Luc Tuymans
Blue-chip#30
Egon Investment Scores
Liquidity
9/10
How easily works can be bought and sold at auction
Institutional
10/10
Museum collections, biennials, and institutional recognition
Momentum
8/10
Recent price trends, gallery moves, and market buzz
Discovery
1/10
Undervaluation opportunity relative to peer artists
Risk
1/10
Investment risk factors — higher means more volatile
Market Position
Auction Record
$2,699,750
Rumour
Christie's New York, 2013
Record price established 1999-present
- Pricing
- Works on Paper
- Note
- Drawings, watercolors, mixed media
- Range
- $5,000 - $50,000
- Prints Multiples
- Note
- Past 12 months average $1,549 for prints & graphic art
- Range
- $1,000 - $10,000
- Recent Examples
- Lithographs 2004 (Gen, Angel): €2,000-€9,000 rangeSerigraphs: €2,000-€8,000 range
- Paintings Mid Tier
- Note
- Consistent sales at major auction houses
- Range
- $100,000 - $500,000
- Paintings Major Works
- Note
- Seven-figure secondary market sales confirmed
- Range
- $500,000 - $2,699,750
- Primary Market
- Waiting Lists
- Likely for major new paintings given blue-chip status
- Representation
- David Zwirner (since 1994), Zeno X Gallery Antwerp (since 1990)
- Gallery Pricing
- Contact galleries for current pricing - primary market works not publicly disclosed
- Exhibition Frequency
- Biennial exhibition commitment at David Zwirner maintained for 30+ years
- Auction History
- Date
- 2013
- Note
- Record price established 1999-present
- Work
- Rumour
- Price
- $2,699,750 USD
- Auction House
- Christie's New York
- Market Characteristics
- Liquidity
- High - 730+ auction results documented
- Availability
- Works available through primary gallery (David Zwirner, Zeno X) and secondary market
- Market Depth
- Deep secondary market for all media
- Collector Base
- Institutional and high-net-worth private collectors
- Price Trajectory
- Stable to appreciating - auction record set 2013, maintained strong prices
- Auction Frequency
- Regular appearance at Christie's, Sotheby's, Phillips
- Geographic Strength
- Strong in US, Europe (Belgium, UK, Germany, France)
- Recent Auction Activity 2024 2025
Work Date Result Venue Medium Exhibit #5 June 2025 Price undisclosed (sign-up required) Christie's Oil on canvas Untitled works (multiple) June 2025 Price undisclosed (sign-up required) Sotheby's Works on paper, mixed media Mirrors (Sealed Rooms) 2025 Sold (price undisclosed) Galerie Kornfeld Gouache and collage on paper, 1998 — October-December 2024 Active secondary market for works on paper and multiples Phillips, Bonhams, various European houses —
- Market Position
- Market Positioning
- Market Segment
- Blue-chip contemporary painting
- Peer Comparables
- Gerhard Richter (influence acknowledged)Marlene Dumas (contemporary, similar approach)Peter DoigNeo RauchYounger generation influenced: Wilhelm Sasnal, Eberhard Havekost, Lucy McKenzie
- Collector Profile
- Major institutions, established private collections (Pinault, Rubell, etc.)
