Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz bought paintings by Tschabalala Self.
Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz at the 2019 Met Gala. Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue.
Tschabalala Self was one of the breakout stars of the spring auction season, and the trend-setting collectors Alicia Keys and Kaseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean are getting in on the action. According to recent posts on the couple’s art collection’s Instagram account of The Dean Collection and a report by Bloomberg’s Katya Kazakina, Keys and Dean bought two works that are featured in Self’s new exhibition at Art OMI in upstate New York.
Dean said he and Keys had bought a third painting by Self on the same day as the other two, and that he plans to donate the third to the Brooklyn Museum, where he is a trustee. He told Kazakina: “You can feel the energy from her work. It’s amazing that an artist can leave their vibrations on the work.”Self’s work was previously in “Dreamweavers,” an exhibition organized by the Dean Collection in Los Angeles in February, to coincide with the local debut of the Frieze art fair.
According to Self’s dealer, Ron Segev of New York’s Thierry Goldberg Gallery, her works sold for a maximum price of $80,000 on the primary market up until last month. On the secondary market, though, her prices have taken off. On June 25th, one of her paintings, Out of Body (2015), sold for £371,250 ($471,000)—more than six times its high estimate—at Christie’s in London, breaking the auction record for her work.
Further Reading: Tschabalala Self’s Auction Record Broken Amid Fevered Bidding at Christie’s
