A painting inspired by dreams, spirituality, and personal experiences has earned Zimbabwean artist Portia Zvavahera a new milestone in her career, with her latest work selling for more than US$400,000 at an auction in London.

Her painting, titled ‘This is where I travelled 3 (2020)’, fetched £307,200, equivalent to about US$406,200, at Christie’s, setting a new personal auction record for the contemporary artist.

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The sale, reported by Artweb Africa, took place during the Monsoon: The Peter Simon Collection auction.

The painting had been expected to sell for between £70,000 and £100,000, but the final price, including the buyer’s premium, exceeded the lower estimate by more than four times.

For Zvavahera, the result marks another step in a career that has seen her paintings attract increasingly higher prices at major international auctions.

Her latest achievement also means she has surpassed her previous record of US$355,600, set in 2023 when her painting Vese Vakanddibata (They all gave me strength) (2016) sold at Sotheby’s in New York.

That sale marked a massive moment in her career. Three years earlier, in October 2020, another of her works, Arising from the Unknown (2019), had sold for US$211,900 at Phillips in London.

Zvavahera turns her personal experiences into paintings filled with rich colours, layered patterns and figures that often appear dreamlike.

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Her latest record-breaking sale came during Christie’s 20th and 21st Century evening auctions, which generated approximately £218.6 million. The Peter Simon Collection alone realised £107.5 million, according to Artweb Africa.

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