- Investment Rationale
- Museum-quality figurative painter with sustained 40-year career, strong institutional validation, influential to younger generation
Institutional Presence
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York - 33+ works
Tate (Tate Modern, Tate Britain), London
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Art Institute of Chicago
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
S.M.A.K. (Museum of Contemporary Art), Ghent
M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art), Antwerp
Kunstmuseum Bern
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
The National Museum of Art, Osaka
Fondazione Prada, Milan
Pinault Collection (multiple works)
Rubell Museum, Miami
Dallas Museum of Art
Wexner Center for the Arts
Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago
Menil Collection, Houston
- Exhibitions
- Major Group Exhibitions
- Projects: Currin, Peyton, Tuymans (MoMA, 1997)
- The Painting of Modern Life (Hayward Gallery London, 2007)
- What is Painting? (MoMA, various years)
- The Atomic Age: Artists Put to the Test by History (Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, 2024)
- Le monde comme il va (Pinault Collection, Bourse de Commerce, Paris, 2024)
- Portrait of a Collection (SONGEUN, Seoul, 2024 - Pinault Collection)
- Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991–2011 (MoMA PS1, 2019)
- Biennials and Documentas
Year Note Event Role 2001 To great acclaim Venice Biennale Represented Belgium (national pavilion) 2002 — Documenta XI, Kassel Participant 1992 Helped establish international reputation, selected by Jan Hoet Documenta IX, Kassel Participant
- Museum Collections
- Acquisition Activity
- Active institutional acquisition by major museums globally
- Curatorial Attention
- Subject of major scholarly catalogues, catalogue raisonné, numerous monographs
- Institutional Validation Strength
- EXCEPTIONAL
Career & Biography
- Career
- Paints from photographic/cinematic images from media, own photographs (Polaroids since 1995, iPhone photos)
- Each canvas completed in a single day (24-hour process)
- Extensive preparation: drawings, photocopies, watercolors before final oil painting
- Works in series, with thematic exhibitions
- Brief period as filmmaker 1980s (Super 8), influences cropping, framing, sequencing
- Uses muted palette, soft focus, reduced color
- Paintings appear slightly out-of-focus, third-degree abstractions from reality
- First solo exhibition 1985 at Palais des Thermes, Ostend
- Participated in Documenta IX, Kassel, 1992
- Represented Belgium at Venice Biennale, 2001
- First US retrospective 2009-2011 (Wexner Center, SFMOMA, Dallas Museum, MCA Chicago)
- Major retrospective at Tate Modern, 2004
- Palazzo Grassi 'La Pelle' exhibition, 2019
- UCCA Beijing 'The Past' exhibition, 2024
- Catalogue raisonné published 2019 (David Zwirner Books/Yale University Press, 3 volumes, 564 paintings)
- Member of Berlin Academy of Arts since 2018
- Identity
- Current Location
- Lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium
- Awards and Honors
- Medal of Honor, International Congress of Contemporary Painting (ICOCEP), Porto, Portugal (2019)
- Coutts Contemporary Art Foundation Award, Zurich (2000)
- Flemish Culture Award for Visual Arts (1993)
- Commander, Order of Leopold (Belgium, 2007)
- American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) Award of Excellence (2013)
- Personal Background
- Family history: mother's family in Dutch Resistance WWII, father's family had Nazi sympathies
- Spent childhood in Amsterdam
- Married Venezuelan artist Carla Arocha in 1999
- Self-described as self-taught painter despite formal education
- Was disillusioned with art school's contemporary focus
- Honorary doctorates from University of Antwerp (2006), University of Arts Poznań (2014), Royal College of Art London
- Artistic Context
- Artistic Influences
- James Ensor (Belgian painter, lifelong influence)Leon Spilliaert (Belgian painter)El Greco (encountered in Budapest, formative influence)Piet MondrianFrancisco de GoyaThéodore GéricaultMark RothkoFilm directors: David Lynch (painterly approach)Literature: Thomas Pynchon, Curzio Malaparte
Artistic Profile
- Style
- Figurative painting with photographic sources, muted palette, soft focus, restrained
- Evolution
- From minimal Holocaust imagery (1980s) to expansive engagement with contemporary politics, corporate power, and digital mediation (2020s); increasing scale and formal experimentation while maintaining signature muted palette and oblique approach
- Influences
- Influences on Other Artists
- Wilhelm Sasnal (Poland)Eberhard Havekost (Germany)Magnus von PlessenLucy McKenzieKai AlthoffDescribed as having 'Tuymans effect' on generation of European painters
- Themes and Subjects
- Historical trauma (Holocaust, WWII)Colonialism (Belgian Congo)Political figures and eventsCorporate architecture and powerReligious imagery and institutionsBanal everyday objects (wallpaper, Christmas decorations)Still lifesPortraits (rare self-portraits)Contemporary political data (visualizations)Film stills and media images
