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Art painted by a chimpanzee sold for insane amount of money

Home> News> Animals

Published 16:53 4 Jan 2025 GMT

Art painted by a chimpanzee sold for insane amount of money

That chimp is more successful than us...

Joe Harker

Joe Harker

A collection of art painted by a chimpanzee once sold for a considerable amount of money.

Imagine going to art school, studying hard, putting all sorts of passion and effort into your projects and then finding out your work was passed over for something made by a chimpanzee.

Art is that wonderful medium through which creativity is expressed as we portray moments in time, living creatures and the very thoughts and feelings that run through our minds.

How much you like various different kinds of art really depends on your own personal tastes and for some people in this world their taste is art crafted by the hands of a chimpanzee.

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Congo was a chimpanzee who created over 400 pieces of art in his decade of life (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
Congo was a chimpanzee who created over 400 pieces of art in his decade of life (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Several decades ago there lived a chimp named Congo who learned to draw after a zoologist offered him a pencil and that monkey mind committed lines to the canvas.

In his career, Congo created about 400 pictures and seemingly knew when he was done with a painting, because he'd simply refuse to add any more to it.

Conversely, he got very mad if someone took away one of his pictures before he was finished with it.

While Congo died of tuberculosis in 1964, some of his paintings were put up for auction in 2005 and a trio of them sold for around £14,400.

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Congo's style has been described as 'lyrical abstract impressionism', which is a fancy way of saying people had no idea what he was supposed to be painting.

It's not like you could exactly ask him, on account of Congo being a chimpanzee, but he apparently counted Pablo Picasso among fans of his style.

This is apparently 'lyrical abstract impressionism'. I don't know what that's supposed to mean. (Desmond Morris Collection/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
This is apparently 'lyrical abstract impressionism'. I don't know what that's supposed to mean. (Desmond Morris Collection/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Even if he was a chimpanzee, some of Congo's paintings have more artistic merit than some pieces of art that go these days.

If you will permit me to yell at the clouds for a bit, I do not really understand and therefore do not like some more modern forms of art such as taping a banana to a wall, which is apparently worthy of a £5 million price tag.

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It's not even the first time the artist had created such an installation and perhaps I'm just not getting it, but I don't see what's artistic about a banana being taped to a wall.

The £5 million one only ended up being eaten by the person who bought it anyway, which is at least using the banana for its primary function outside of making your friends crash in Mario Kart.

Featured Image Credit: Desmond Morris Collection/Universal Images Group via Getty Images / Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

Topics: Animals, Art

Joe Harker
Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

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@MrJoeHarker

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