Ljuba Popović Painter · 1934—2016
Auction record

Market

Solidly mid-market for a twentieth-century fantastic painter. The figures below are a range and a shape, not a valuation of anything.

$58,814

Auction record

L’éducation sombre, Artcurial, 2025

≈ $14,770

Recent paintings, average

Oils; the spread around this figure is wide

Hundreds

Works on paper

Drawings and watercolours, typically in dollars

Since 2007 the record price at auction is $58,814, for L’éducation sombre, sold at Artcurial in 2025. Recent paintings have averaged roughly $14,770, and works on paper a great deal less — often in the hundreds of dollars.

The medium split matters more here than the headline. A large oil from a documented period and a loose drawing are separated by two orders of magnitude, and quoting a single average across both is how people end up disappointed. Individual results reported include L’ambiguïté rose (1987) and Grande Invasion (1998) among the larger oils.

His work appears regularly at the French houses — Artcurial, Osenat, Delon-Hoebanx, Thierry de Maigret — and internationally at Bonhams. Thessa Herold’s gallery remains the historically dominant dealer; other galleries that have shown or sold the work include Les Yeux Fertiles in Paris and the ARTE Gallery in Belgrade.

What these numbers are not

They are not a valuation, and they cannot be applied to a particular painting. Auction results are public records of what specific works fetched on specific days; the price of a given canvas depends on period, scale, condition, provenance and whether it can be placed in the catalogue raisonné at all.

This site cannot appraise anything. If you own a work, or are considering buying one, the estate is the place to start — see the catalogue raisonné page, or write to slavica.batos13@gmail.com. For current market data, the auction databases hold the primary records.

Figures as reported by MutualArt and the auction houses. Market data ages; these were current as of 2026 and should be re-checked before being relied on.