How does a millionaire hip-hop mogul and entrepreneur decorate for a blow-out birthday party? Sean "Diddy" Combs chose to display a $21.1 million painting at his 50th birthday party Sunday, Vanity Fair reported.
The painting is a work called "Past Times" by Kerry James Marshall. Combs bought the painting in 2018 at an auction through Sotheby's.
The estimated hammer price for the 1997 work was $8 million to $12 million, according to Sotheby's. Combs almost doubled that, with a purchase price of over $21.1 million, making it the highest sale for an artwork by a living African-American artist ever.
Combs' net worth is an estimated $740 million, according to Forbes' list of the world's wealthiest hip-hop artists of 2019.
He got into art collecting through his friend, fellow musician Kasseem Dean (aka Swizz Beatz), The New York Times reported in May 2018. Dean is married to musician Alicia Keys, and the couple's impressive art collection includes work by Andy Warhol, Kehinde Wiley and Pablo Picasso.
As the story goes, Dean took Combs to Sotheby's to see Marshall's work, and he learned more about the artist's backstory through Marshall's dealer, Jack Shainman, the Times reported in February.
"I thought it was important that that particular piece went to an owner of color," Dean told the Times. "It was time for us to step up to the plate and let the world know that we do own a piece of this market as well." "Past Times" depicts an African-American family in an idyllic suburban setting in Chicago, engaging in leisure activities, like golfing, boating and playing croquet.
The sale was a career high for Marshall, who lives and works in Chicago, although his work sells for millions. For example, in November, a painting titled "Vignette 19" sold for nearly $18.5 million at Sotheby's. Marshall has had retrospective shows at many of the major art museums in the world, including Met Breuer in New York City, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
Combs shared a photo on Instagram posing in front of the painting alongside fellow musicians: billionaire Jay-Z (Shawn Carter), Kanye West and Pharrell Williams.
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