritime landscape Skipi Geo, Orkney by Peter Mclaren, priced at £6,000-£8,000.          

The sale takes place on Wednesday March 16.


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