«IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE AND IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE»- ANDY WARHOL

Every year Artprice compiles a ranking of artists based on the total revenue generated by public sales of each artist's work, with Pablo Picasso invariably taking the number one position on the market podium. Not so in 2007: after nearly 10 years, the champion of modern art has been dethroned by the guru of Pop art, Andy Warhol.

Second in 2006, Warhol became the global market leader in 2007.More than just one name replacing another, this 'event' reflects a veritable sea-change in the auction world. While in the 1990s the very pinnacle of the art market belonged to the impressionists, particularly Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet, and then, after 2000, to the moderns with Pablo Picasso and Gustave Klimt, today, and possibly for some time to come, the market has hoisted contemporary art to the summit of the pyramid.

In 2006, the only members of the contemporary segment among the top 10 artists were Warhol, Lichtenstein and Willem de Kooning, representing Pop art and American abstract expressionism. In 2007, the contemporary presence considerably broadened with the arrival of Francis Bacon, Mark Rothko and Jean-Michel Basquiat.