Alec Monopoly valuation
Took the Monopoly Man off the board and onto walls, canvases and a great deal of product.
Alec Monopoly is the working name of Alec Andon, an American street artist who was born in New York City in 1986 and has lived in Los Angeles since 2006.
What a work by Alec Monopoly is worth
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Bio
Alec Monopoly is the working name of Alec Andon, an American street artist who was born in New York City in 1986 and has lived in Los Angeles since 2006. He built an international following in the 2010s on one borrowed character, Rich Uncle Pennybags, the top-hatted mascot of the Monopoly board game, whom he began painting in 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, as a satire on capitalism. Richie Rich followed soon after, and Donald Duck and film stars such as Jack Nicholson keep them company, in paintings that combine spray paint and stencils with newspaper clippings, real banknotes and stock and bond certificates. Watches, clothing and other brand collaborations run alongside the canvases and sculptures, so a great deal of what carries his name is product rather than studio work.
Unique works on canvas, generally mixed media with spray, marker and collage, lead. Below them sit editions, hand-finished variants and a large volume of collaborative product, and that product is regularly presented for valuation as though it were studio work. Establishing which of the three a piece is, is the first job. The surfaces are mixed media and frequently varnished, so condition should be assessed on the actual object rather than from a photograph. Certificates accompany most editioned releases.
At a glance
- Born
- 1986, New York City
New York, Los Angeles and the top hat
Alec Andon grew up in New York, where his mother, a painter, taught him to draw, to paint and to screen-print designs onto clothes, and by his gallery's account he sold his first artwork at twelve. He left formal art classes behind to find his own way of working, and began tagging walls as a teenager, choosing dark streets with little traffic so that he could take his time. He is of Armenian descent. In 2006 he moved to Los Angeles, where the billboards and the sprawl of the city gave him far more walls to work on.
The top hats he wears in public came from the attic of the family home, where they had belonged to his great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather. He hides his face with a hand, a bandana or a medical mask when photographed. At first that was on a lawyer's advice, from his graffiti years in New York, and he has kept it up because it keeps attention on the work. On the street he stays away from mailboxes, highways and government property, and prefers warehouses and abandoned buildings.
The Monopoly Man and his company
He began painting the Monopoly Man in 2008, at the height of the recession, as a satire on capitalism, and the first idea came from the stockbroker Bernie Madoff. He puts the character in every kind of trouble, broke, on the run, crucified by Wall Street, as a reminder that the game is one anybody can win. Richie Rich followed soon after, and Donald Duck too, alongside portraits of Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Madonna and Michael Jackson. He has said since that people now read the work less as satire and more as a picture of ambition, success and motivation.
He uses aerosol and acrylic for most of his work, painting freehand for commissioned murals and using a wheat-paste of his own making when he wants a detailed piece up in a busy place. His materials also include stencils, epoxy, varnish and newspaper, and his canvases often take real banknotes and stock and bond certificates as their ground. Writing for his Miami show in 2011, the critic Shana Beth Mason described pop icons interspersed with financially apocalyptic newspaper clippings. He also makes sculptures of Richie Rich and Mr. Monopoly in chromed polyester.
Shows, from Miami to Mykonos
His first solo gallery show was in New York in November 2010, and a month later he showed at the Mondrian Hotel during Art Basel Miami Beach. Avant Gallery in Miami followed in March 2011 with Can't Get Out of Jail Free!, and around then Paramount Pictures commissioned him to design the logo for its new production company, Insurge. In March 2013 LAB ART in Los Angeles, a former body shop that had shown him since it opened in 2011, turned itself into a life-size Monopoly board for his show Park Place. He painted Adrien Brody's 1964 Pontiac Catalina during the show, and one painting was bought with the money from 146 sets of the game.
Later in 2013 he painted a mural live on the red carpet for the film Justin Bieber's Believe. In 2015 he had his first solo museum exhibition, at MOCA Bangkok, and released his first clothing collection, with Forever 21. In February 2016 he painted a wall at the Winzavod Centre for Contemporary Art in Moscow. Since the late 2010s he has been represented by Eden, which showed him at the Plaza Athénée in Paris in 2017 and opened its Mykonos gallery in 2018 with his exhibition Monopoly I$land. In 2025 he showed Flying to a Happy Place, with life-size jet sculptures, during Art Basel Miami Beach.
Brands, commissions and collectors
TAG Heuer made him its Art Provocateur, and he turned its boutiques into galleries for his work. In 2021 he made a watch with Jacob & Co. in an edition of nine, and merchandise with Barstool Sports for its small-business relief fund, and in November 2024 his character appeared on Jake Paul's shorts for his fight with Mike Tyson. Private commissions have included Khloé Kardashian's Birkin bag, work at Sant Ambroeus in SoHo and an original 1960s Volkswagen van, which a client gave his daughter to leave her wedding in.
Collectors of his work have included Philipp Plein, Miley Cyrus, Snoop Dogg, Seth Rogen and Adrien Brody. The artists he names as his favourites are Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, and he has said Haring is the mentor he would have chosen. He also performs as a DJ.
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