US: Record prices for works by Willem de Kooning and Andy Warhol were broken at Christie's in New York on Wednesday evening with a $240 million (€188 million) auction that exceeded even the highest expectations.
It was the culmination of two weeks of sales at Christie's and rival Sotheby's that took in well over $1 billion, reflecting a seemingly insatiable market.
Christie's sold $239,704,000 worth of art, including commission, well in excess of the high pre-sale estimate and some $45 million more than any auction of post-war art. Records were set for 19 artists. Last week's record-shattering sale of Impressionist and modern art totalled nearly $500 million.
De Kooning's abstract Untitled XXV soared to $27,120,000 and broke the record for any post-war work of art at auction. The work had been expected to sell for about $15 million.
A group of much sought-after Warhols more than delivered, as the pop artist's iconic images of Mao Zedong, Marilyn Monroe and Jacqueline Kennedy slugged it out, with the Chinese leader winning.
The three Warhols together took in some $50 million. Orange Marilyn from 1962 and Sixteen Jackies, a series of the former first lady on the day of Kennedy's assassination, rendered in black and blue, each fetched more than $15 million.
Lesser-known artists whose works rarely come to auction commanded similarly high prices, most notably Clyfford Still, whose 1947-R-No. 1 fetched $21,296,000, more than three times the high pre-sale estimate, obliterating the artist's old mark of $3.1 million.
Records were also broken for artists including Richard Diebenkorn, Gerhard Richter, sculptress Louise Bourgeois and Arshile Gorky. De Kooning's Woman (Seated Woman I) sold for $9,648,000, more than twice the estimate, exceeding the artist's record of $3.75 million for a work on paper. - (Reuters)