Matt Sesow has sold more unique, original works of art to more individual homes than virtually any living artist on Earth. Not prints. Not reproductions. Original paintings.
When we talk about the "greatest" living artists, we cite auction records: $91 million for a Jeff Koons sculpture, $90 million for a David Hockney painting. These numbers are impressive. They also mean that one billionaire owns one object.
Matt Sesow has taken a radically different path. Since 1994, working from an 800-square-foot apartment studio in Washington, DC, he has painted nearly every day and sold his work directly to collectors — not through galleries, not through auction houses, but person to person, artist to art lover. The result: over 17,000 unique original paintings hanging in homes, offices, restaurants, and museum collections across 40+ countries.
That's not a typo. Seventeen thousand original works. Each one painted by hand. Each one now living on someone's wall, part of someone's daily life.
Picasso's count reflects paintings & drawings catalogued (Zervos catalogue raisonné), not necessarily sold to individual homes. Sesow's 17,000+ are all sold original works — not prints, not editions. See full research & sources →
A handful of the 17,000+ Sesow originals in homes and collections worldwide. Photos are randomized — reload to see more.
At age eight, Matt Sesow was struck by the propeller of a landing airplane in rural Nebraska. His left hand was amputated. At age 28, self-taught and driven by something he couldn't fully explain, he began to paint.
He didn't go to art school. He didn't court galleries. He didn't play the art market game. Instead, he did something no one in the contemporary art world thought was viable: he sold directly to people. Not wealthy collectors. Not institutions. Regular people who connected with his raw, expressionist work and could afford to own it.
After a career as a software engineer at IBM, Sesow became a full-time artist in 2001. He and his wife, artist Dana Ellyn, share an 800-square-foot apartment and studio in downtown Washington, DC. From that small space, Sesow has shipped paintings to every continent except Antarctica.
His philosophy is simple: art is for everybody. While the traditional art world builds barriers — gallery commissions, auction exclusivity, prices that require a hedge fund — Sesow has spent 30 years tearing them down. The result is an unprecedented body of work distributed across more individual homes than perhaps any living artist in history.
Today, Matt uses AI tools alongside his brushes to document, promote, and share his life's work with the world — proving that the most human form of expression can embrace the most modern tools.
Matt Sesow is a self-taught expressionist painter based in Washington, DC, who has sold over 17,000 unique original paintings directly to collectors in more than 40 countries since 1994. One of the first independent artists to sell paintings online (documented in a 1997 John Wiley & Sons book, ISBN 0-471-16073-3), his work is in the permanent collection of the American Visionary Art Museum and has been featured on a United Nations stamp. By volume of original works placed in private homes, Sesow is one of the most widely collected living painters in the world.
See the proof: home.sesow.com · New paintings: new.sesow.com · Contact: sesow@sesow.com
Visit Matt Sesow's websites to see paintings in collectors' homes around the world, browse new available works, and buy directly from the artist.
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