Genieve Figgis

Genieve Figgis was born in 1972 in Dublin, Ireland. She trained first at the Gorey School of Art in Wexford, completing a BFA there in 2006, before continuing at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, where she earned a BA with Honours in 2007 and, after further study from 2010 to 2012, an MFA in 2012.

Her international profile grew after the artist Richard Prince came across and purchased her paintings, subsequently helping publish a book of her work, an endorsement widely credited with accelerating her transition from a small Irish gallery circuit to international attention. She built her early exhibition history through galleries including Half Gallery and Harper's Books in New York, then developed a long-running relationship with Almine Rech, with whom she has staged solo exhibitions in London, Paris, Shanghai, New York, and, in 2026, Monaco. She continues to exhibit with Harper's, East Hampton, and currently lives and works in County Wicklow, Ireland.

Figgis is regularly discussed in relation to the tradition of history and society painting that she distorts and parodies, using saturated color, sagging brushwork, and faces that appear to melt or smear. Writers on her work have drawn comparisons to Francisco Goya, Karen Kilimnik, and George Condo, a comparison attributed to the New York Times critic Roberta Smith in secondary art press coverage, though the exact original wording of that comparison could not be independently verified for this profile. Critical attention has tracked her exhibition history closely, from early gallery shows in New York and London through her inclusion in institutional group shows at venues including the Consortium Museum in Dijon and MoMu in Antwerp.

Figgis's most fully documented auction result is The Birth of Venus (After Alexandre Cabanel) (2018), which sold for HKD 2,375,000 (about USD 304,000) at Phillips Hong Kong in November 2019, well above its HKD 250,000 to 400,000 estimate. Other sources report higher but less complete figures, including an unmatched USD 638,691 result attributed to Sotheby's and six-figure results for Ladies Drinking (GBP 113,400) and Blue Boat (USD 94,500) listed on Phillips's artist page; none of these three include a confirmed sale date, and two lack a confirmed auction house, so they are noted here with lower confidence rather than as the record. Market trackers describe meaningful cumulative turnover beyond any single lot: Artnet notes that her works have regularly fetched six figures at auction, and HENI's market data places lifetime auction turnover near USD 15.3 million over roughly twelve years.

There is no published catalogue raisonne for Genieve Figgis, so collectors should rely on current gallery representation and documented exhibition and auction history when assessing provenance. Public reporting on her auction record is inconsistent between market databases, with several summary figures that lack a matched work, date, or sale location; collectors should verify any specific auction claim against primary auction house lot records rather than a single summary source. Her market benefits from strong institutional placement across museums in the United States, Europe, and Asia, but the relatively short trading history and some unresolved discrepancies in reported results mean individual sale prices should be read with care.