01/05/2026 General News
Traditionally, the fine art stars in the saleroom were either Old Masters or works by the Impressionists. ‘Modern Art’ was widely considered to be the domain of a small coterie of esoteric London collectors, wirtes Daniel Smith.
But now in the saleroom we are seeing a new cohort of buyers, often from a younger generation, whose focus is very much on the era between the middle of the 20th century and the present day.
That is a period of 75 years. To put that into context, if you went 75 years from the end of the Second World War, the first Impressionist exhibition wouldn’t yet have taken place. To call art from such a long period ‘Modern Art’ is perhaps a stretch, but nevertheless, there is a clear timeline between what emerged after the War and today’s vibrant contemporary art scene.
The world which emerged post-war was much changed, and this was reflected in the art which started to be created in that period. It was about processing the trauma, rediscovering a sense of identity in a changed world, and making a break with a past which many wanted to leave behind; everybody wanted the world to be modern.
The art world saw the emergence of different movements, many of them avant-garde: Art Povera, which infused commonplace materials into creations, Abstract Impressionism (think Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko) and Pop Art are just three of them.
Pop Art, which emerged at the end of the 1950s and into the 1960s, was built around on turning popular culture into fine art. It was a reaction against the perceived pomp and finery of classical art, focusing on everyday people. Artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichenstein and Jasper Johns all enjoyed their ‘15 minutes of fame’.
Pop Art was a reflection of lived reality; what came next was the exact opposite. By the late 1960s, the Minimalism and Conceptual Art movements were underway. The former made widespread use of geometric shapes, whilst the latter was more about the idea and the story. Both reflected another period of upheaval, this time not inspired by war, but by significant social change driven by the first generation to have experienced a long period of peace and relative prosperity.
From the 1970s onwards could be defined as the period of Contemporary Art, although it could be argued that it is disingenuous to group together so many different styles and ideas under one heading. The ideas which preceded this period continued to have a big influence (especially Pop Art and Conceptual Art), whilst new ideas such as Postmodernism and Neo-Expressionism – characterised by dramatic imagery portrayed in bold colours and energetic brushstrokes – all came into play.
The late 1990s and 2000s saw the emergence of the Young British Artists (YBAs) such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, known for pushing the boundaries and aiming to provoke and shock audiences with their imagery.
Today we see the emergence of Digital Art, combining photographic imagery and computer-generated visuals (and indeed audio), with the screen taking the place of the canvas. It has been called a ‘computer-generated Renaissance’; whether that turns out to be hyperbole remains to be seen.
Most auction houses now hold specialist Modern Art Sales. Keys was one of the first to start doing this in 2013, recognising that there was a whole group of new, younger buyers who were more interested in post-war art than Old Masters. Given the rich diversity of art produced in the past 75 years, we shouldn’t be surprised that the Modern Art Sale is now a firmly established fixture in our sales calendar.