Art News ·
Art News: Contemporary African Artists at Auction, Ten Top Sales Since 2023
By Whitebank Fine Art
These are ten of the biggest auction results of the last three years, from October 2023 to September 2026, for contemporary artists born in Africa, taken from sales that were reported in full. Julie Mehretu, born in Addis Ababa, accounts for three of them, Marlene Dumas, born in Cape Town, holds the top price, and the list runs from Mehretu's layered abstractions to William Kentridge's drawings. Mehretu sold more work at this level than appears here; the three below are the best documented. Prices include the buyer's premium where it was reported, and the list is ranked in US dollars at the time of sale.
| Artist | Work | Price | Where and when | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marlene Dumas | Miss January, 1997 | $13.6m | New York, May 2025 |
| 2 | Julie Mehretu | Walkers With the Dawn and Morning, 2008 | $10.7m | New York, November 2023 |
| 3 | Julie Mehretu | Untitled, 2001 | $9.32m | Hong Kong, October 2023 |
| 4 | Lisa Brice | After Embah, 2018 | £5.4m | London, March 2025 |
| 5 | Julie Mehretu | Mumbaphilia (J.E.), 2018 | $5.86m | New York, 2024 |
| 6 | Michael Armitage | Mpeketoni, 2015 | $2.37m | New York, May 2025 |
| 7 | Njideka Akunyili Crosby | Thread, 2012 | $2.0m | New York, 2024 |
| 8 | El Anatsui | G6, 2023 | $995,000 | London, March 2026 |
| 9 | William Kentridge | Soho in Bed with Rhinoceros | £630,300 | London, October 2024 |
| 10 | William Kentridge | Monument I | £483,000 | London, October 2024 |
Marlene Dumas and Julie Mehretu at the top
The highest price on the list is also a record. Dumas's Miss January, a nine-foot painting of 1997, sold in New York on 14 May 2025 for $13.6 million, the most ever paid at auction for a work by a living woman artist. The hammer fell at $11.5 million. Dumas was born in Cape Town in 1953 and has lived in Amsterdam since the 1970s.
Marlene Dumas in The Hague, 2018. Photograph by Jan Harm Bakhuys, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Mehretu set the record for an African-born artist twice in six weeks in the autumn of 2023. An untitled diptych of 2001 made $9.32 million in Hong Kong on 5 October, and on 15 November Walkers With the Dawn and Morning sold in New York for $10.7 million. She made that painting in 2008 for Prospect.1, the New Orleans biennial held after Hurricane Katrina, and took its title from a poem by Langston Hughes. Mumbaphilia (J.E.), shown at White Cube in London in 2018, followed at $5.86 million in 2024.
Julie Mehretu speaking at Columbia University, 2014. Photograph by Columbia GSAPP, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Lisa Brice, Michael Armitage and Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Lisa Brice was born in Cape Town in 1968 and works in London. On 4 March 2025 her After Embah of 2018 drew six bidders in London and sold for £5.4 million against a high estimate of £1.5 million, doubling her previous record.
Michael Armitage, born in Nairobi in 1984, paints on lubugo, the bark cloth of Uganda, and Mpeketoni, a painting of 2015, set his auction record in New York in May 2025 at $2.37 million. Njideka Akunyili Crosby, born in Enugu in Nigeria and working in Los Angeles, sold Thread, a painting of 2012, for just under $2 million in New York in 2024; her record, $4.74 million for The Beautyful Ones in November 2022, falls just outside the period.
El Anatsui and William Kentridge
El Anatsui's G6, a bottle-top hanging made in 2023, sold in London in March 2026 for $995,000. His record, $2.2 million for Prophet in New York in May 2023, came a few months before the period begins.
William Kentridge, born in Johannesburg in 1955, takes the last two places with two works sold in London in October 2024: Soho in Bed with Rhinoceros, a picture of Soho Eckstein, the property developer who runs through his animated films, at £630,300, and Monument I, which beat its estimate, at £483,000.
William Kentridge in Melbourne, 2012. Photograph by Peter Campbell, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Amoako Boafo, just outside the table
Amoako Boafo set his record, $3.4 million for Hands Up in Hong Kong in December 2021, a little before the period this list covers, and since then his paintings have come to auction at lower levels while his standing in museums has grown. Tate acquired his oil on paper Blank stare in 2025, his first exhibition in Italy is at the Museo di Palazzo Grimani in Venice until November, and a solo show opens at Mariane Ibrahim in Paris this month.
Amoako Boafo in his studio, 2020. Photograph by Francis Kokoroko, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
What sold, and why
For contemporary work, the primary market matters as much as the image: which gallery first sold a work, when, and on what terms. Where that history is clear, competition follows, and Brice's painting made more than three times its high estimate once fees were added.
For owners, that makes the gallery invoice and the date of purchase the first things to find, along with any resale agreement or right of first refusal the gallery attached to the sale. Our guide to African artists lists the painters, sculptors and photographers we handle, including the modern masters such as Ben Enwonwu and Irma Stern, and the valuation is free, confidential and carries no obligation to sell.
Auction market
