The former James Bond star Pierce Brosnan has been open about his side gig as an artist—he even got in trouble with TSA when he accidentally packed a knife for sharpening pencils in his carry-on luggage. Now, his prowess with a paintbrush is paying off. Last week, the actor sold his portrait of Bob Dylan for $1.4 million at the 25th annual amFAR Cannes charity gala. 
 
 The painting’s new owner also won a lunch date with the 65-year-old actor, reported People. 
 
 “I started painting in 1987 when my late wife had cancer,” Brosnan told the crowd, according to the Daily Mail. His first wife, Cassandra Harris, died in 1991 of ovarian cancer, the same disease that claimed the life of their daughter Charlotte in 2013. “I had been painting out of pain, and now the pain sometimes comes through in color.” 
 
 The actor was reportedly speechless when the bidding stopped. He described himself as “deeply proud, humbled and just plain old over the moon joyous” in a post on Instagram. 
 
 Before getting into the movie business, Brosnan studied commercial illustration at St. Martin’s School of Art in London. He nevertheless described his current brand of landscapes and figurative paintings as “self-taught” in an interview with ORIGIN magazine in 2013. “I’ve painted for many, many years. Now the last few years it’s gotten more serious. Thinking about and hoping I will put on an exhibit and make a book shortly.” 
 
 The amFAR benefit, titled Cinema Against AIDS, was held Thursday night, and also included the sale of an $800,000 restored 1964 S3 Bentley Convertible and a nearly $1 million painting by Joe Bradley. The evening also featured a fashion show presented by former Vogue Paris editor Carine Roitfeld, the looks from which were then auctioned off as a collection for $1.7 million. 
 
 Follow artnet News on Facebook: ||||| Pierce Brosnan I Got $1.4M for My Dylan Painting!!! Buyer Has Kimye Ties 
 
 Pierce Brosnan's Bob Dylan Painting Sold to Kimye's House Buyer 
 
 EXCLUSIVE 
 
 Pierce Brosnan's Bob Dylan painting sold for more than $1 million, and TMZ's learned the new owner is none other than the woman who plunked down $17.8 mil on Kim and Kanye's Bel-Air mansion. 
 
 We're told Ukrainian billionaire Marina Acton snapped up 007's painting of Zimmy earlier this week at the 25th annual amFAR Cannes charity gala. 
 
 Pierce, who first took up painting back in the '80s, has gotten more serious about it, and the price tag on his work proves it -- Marina dropped $1.4 million. 
 
 As for Acton ... she's quickly building a rep for pricey Hollywood collectibles. You already know about the Bel-Air crib Kim and Kanye initially bought for $9 million back in 2013. 
 
 Not long after that purchase, Acton also shelled out another $2 million for some Beatles history. 
 
 Kanye, Dylan and the Fab Four? She has good taste and deep pockets. ||||| Pierce Brosnan really is somewhat of a double agent. 
 
 The former James Bond star, 65, who was trained as a commercial artist and worked as an illustrator, just auctioned off one of his original paintings for $1.4 million. Brosnan donated the piece, depicting the singer Bob Dylan, for the 25th annual gala amFAR Cannes charity event, Cinema Against AIDS on May 17. 
 
 Courtesy Pierce Brosnan 
 
 Along with the celebrity auction, this year’s event included performances by Grace Jones, Sting and Shaggy and Ellie Goulding. Brosnan, who has been painting for more than 20 years, also included a lunch date with himself in the sale. 
 
 At home in Malibu with his wife of 16 years, Keely Shaye Smith, the actor has an art studio in the couple’s bedroom. “I paint in oils, I paint in acrylics,” Brosnan told Origin magazine last year. “I paint figurative and landscape portraits. It’s all in my own kind of style.” 
 
 Pierce Brosnan at the amfAR Gala Dave Benett/WireImage 
 
 Despite his success as an actor, Brosnan told the magazine that in recent years his art has “gotten more serious. Thinking about and hoping I will put on an exhibit and make a book shortly,” he added. “Maybe next year.” ||||| Image copyright yusaku2020, Instagram Image caption The buyer, Yusaku Maezawa, posted a picture of himself viewing the painting earlier 
 
 A painting by the late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat has sold at auction in New York for $110.5m (£85.4m). 
 
 That is nearly double the price of his previous most expensive work, bought by the same person a year ago. 
 
 It has broken several other records including becoming the most expensive work by any US artist. 
 
 It is also the highest price fetched for any art by a black artist and the first piece created since 1980 to break the $100m mark. 
 
 The untitled work was done in oil stick, acrylic and spray paint, and depicts a face in the shape of a skull. 
 
 It was sold to Yusaku Maezawa, a 41-year-old Japanese fashion entrepreneur who plans to set up a museum in his home town of Chiba. 
 
 Read more from BBC Culture:Jean-Michel Basquiat: The life and work behind the legend 
 
 Bidding for the piece during the auction at Sotheby's lasted 10 tense minutes. Cheers and applause erupted in the room when the work was sold to Mr Maezawa by telephone. 
 
 He later posted on Instagram that the painting made him feel "so much excitement and gratitude for my love of art", a feeling he wished to share with "as many people as possible". 
 
 Mr Maezawa last year set the previous record for a Basquiat piece, when he paid $57.3m for a painting of a horned devil. 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A portrait of Basquiat was displayed in 2006 in Milan 
 
 Basquiat, a native New Yorker, died in 1988 of a heroin overdose aged 27. He had been an artist for just seven years. 
 
 Most of his works depict the problems faced by African Americans in the US, reports the BBC's Laura Bicker in Washington. 
 
 Once a graffiti rebel from Brooklyn who sold drawings for $50, he is now in the same league as Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon, she says - part of a rare group of artists whose work has sold for more than $100m at auction. 
 
 "Breaking $100m for a work which is that recent is definitely extraordinary," said Gregoire Billault, head of contemporary art at Sotheby's. 
 
 "I think it just speaks about the talent of this guy. It's just pure emotion. He's bringing something never seen before." 
 
 Jean-Michel Basquiat
– Pierce Brosnan has joined the ranks of celebrity painters in a major way, reports People. A portrait of Bob Dylan painted by the former James Bond star sold for $1.4 million at the 25th annual amFAR Cannes charity auction held in Antibes last week. "I am deeply proud, humbled and plain old over the moon joyous following the sale of this painting for 1.2 million euros at last nights auction," Brosnan posted on Instagram the next day. The buyer was Ukrainian billionaire Marina Acton, who paid $17.8 million for Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s Bel-Air mansion, reports TMZ. Brosnan, who took up painting in 1987, according to artnet, is a trained commercial artist and has worked as an illustrator. He even has a studio in his bedroom, where he paints landscapes and portraits in oils and acrylics. (To read about a painter-in-chief, go here.)