- Movements and Periods
- Key Periods and Series
Period Series Themes 1980s - Early Career — WWII, Holocaust, German fascist past 1990s - International Recognition Heimat (Homeland, 1996) - Flemish nationalism, The Heritage (1995-96) - American imagery, Americana, Passion (1999) - Religious belief National identity, consumer culture, religious power 2000s - Mature Period Mwana Kitoko (Beautiful White Man, 2000) - Belgian Congo colonialism, Security (1998), Still Life (2002) - Response to 9/11 for Documenta Colonialism, political power, religious institutions, post-9/11 2010s - Expanded Vocabulary Corporate (2010) - Glass façades, office interiors, The Shore (2012) - Architecture, exclusion, surveillance, A Belgian Politician (2011) - copyright controversy Corporate power, contemporary image culture, data visualization 2020s - Recent Work Eternity (2021) - Politics of eternity, Werner Heisenberg dome, Polarisation (2021) - US Congress data visualizations, The Barn (2023) Political polarization, fracture, digital mediation, contemporary crisis - Signature Characteristics
- Muted, tertiary colors and pale pastelsPaintings appear slightly out-of-focus, blurredPainted wet-on-wet in single dayBased on pre-existing imagery (photographs, film stills, media images)Cropping, close-ups, framing influenced by film backgroundSparsely colored, quick brushstrokesOften modest scale, though recent works include large-scaleNo frames; visible stretcher tacksReduced color palette creates 'faded' quality
- Techniques and Mediums
- Integration of cinematic techniques (framing, sequencing, montage)Use of Polaroids (since 1995), later iPhone photos as sourceMultiple degrees of removal from reality (photographs of photographs)Single-day painting execution after extensive preparationRotation and re-presentation of source imagesScale manipulation (enlargement to monumental size)Recent: multi-part canvases (The Fruit Basket - 9 parts)
Critical Reception
- Critical Reception
- Critical Themes
- Painting vs photography/mediaHistorical trauma and representation (Holocaust, colonialism, 9/11)Banality of evilMemory and forgetting'Authentic forgeries' - paintings as incomplete representationsExtra-painterly discourseViolence of painting as actMoral complexity and coexistence of good/evil
- Critical Positioning
- Widely credited with revival of figurative painting in 1990s
- Described as 'one of the most important painters of his generation'
- Compared to Gerhard Richter in influence on younger painters
- Key figure in post-digital age painting
- Critical discourse focuses on: memory, history, representation, 'belatedness' of painting, moral complexity
- Academic interest: numerous scholarly essays, symposia, university lectures
- Curatorial Activities
- Curated 'The Forbidden Empire: Visions of the World by Chinese and Flemish Artists' (BOZAR Brussels/Palace Museum Beijing, 2007)
- Curated 'The State of Things: Brussels/Beijing' (BOZAR/National Art Museum China, 2010)
- Guest curator Bruges Central Art Festival
- Guest tutor Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam (mentored Paulina Olowska, Ivan Grubanov)
- Major Critical Reviews
Year Note Assessment Critic Focus Publication 2010 — — Helen Molesworth US retrospective review - describes Tuymans as occupying 'central position in critical discourse' Artforum 1997 — Discusses 'smartly insipid' genre, painting's revival, Tuymans' refusal to justify paintings Jan Avgikos — Artforum — Compares impact to Gerhard Richter's influence two decades earlier — — Influence on younger European painters (Sasnal, Havekost, von Plessen) Artforum — Regular coverage; credited Tuymans with contributing to painting's revival after 1985 solo show — Peter Schjeldahl — The New Yorker 2010 — Discusses challenge of paintings that 'do not invite delectation' but demand engagement Kenneth Baker — San Francisco Chronicle / SFGATE
- Publications and Media
- Major Publications
Title Year Publisher Luc Tuymans: Catalogue Raisonné (3 volumes) 2019 David Zwirner Books / Yale University Press Luc Tuymans — Phaidon Press Luc Tuymans: Exhibitions at David Zwirner Reprint edition with updates David Zwirner Books Luc Tuymans (SFMOMA/Wexner catalogue) 2009 SFMOMA/Wexner Center/DAP
Gallery & Representation
- Fair Presence
- Art Basel (various editions)Frieze (London, New York)FIAC Paris (historical)Art Basel Paris (2025 mentioned)
- Representation
- Gallery Tier
- TIER 1 (Blue-chip mega-gallery representation)
- Market Control
- Gallery-controlled primary market; active but selective secondary market
- Secondary Market Presence
- Strong presence at major auction houses and secondary dealers
- Geographic Reach
- New works available through primary galleries; secondary market active for historical works
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