About Cecily Brown
Cecily Brown (b. 1969, London) is one of the most celebrated contemporary painters working today, internationally renowned for her dynamic approach to figurative abstraction. Based in New York since the 1990s, she has built a career spanning over three decades, creating large-scale paintings that explore desire, movement, and the human body through explosive color, gestural brushwork, and layered compositions.
Brown's artworks occupy a unique space between abstraction and representation, drawing on art historical references ranging from Old Masters like Rubens and Goya to Abstract Expressionists such as Willem de Kooning and Joan Mitchell. Her paintings often begin with figurative imagery—bodies, landscapes, still lifes—which she then obscures, fragments, and reconstructs through vigorous painterly processes. This approach creates a tension between revelation and concealment, inviting viewers to navigate between recognizable forms and pure abstraction.
Her practice is deeply rooted in the exploration of sensuality, eroticism, and the physicality of paint itself. Whether depicting intertwined figures, lush landscapes, or ambiguous forms, Brown imbues her canvases with a visceral energy that challenges traditional boundaries between high and low culture, beauty and excess.In addition to her paintings, Cecily Brown has produced a significant body of limited edition prints and works on paper that extend her painterly investigations into printmaking. These signed editions remain highly sought after by collectors worldwide, offering accessible entry points into her powerful visual language.
Through her paintings, prints, and drawings, Cecily Brown continues to be recognized as one of the most important figurative abstract painters of her generation, with artworks held in major museum collections globally.
Auction record: $6.8 million, Sotheby's, 2018
