The World’s Largest Painting – The Biggest Painting in the World

What is the world’s largest painting, and who painted the biggest painting in the world? The largest oil painting in the world was produced by an artist named Sacha Jafri, and is titled The Journey of Humanity (2020). Let’s find out why he decided to produce the largest canvas painting ever made, and what has become of it since!

An Exploration of the World’s Largest Painting

In 2021, the artist Sacha Jafri sold his artwork, the biggest painting in the world, for $62 million. With a size equivalent to 10 tennis courts, it was officially named the largest oil painting in the world by the Guinness World Records. The original intention of the artist was to take the world’s largest canvas painting and cut it into 70 pieces which would all be auctioned for charity.

Amazingly, the entire artwork was bought by one person.

An Introduction to the Artist

Sacha Jafri was born in 1977 in London and started his artistic career in the late 1990s. He was educated at Eton College and received his master’s in fine arts from Oxford University in 2000. He is renowned for his detailed and colorful style, which typically uses elements of both Street and Pop art. Jafri has held solo exhibits in places such as New York, London, Hong Kong, and Dubai.

He is also well-known for his charitable activities, having donated millions of dollars to numerous causes through the auction of his most renowned artwork, The Journey of Humanity, officially regarded to be the world’s largest painting. 

He is a well-known figure in the modern art scene who continues to produce and present his works at exhibits. He is also a lecturer and advisor for aspiring artists, and he has been published in several international publications, including the BBC, Forbes, CNN, and many more. Among his collectors are Barack Obama, Paul McCartney, Madonna, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and many more.

The Creation of the Biggest Painting in the World

Starting during the Covid-19 shutdown, Jafri produced the piece in the large ballroom of the Hotel Atlantis at The Palm in Dubai. He felt as if he were in a trance, having painted for 20 hours a day for a total of eight months. Jafri was stuck in Dubai when the lockdown occurred. 2020 was supposed to be the most important year of his professional life – he was meant to have his 18-year retrospective at the Saatchi Gallery and was working on artwork for the Dubai Expo as well as the Tokyo Olympics’ opening ceremony – but once Covid hit, everything got canceled. Jafri felt that the globe had become full of negative stagnant energy before the epidemic.

Then Covid struck, and there was quiet. It was then that he had the idea of an artwork that could evoke that stillness and potentially promote real cultural change. He originally approached Emirates Airlines about utilizing one of their hangars to create the piece, but they recommended that he ask Atlantis Hotel about using their ballroom.

For eight months, he slept in the ballroom; although his wife and child had a room upstairs, he never found the time to sleep in it. When his daughter would come to visit him in the ballroom, she found it tedious to watch her father paint for around 20 hours every day, so she entertained herself in a wendy house in the room’s far corner.

They were the only ones staying at the hotel during Covid, and his daughter would ride her scooter around the vacant Atlantis Hotel. Physically, it had a negative impact: he paints like Pollock, standing yet bending down to paint. This was a large canvas, but he was painting with a 1.5-inch brush, so there was the potential to do serious harm to himself. He underwent emergency back surgery, inserting a rod through his spine and placing artificial padding between two vertebrae. His pelvis was out of alignment on both axes, indicating that his spine was out of alignment. He was also getting painkiller injections in his hip every four hours.

Despite the fact that the painting was the size of ten tennis courts, he had no assistance, and since he is a control freak, didn’t want people to interfere with his creative process.

More than 1,060 paintbrushes and 6,300 liters of paint were utilized to complete the world’s largest canvas painting, which was a handmade blend of household paints, linseed oil, and raw oil pigment. He got lucky with the canvas: he phoned a supplier who had a lot of canvases in storage that had been meant for the Dubai Expo 2020, which had been postponed due to the pandemic.

The Sale of the Largest Oil Painting in the World

Upon completion, the largest canvas painting in the world was split up and stretched, with the goal of auctioning the painting as smaller artworks at six auctions, which included one at the World Economic Forum. He was to be the first artist to speak at the event, which would be attended by Zuckerberg, Bezos, and other influential figures. For three months, the artwork was shown in its entirety at Atlantis Hotel.

