Flora Yukhnovich Fetches £1.9m at Christie’s as Victoria Miro Show Opens

Flora Yukhnovich b. 1990, United Kingdom Follow +

A painting by British artist Flora Yukhnovich brought in £1.9 million (US $2.5 million) at Christie’s 20/21 Shanghai to London sale on 1 March. The 2017 painting Tu vas me faire rougir (You’re going to make me blush) carried an estimate of £250,000 to 350,000 ($333,000 to 466,000).

Born in Norwich in 1990, Yukhnovich recreates the grandeur of paintings by old masters while dissolving their subjects into sweeping smears of light and colour.

Three years ago her works fetched around £30,000 ($40,000), but they’ve soared well beyond that at auction, with her 2020 painting I’ll Have What She’s Having resold at Sotheby’s for a record £2.3 million ($3.1 million) last year.

At Yukhnovich’s first solo show at Victoria Miro in London, Thirst Trap, where the artist alludes to depictions of the goddess Venus, prices range from £100,000 to £350,000 ($135,000 to $470,000).

Other standout results at the Christie’s auction included: Franz Marc’s The Foxes (Die Füchse) (1913) for an artist record of £43 million ($57 million), Francis Bacon‘s Triptych 1986-7 for £38 million ($51 million), Pablo Picasso‘s La fenêtre ouverte for £16 million ($21 million), and Lucian Freud‘s Girl with Closed Eyes (1986–87) for £15 million ($20 million).

The Flora Yukhnovich exhibition Thirst Trap continues at Victoria Miro, London, through 26 March. —[O]

Main image: Flora Yukhnovich, Tu vas me faire rougir (You're going to make me blush) (2017). Oil on linen. 215 x 180cm. © Christie's Images Limited 2022.