When the world’s largest painting was finished, few knew its true size. One magazine estimated the piece spanned two football pitches. Another news channel reduced the canvas to ten tennis courts. The truth was smaller: 17,000 square feet – a garish colossus of hearts, planets and splatters titled The Journey of Humanity.
It had taken the painter, Sacha Jafri, seven months, working alone in a barren hotel ballroom in Dubai that was his studio and then his auction house. Once finished, it was to be sliced into 70 pieces so it could be sold in segments at separate auctions across the world, with proceeds bound for charities that aimed to alleviate the suffering of children. But by 22 March 2021, the evening of the first auction, that plan had changed.
Seated in the ballroom at a dozen black-clothed tables were leaders from Dubai’s crypto community and Emirati royalty. Only a select few of them knew that, rather than being sold in individual segments, the entire painting was going up for sale. The bidding for the artwork quickly soared to $62 million. Out in front was a short, squarely built Frenchman, André Abdoune. ‘This gentleman here is going to make history,’ the auctioneer cried. ‘Once, twice, three times, sold! Sacha Jafri, go and shake that man’s hand!’
In that moment Jafri became the fifth most expensive living artist, and André, a billionaire few had ever heard of, was hailed as an international philanthropist, achievements breathlessly reported by international media. But it was an illusion, one the pair have closely guarded for years. What’s certain is that no child ever received a penny – and that both the world’s largest painting and André have vanished.
Jafri had always longed to be one of the world’s great artists. The 49-year-old British painter’s work has purportedly been exhibited alongside Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, and is said to hang in the collections of US presidents and Oscar winners. To date, he has 20.4 million Instagram followers, making him the world’s most-followed visual artist.
Throughout his career, Jafri has worked outside the clutches of large, blue-chip galleries. He prefers to sell his art directly to private clients, individuals he must meet in person. Nearly all prospective buyers are rejected. His paintings, he says, are fragments of his soul that need to be loved.
He was raised in Virginia Water, a wealthy enclave of neoclassical mansions concealed behind tall hedges. Former classmates remember the young painter. At preparatory school, his class was given the task of drawing a picture based on the letter ‘N’. While other children finished quickly, Jafri spent weeks sketching a piece of such immense detail that it became the talk of the school. At Eton College, Jafri stood out. He was half-Pakistani and born to a father who he said twice went bankrupt, studying at a school where the overwhelming majority of pupils were white and wealthy. But he was well-liked, an outstanding cricketer and a great dancer remembered for a brave pair of high-ankled buckled boots, similar to the ones worn by Michael Jackson. Jafri was dyslexic, and struggled academically. It was through art, the painter claims, that he was able to make sense of the world.
To help, Jafri said the headmaster handed him the keys to a Portakabin where he could paint as much as he wanted, so long as he attended class. This intervention ‘probably saved my life,’ Jafri reflected years later. The wife of that same headmaster also offered to buy one of his earliest works. ‘I remember going with my mum to their house and they had Picassos, Mondrians and Rothkos on their wall,’ he once told a magazine. ‘There was actually no space for my painting, and so the headmaster took down a Picasso to put up my painting.’
