In today’s art world, “Never Before Seen” has lost its meaning. Online marketplaces, galleries, and AI-driven creators use the phrase constantly, flooding the landscape with work that is new only in the most superficial sense. Novelty has become cheap — and collectors know it.
Never Before Done is something entirely different. It represents a level of originality that cannot be faked, prompted, or mass‑produced. To create something never before done requires decades of discipline, invention, and a willingness to work far outside the gravitational pull of trends. Very few artists in any generation achieve this.
I coined the term Never Before Done to give collectors a way to identify the rarest category of creative achievement — works that are not merely new, but unprecedented. My pieces are the culmination of more than fifty years of exploration, refinement, and innovation. I belong to a lineage of creators who didn’t just make art; they expanded what art could be.
For a collector, Never Before Done is the ultimate distinction. It is the difference between acquiring something interesting and acquiring something historically singular. These works are the rarest of the rare — the kind of pieces that define a collection, not just fill it. Meet several distinguished creators.
Kevin McCoy: Minted the world’s first NFT called Quantum. He’s the one and only man to do that. It can never happen again. Sold for $1.47 million in 2021. Never Before Done
Beeple: ‘Everydays’ A collage of 5,000 jpg images. It’s not really the collage that sets him apart, it’s the way he did it. He produced and published an image a day for 5,000 straight days. No other person has performed such an undertaking. Sold for $69 million. Never Before Done
Beeple – July 27, 2023
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art – Bentonville, Ark. Beeple commented about his kinetic sculpture Human 1, “This is something that has never been done before.” Sold for $28.9 million.
11/09/2024 – MSN: “Sotheby’s made history during its digital art sale as a painting made solely by robot artist, Ai-Da, sold for $1.08 million. The selling price smashed the initial predictions of $100,000.” Super Rare! Absolutely. Never Before Done
Jason Savage: Cryptographer – Designer of the Trithemian Web™ – featuring applied art cryptograms that combine aesthetics, an interactive design and a problem-solving goal. “My work uses elongated, vertically displayed but horizontally read characters that conceal a cipher along with other hidden elements. Interaction with the single layer raster file enables one to decipher the code, revealing the name of the piece, a personal message, and if present, maybe more. It’s the combination of elements, interaction directives, and exclusive, conceptual design that sets my work apart. A 1972 bar challenge reimagined and transformed.” Savage coined a new movement – Linear Transmutation. Never Before Done