Self-taught artist Lincoln Townley sold 22 paintings in 2020 for a whopping £20 million fortune, seven years after marrying television’s Denise Welch.
He cited billionaires like Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk as inspiration for the collection, which was called Universe.
Actor Michael Caine once referred to Townley as the “next Andy Warhol”. Warhol popularised a style known as “pop art”, which involves often simple, repeated images, and deliberately regurgitates iconic images from pop culture, such as the faces of celebrities or brand logos.
Lincoln Townley is 14 years younger than Denise Welch, who is his second wife after a months-long union with Beverley Scales in 1992.
Lincoln and Denise’s ‘unsustainable’ relationship beginnings
When he met Denise in 2012, Lincoln Townley was a man on the edge.
Peter Stringfellow had just fired him from the role of sales director of his exclusive – and expensive – West End nightclub.
He was drinking heavily. Heavily.
The Times wrote in January 2024 that he would drink: two bottles of rioja, three chocolate martinis, four bottles of Stella Artois, a bottle of beaujolais, nine vodka and tonics and snort a gram of coke – by 3pm each day.
For her part, Denise “couldn’t see the red flags,” Lincoln told the paper. Because she was in that world herself.
She’d recently separated from her husband, actor Tim Healy. She and Lincoln drank and fought in a way that was, by his own description, “unsustainable”.
He went cold turkey, shirking Alcoholics Anonymous in favour of simple self-discipline. When he showed Denise a video he’d recorded of her “smashing up his flat in a drunken rage,” she did the same.
“That day was the start of us channelling that dark energy into good things,” he told the Times. “And look at the life we have now.”
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Denise Welch and Lincoln Townley’s £20 million fortune after Universe art sale
In 2020, during the height of the covid-19 pandemic, Lincoln Townley sold a collection of 22 paintings for a total of £20 million.
Investors used cryptocurrency to buy many of the pieces. The Saatchi gallery then exhibited them for a period towards the end of the year.
Lincoln took inspiration from billionaire space-faring projects for his Universe collection. He cites “visionaries” like Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, specifically, as his muses.
“These people are masters of the universe,” The Sun quotes him as saying, at the time.
“I wanted to expand my own creative ideas by creating extremely colourful pictures of achievement and look at the images of the first man on Mars, the first disco on Mars, the first banker on Venus.”
Among the many art pieces Lincoln has sold during his career are a diamond-encrusted portrait of Princess Diana (£1 million) and a painting of Muhammed Ali (£510,000).
The Diana painting featured more than £100,000 worth of diamonds. Its frame alone contains £20,000 worth of sapphires.
Lincoln’s £7 million luxury Chelsea penthouse featuring artworks
In 2019, before raking in £20 million for his Universe collection, Lincoln Townley splashed out on a luxury Chelsea penthouse worth £7 million.
He bought it with the proceeds of his previous Behind The Mask La Biennale and Greed collections, reports MailOnline.
Lincoln wanted to use the house a “unique way to sell art”, and reckoned it was a “world’s first”.
“I am a big believer than no one can sell my art better than I can,” he told the outlet.
“I do have works with some galleries but I am not exclusive to anyone and I’ve always explored alternate markets such as the crypto world and sales generated via social media and online.”
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