Lily

Life and work

Lily is a contemporary artist who signs and is catalogued simply by that name, with the year 1993 attached to distinguish her from the several other artists who have used it. She is represented by the LYNART Store gallery in Paris, which handles both her unique paintings and her editions. The gallery describes a practice that draws on digital imagery and popular culture to make vivid pictures about identity, femininity and the shape of modern life, and the works that have come through this house bear that out: figures placed against flattened, high colour grounds, and a recurring series built around masks. Because the working name is a common first name, the birth year is doing real work in the catalogue. A seller comparing a piece against a published price should confirm that the year matches before treating the comparison as valid.

Disciplines and how they differ

Two bodies of work, priced apart. The unique paintings come in acrylic on canvas, oil on canvas and acrylic on paper, and they are what LLB Auction has handled: four canvases across two seasons, of which two found buyers. The editions are separate and are issued by the gallery. They include colour screenprints on Canson paper, square at sixty by sixty centimetres, signed and numbered in editions of ten, and hand finished lithographs with diamond dust in an edition of six with one artist's proof. None of the editions has come through this house. The two groups do not price against one another and a seller should not treat a gallery edition price as a guide to what a canvas is worth, or the reverse.

What a specialist examines

First, whether the object is unique or editioned, which for this artist is easy to settle: the screenprints are square at a fixed size and carry a hand written fraction in the margin, and the paintings do not. Second, the medium line, which matters more than usual here because the same imagery appears in acrylic on canvas, oil on canvas and acrylic on paper, and the catalogue entries at this house have described lots variously as oil on canvas, painting and canvas without further detail. Establish which it actually is. Third, the series. Works come in numbered sequences, and the mask pictures offered here were catalogued as Pilot I and Pilot II from the Master mask series, so the sequence position should be recorded. Because the paint is recent, the condition risks are handling marks, corner knocks to the stretcher and packing residue rather than anything age related. No body reviews works under this name for sellers, so the paperwork a consignor holds carries the weight.

Market position

This research found no public auction record for the artist outside LLB Auction. She has not been offered at Christie's, Sotheby's, Phillips or Bonhams. What exists is a primary market run through the gallery that represents her, which sells the editions new from Paris and handles the unique work. Within this house the record is short and mixed: four canvases offered, two sold in the 2026 sales, and the two mask pictures offered in the autumn of 2025 did not find buyers. That half and half outcome is the most concrete measure of demand currently available, and it is worth setting a reserve against rather than against the gallery's retail level.

What a seller should have ready

The invoice from the gallery or from the studio, which for an artist at this stage is the strongest and often the only document. Photographs of the face, of all four edges of the canvas, and of the reverse including the stretcher bars, where the signature, the title and the year are frequently written. Exact dimensions in centimetres. The full title including any series name and sequence number. The medium as precisely as it can be established, distinguishing acrylic from oil and canvas from paper. And, if the work is on paper and square, the edition fraction, because that single detail decides which of the two markets the piece belongs to.