Ben Lewis

"In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci's small oil painting the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as savior of the world is "the rarest thing on the planet." Its $450 million sale price also makes it the world's most expensive painting. For two centuries, art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo's assistants in the early sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself? In November 2017, Christie's auction house announced they had it. But did they? The Last Leonardo tells a thrilling tale of a spellbinding icon invested with the power to make or break the reputations of scholars, billionaires, kings, and sheikhs. Ben Lewis takes us to Leonardo's studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Amsterdam, Moscow, and New Orleans; to the galleries, salerooms, and restorer's workshop as the painting slowly, painstakingly emerged from obscurity. The vicissitudes of the highly secretive art market are charted across six centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, in which we're never quite certain what to believe. Above all, it is an adventure story about the search for lost treasure, and a quest for the truth."--

The Secret Lives of the World's Most Expensive Painting

The Last Leonardo

In 2017 the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. But is it a real da Vinci? In a thrilling narrative built on formidable research, Ben Lewis tracks the extraordinary journey of a masterpiece lost and found, lied and fought over across the centuries.

The Last Leonardo: The Secret Lives of the World’s Most Expensive Painting

For the past six decades, John Loker has produced rigorously conceived, meticulously produced and visually mesmerising works of art across many different media. Known as a photographer, sculptor, assemblage-collagist and above all painter, he is one of modern Britain's most original, free-thinking and category-defying artists. Author Ben Lewis traces the development of Loker's unusual artistic journey, beginning at Bradford College alongside fellow students David Hockney, Peter Kaye, David Oxtoby, Norman Stevens and Michael Vaughn, followed by his education at the Royal College of Art, London, in the 1960s and subsequent rise to international attention in the 1970s. Interspersed with conversations and correspondence with Loker's colleagues and collaborators, Horizons, Zones and Outer Spaces brings together more than xxx images from the 1950s to the present day, journeying through the landscape of Britain, Eastern Europe and Australia, to end with his most recent focus on space, and the horizon of our planet.

Ben Lewis

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