Artists

Jeff Koons is an American artist who gained fame in the mid-1980s for his iconic works such as Rabbit (1986), Michael Jackson and Bubbles (1988), Puppy (1992), and his polished and coloured stainless steel Balloon Dog sculptures from his Celebration series begun in 1994. Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania in 1955. He enrolled at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore in 1972 and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1976. During his studies, he spent a year at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois, where he was mentored by the artist Ed Paschke. Koons moved to New York City in 1977 and worked at the membership desk of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) while establishing himself as an artist. However, to fund his artistic pursuits, he switched careers and became a Wall Street commodities broker in 1980. The same year, he held his first solo show at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City: a window installation of vacuum cleaners displayed under illuminated Perspex from The New series (1980–83).

Koons is associated with the Neo-Pop (or Post-Pop) movement that emerged in the 1980s as a response to the Minimalism and Conceptualism of the 1970s. The movement is interested in banality, creating intentional kitsch, and commenting on commercialism by elevating everyday items to high art. His work is highly sought after and several have set auction records. In 2019, the sale of his Rabbit (1986) sold for $91.1 million at Christie’s, which made it the most expensive work by a living artist sold at auction. Koons’ work continues to be exhibited and represented in prestigious collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art in Amsterdam.