A new record sales price for Banksy’s work was set in 2007 when Space Girl & Bird fetched $479,376 at Bonham’s auction, around 20-times its estimate.
Georgia O’Keeffe sold her first giant flower painting in 1928, when she was 41 years old. The painting, “Calla Lily,” sold for $25,000. A year before she died, one of her paintings sold for $1,000,000.
Leonardo da Vinci spent 12 years painting the Mona Lisa's lips. The famous painting has not been sold since it was purchased for 4,000 ecus by King Francis I of France in around 1516. It was worth about $700 million in 2009.
Andy Warhol was the first artist to publicly exhibit video art. In 1965, he announced the he was retiring from art and planning to devote himself to film.
Sumerians invented writing in the 4th century BC.
In 1977, Keith Haring financed a cross-country trip by selling anti-Richard Nixon shirts.
Pablo Picasso loved animals. Through his adult life he owned a pet monkey, an owl, a goat, a turtle and packs of dogs and cats. He was known to leave his studio windows open and to paint the pigeons that flew through.
Monet's father disapproved of his painting. He wanted him to be a grocer.
Henri Matisse trained as a lawyer, but decided to become a painter.
In 1961, Matisse’s Le Bateau (The Boat) hung upside-down for 2 months in the Museum of Modern Art, New York – none of the 116,000 visitors had noticed.
Michelangelo was also a poet. There are some 300 poetic works still in existance that are attributed to him.
Dali attended the San Fernando academy of Fine arts in Madrd. He was expelled from the Academy before his final exams because he declared that no one on the teaching staff was competent enough to examine him.
At age 6, Frida Kahlo was stricken with polio, which caused her right leg to appear much thinner than the other. It was to remain that way permanently.
Picasso could draw before he could walk and his first word was the Spanish word for pencil.
The Statue of Liberty is the largest hammered copper statue in the world.