Günther Förg Value: Top Prices Paid at Auction

An untitled work from 1990 achieved Förg's current auction record when it sold at Christie's London in February 2020. This acrylic work, the earliest on this list, distinguishes itself from his later Spot Paintings through its more formal composition, spread across 22 smaller paintings on lead and wood. Its hammer price reflects the particular collector value placed on Förg's formative pieces, which show the development of his conceptual approach to abstraction. This work emerges from a period when Förg was still influenced by his early grey monochrome paintings from the 1970s but had begun to incorporate the grid structures that would become a recurring element in his practice. During this period, Förg was exploring what he described as "formal purism" and maintaining a dialogue with both Modernist painting traditions and his own photographic work of architectural structures. Förg's early works were heavily influenced by American abstract painters like Barnett Newman and Frank Stella, as well as German artists such as Blinky Palermo and Imi Knoebel. The work’s provenance is impressively unique, having been gifted by Förg to a private collector in 1991, only appearing again at its 2020 sale.

This untitled 2007 large-scale oil and acrylic painting, measuring almost 3 square metres, sold at Sotheby's New York in November 2019. This painting exemplifies Förg's celebrated Tupfenbilder (Spot Paintings) series, created during the final phase of his artistic career between 2005 and 2010. It features his characteristic scattered, vibrant patches of colour against a neutral background, demonstrating his mature sporadic approach to composition and colour relationships. These works were partially influenced by photographs Förg saw of Francis Bacon's studio, which was covered in colourful paint blotches where Bacon had wiped his brushes. This method resonated with Förg, who frequently dabbed pigment to test colours, eventually elevating this preparatory process into the final artwork itself. The series marks a significant evolution from Förg's earlier, more structured Grid Paintings (Gitterbilder), transforming the previous lattice structures into rhythmic, gestural marks that appear to float across the large-scale canvas. By this point in his career, Förg had moved away from the formality of minimalism toward a more expressive approach, incorporating a brighter palette and more gestural brushwork.

This untitled oil painting from 2008 achieved this impressive result at Phillips London in March 2022. It was created just two years before a stroke in 2010 forced Förg to stop painting, and therefore represents the culmination of a lifetime of study and work. In Förg’s Spot Paintings, the brushstroke itself became the main protagonist, representing an ultimate return to expressive painting after decades of multidisciplinary experimentation. Director of the Hôtel des Arts in Toulon, Gilles Altieri, captured the essence of these works, describing Förg not as "an abstract painter" but as "a romantic expressionist, the language of forms laconically borrowed, the colours singing ponderously like a church bell." The substantial scale of the work creates an immersive viewing experience and references the tradition of Colour Field painting, particularly the work of American abstract painters like Mark Rothko, who was an important influence for Förg.

A large untitled acrylic painting sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong in March 2025, making it the most recent sale on this list. Like all of Förg's mature Spot Paintings, this piece displays a very deliberate chromatic range, even in its use of high contrast and complementary colours. By 2008, Förg had fully synthesised his understanding of pictorial space, material presence, and expressive gesture - elements he had explored separately throughout different phases of his career. Förg's popularity in Hong Kong, where this work sold, reflects his interest in Japanese aesthetics, which he encountered during his photographic period in the 1980s when he travelled extensively to document architectural structures. Like many of Förg's paintings, however, the piece itself had not been widely exhibited, appearing only at the Galerie Max Hetzler from 2011-12.

This acrylic painting from 2008 achieved its top 10 result at Christie's Paris in June 2021, doubling its low estimate. The substantial price achieved for a modestly sized canvas (compared to others in this list) demonstrates the strong market demand for Förg's late works, but also those with a distinctive colour palette - here, the combination of light blue, yellow, and orange stands out amongst other Spot Paintings. The work was acquired directly from the artist by the collector who chose to sell in 2021, enhancing its rarity and appeal.

An untitled work from 2009 sold at Sotheby's New York in September 2022. This work is notably one of the last Förg painted before his stroke in 2010, adding to its significance for collectors. On painting, Förg always maintained a positive yet pragmatic view: "I think painting is a resilient practice; if you look through the history of painting it doesn't change so much and we always see it in the present. It is still now." This perspective embodies his understanding of painting as a continuous tradition that remains relevant despite changing artistic movements. As such, his Tupfenbilder works from this period represent what Hauser & Wirth Gallery described as works that "celebrate the act of painting, drawing on Förg's earlier painterly practice but reimagining his previous explorations in radically new and extraordinarily innovative ways."

Another untitled 2008 work, this vast 4 metre wide canvas sold at Christie's Hong Kong in November 2023. This is one of the largest canvases featured in Förg's top auction results, demonstrating the premium the market places on his more ambitious compositions. Its impressive dimensions allow for a particularly expansive exploration of Förg's Tupfenbilder concept, while also reflecting Förg's longstanding interest in architectural space. While not immediately obvious in these later works, his understanding of the interaction of art and space was key to his output - a theme he explored extensively during his photographic period in the 1980s when he produced large-format images of culturally and politically significant architectural structures, including Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv and Fascist constructions in Italy.

This expressive high-contrast 2007 oil painting, measuring 4 metres wide, sold at Christie's London in February 2020, the same night that the untitled work from 1990 set Förg's current record. This elongated horizontal format represents an interesting variation within Förg's Tupfenbilder series, allowing for a more panoramic compositional arrangement compared to his more square or moderately rectangular canvases. The horizontal emphasis creates a different reading experience, with the eye travelling across the expanse of the canvas in a manner reminiscent of reading or scanning a landscape. Throughout his career, Förg maintained a dialogue with both his photographic practice and Modernist painting traditions, combining sparse geometric language with rich material exploration to create works that were simultaneously formal and expressionist.

Another untitled work from 2007, this large acrylic painting achieved this strong result at Christie's Paris in October 2023 when it sold out of Anne and Wolfgang Titze’s collection. Förg’s complex relationship with Abstract Expressionism, which visibly battles across all of his works, originates with the fact that he came of age in a Germany still recovering from World War II, when painting was not the escape it once was and Modernism was being actively fought against. 1970s Germany felt dreary and oppressive to him, despite inspiring his early monochrome work before he evolved towards the vibrant, expressive colours of his later career. According to curator of the Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art, Paul Schimmel, Förg's art brought a "sense of nothing but the thing itself," meaning that his work emptied abstract painting of its spiritual, timeless, and mystical qualities in favor of a style more aligned with Minimalism's concrete, material nature - a tension that remains evident even in these late, more expressive works.

The final instalment on this list is another Spot Painting from Förg's prolific 2007. This piece sold at Sotheby's London in June 2023 - one of the most successful years for the artist at auction. Despite Förg’s evident success as his style matured, and his exponential success since his death, he wrestled with questions about painting’s relevance and potential - something that was shared by other important artists of his generation, including Martin Kippenberger, Albert Oehlen, and Christopher Wool. As such, he constantly sought to evolve in a way that enabled him to stay relevant even as art movements came and went. He became part of the 1980s movement of German artists who had a strong influence on younger generations. His legacy lies in his ability to interrogate Modernism while creating works of remarkable material presence, qualities that continue to resonate with collectors.