David Bowie self-portrait with handprints goes under the hammer at Sotheby's

On 15 October 2026 Sotheby's London offered an unusually personal David Bowie self-portrait in its Modern British & Irish Art Day Auction. Painted in 1996, the small canvas carries two of Bowie's actual handprints pressed into paint at the bottom of the composition and had been expected to fetch between £35,000 and £55,000. It is one of only eight self-portraits Bowie made during a prolific period of painting, all of which sold immediately at the time; only two of them have ever come to auction before. The work had remained in a single private collection since Bowie gave it to his St Ives gallerist. Public viewing in New Bond Street in the days before the sale drew long queues of Bowie admirers, and the auction coincides with Frieze Week, which has lifted interest in modern British material across London rooms. The lot sat within a wider Modern British & Irish Day sale and an evening Contemporary auction, part of what Sotheby's billed as its biggest October week of the year.