A gentleman with a thick French accent kept coming in to look at the work every day, telling Jafri that it would be an absolute travesty to break it up. The gentleman, named Andre Abdoune, would come in and look at the piece for hours on end for seven days in a row.

Sotheby’s was supposed to hold the auction in the opulent ballroom of the Atlantis Hotel, but they dropped out at the last minute. According to one insider, the auction house was frightened by allegations that bidders had submitted advance offers, which might have made the deal appear fixed without the required disclosures. The winning bidder, Andre Abdoune – the same man who had viewed the artwork so often – is not a well-known figure in the art world. He’s bought a few things from auctions in Paris, but nothing on the scope or expense of the biggest painting in the world.

Abdoune was in Dubai in 2020, looking for a new property when his broker suggested he see Jafri’s artwork at the Atlantis Hotel. Abdoune was by no means an art critic or academic, and really knew nothing about art in general. He just knew what he liked when he saw it and chose the works he purchased by feeling. The very first time he saw it in person, he was actually moved to tears, and the thought of the work being cut into pieces devastated him.

The 50-year-old had also just gone through a horrible divorce and had not been able to see his children since the split, so the knowledge that the proceeds were going to children’s charities moved him even more.

While Abdoune is now a man that shops for houses in Dubai and made a fortune through the stock exchange, he came from a very poor Parisian family who often had nothing to eat. Now he is wealthy from his success in both the stock exchange and cryptocurrency, although he did not use bitcoin to pay for the $62 million artwork – he paid for it with cash! Despite the rumors, though, he denies that there was any sort of pre-auction bidding, and was actually nervous he would lose the bid when he arrived at the auction in the hotel.

The first bid to come in for the complete artwork was just over $30 million, and he entered the bidding at the $50 million mark. He eventually won with his bid of $62 million. The businessman now plans to build a museum comparable to the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas, where people may reflect on art as well as human rights. Aside from housing the world’s largest painting, the building will also house dormitories where special needs children, orphans, and refugees can participate in Jafri’s art courses.

That covers our exploration of the largest canvas painting in the world. Covering an area equivalent to 10 tennis courts, it took around eight months of non-stop work for the artist to produce. Despite the extreme and long hours, as well as the physical discomfort, what kept Jafri going was the knowledge that once completed, his work could have a positive and significant impact on the world. At a time when the world was essentially shut down due to a global pandemic, and there were fears that things would never return to normal, he decided to rather spend that time of seclusion creating something that would be remembered forever.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the Biggest Painting in the World?

The world’s largest painting is called The Journey of Humanity, and it was produced during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. It was produced by Sacha Jafri, a British artist who had already held several exhibitions and was known for supporting charities with the proceeds. He had exactly the same idea in mind for this project. He had to rent an entire ballroom in a Dubai hotel just so that he would have the appropriate space to create the artwork. He even slept in the ballroom, as he found it more convenient to just sleep there after his daily 20 hours of painting – even though his family had a room upstairs!

Where Is the Largest Canvas Painting in the World?

The biggest painting in the world was sold at an auction in 2021. Before its sale, the entire painting was on display at the Atlantis Hotel, Dubai, where it had been produced. The original intention was to sell the artwork in pieces, effectively spreading it across the world to various buyers, however, it sold as one single artwork in the end for $62 million dollars. The man who bought it, Andre Abdoune, plans to open a museum where the artwork will be put on permanent display for all to see and enjoy. He also plans to use the facility to educate children in need in the arts.

Jordan Anthony( Content Editor, Art Writer, Photographer )

Jordan Anthony is a Cape Town-based film photographer, curator, and arts writer. She holds a Bachelor of Art in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, where she explored themes like healing, identity, dreams, and intuitive creation in her Contemporary art practice. Jordan has collaborated with various local art institutions, including the KZNSA Gallery in Durban, the Turbine Art Fair, and the Wits Art Museum. Her photography focuses on abstract color manipulations, portraiture, candid shots, and urban landscapes. She’s intrigued by philosophy, memory, and esotericism, drawing inspiration from Surrealism, Fluxus, and ancient civilizations, as well as childhood influences and found objects. Jordan is working for artfilemagazine since 2022 and writes blog posts about art history and photography.

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