Pop goes the art market as the music millionaires make a sound investment

The days when pop musicians blew their vast fortunes on sex and drugs and rock'n'roll appear to have been left behind.

These days, the multimillion-pound record contracts lavished on the latest luxuries are increasingly being invested in art, modern and classical.

And this new-found financial prudence is proving to be an increasingly important support for galleries and auction houses as their traditional corporate and City patrons find art a luxury too far. So much so that the pivotal industry periodical The Art Newspaper recently devoted a chunk of one edition to an article toasting the new force in the salerooms.

The grandees of the charts include Elton John, whose tastes have moved from Art Nouveau to Magritte, Picasso, Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon. Bryan Ferry, a former art student, is now one of Britain's biggest collectors, with a penchant for Victorian portraits – last year he sold an oil painting by the 19th-century Scottish artist Edward Arthur Walton for £120,000. David Bowie's favourites range from Rubens and Tintoretto to the Surrealists.

But many of the bigger buyers in the London art market have made their fortunes far more recently. Jarvis Cocker, who studied film at St Martin's College of Art, has built up an extensive collection of modern art, and is a particular fan of the film editor-turned-artist Gary Hume. He also owns works by Michael Paramore, the Sheffield-born artist, whom he has known since Pulp was formed in the same city.

Even stars not immediately associated with fine artistic discrimination, such as Geri Halliwell, Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue and the Gallagher brothers, are becoming known in the art galleries and auction houses of London. Halliwell has been seen browsing through contemporary prints in Hoxton art fairs and Williams is said to have bought several Andy Warhols.

Kylie Minogue's tastes tend more towards modern contemporary art, such as Noble and Webster, who two years ago exhibited a mound of rubbish at the Royal Academy, while the Gallaghershave bought silkscreen prints from the Pop artist Peter Blake.

The new money has come as a welcome lifeline for a market that can ill-afford to be snobbish when traditional sources of money are drying up.

Suzi Allen, of the art curating service Artwise, has contrasted how the TI engineering group sold off its art collection for a fraction of what it was worth – causing "a huge amount of damage" because many of the works were by young artists – with the beneficial effect of pop money.

Established rock stars and younger figures with hugely successful albums behind them are keeping the galleries and new talent going, she said.

"One of the reasons the pop stars get involved is that they want to enhance their reputation, because art makes them look serious.

"It is good for the art world and good for the pop stars because people view them in a superficial way. They may start out because they have the fame and the wonderful house, but they end up getting genuinely interested and delving quite deeply within themselves to see what kind of art they like."

According to Fernando Mignoni, head of modern painting at Christie's, Madonna, Bowie, Sir Elton, Cocker, Brian Eno and Ferry have formed a group whose purchasing power is supporting Britain's young artists. "It's not surprising. These musicians have a special and, in a certain way, visionary sensibility that leads them to identify with modern and contemporary art."

His colleague Anthony McNerney, a Christie's post-war and contemporary art specialist, says Madonna is now taken extremely seriously as a patron of art. She has 300 works to her name and is buying works by modern artists including Damien Hirst, using her personal curator Darlene Lutz. "Madonna has become a serious patron of the arts, not just because she presented the Turner prize but because she collects hugely," he said.

Mr McNerney sees a generational divide in the tastes of pop's elite. The pop stars of the 1990s tend to concentrate on contemporary art whereas the likes of Ferry, Bowie and Sir Elton go further back, beyond the 1850s, collecting Victorian landscapes and the works by the Pre-Raphaelites.

"The older generation go further back to the 19th century and late 18th century; they have a broader depth to their collecting tastes. The younger ones tend to be restricted to post-war contemporary art," he said.

There is more to the new arrivals in the art world than a simple desire to invest their spare fortune in art to add more depth to an image built through throwaway pop songs. He believes they have a clear idea of what type of art they are interested in. "Most of them are based on a theme that they like, whether it is landscapes, women artists or religion; basically what you would expect from a serious collector," said Mr McNerney.

"There seems to be a pattern of collecting that is based on historical art knowledge, rather than being on a whim."

The pattern is a development of a link between pop and art that has existed since the Beatles first took the stage at the Cavern club, as was pointed out by Sir Peter Blake, the artist who designed the Sgt Pepper Beatles' album cover.

He said: "Pop stars have collected as far back as Tommy Steele, who has several Pre-Raphaelites and works by Lowry. From the earliest days every band had somebody who went to art school; in the Beatles it was John, in The Who it was Pete. A lot of pop stars have had art training and it is natural for them to start collecting once they make some money as well as creating art themselves and working with artists."

The difference now is their importance to the whole business. Sales at auction houses were sluggish for much of last year. At one Sotheby's auction, 25 per cent of pictures went unsold. At a Christie's event, 31 per cent failed to find a buyer.

But not everyone in the business is as benevolent about pop stars turning to patrons, and some are deeply sceptical about attempts to use art to enhance reputations.

Stuart Shave, director of the Modern Art gallery in Shoreditch, said: "Most pop stars don't really know anything about art and they tend to go for sparkly decorative kind of things. Elton John and Madonna have serious art collections but most of them are weekend buyers. They often have quite conservative tastes and might want something they have read about in a fashion magazine."