Anish Kapoor
Void, pigment, mirror and a black so black he bought exclusive rights to it.
Anish Kapoor was born in Bombay in 1954, came to Britain in the early 1970s and studied at Hornsey and Chelsea. The early work used raw pigment heaped over simple forms so that the object appeared to have no surface at all; later came the carved stone voids, the polished stainless steel mirrors that invert the world, the red wax works, and public commissions including Cloud Gate in Chicago and the Orbit tower in London. He won the Turner Prize in 1991. In 2016 he acquired exclusive artistic rights to Vantablack, the darkest manufactured pigment, which provoked a public argument that has followed him since.
Fabrication and surface define this market. The polished stainless works are optically perfect and cannot be repaired invisibly — a scratch or a distortion is effectively permanent — so condition dominates value. Pigment works shed and cannot be touched or cleaned. Many pieces are editioned, some in small numbers, and edition, fabricator and installation specification all form part of the work. Kapoor has also produced gouaches, drawings and print editions, which are the accessible end of the output and are physically far more robust.
If you own a work by Anish Kapoor
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
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Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.