Christie’s sales of post-war art show no sign of boom diminishing
Interest in post-war works continues to boom as Christie's offerings by Warhol, Newman and Bacon are snapped up by big-spending buyers
Two works from Andy Warhol's Death and Disaster series sold for a combined US$100 million and a Barnett Newman painting went for an artist record of US$84.2 million in fierce New York auction bidding.
Works by Mark Rothko and Francis Bacon also fetched more than US$50 million apiece, in Tuesday's bumper Christie's sale.
"These are incredible statistics," Brett Gorvy, chairman and head of post-war and contemporary art at Christie's, said after the sale. "We saw phenomenal success and phenomenal results."
Warhol's Race Riot, 1964, a provocative four-panel painting of unrest in Birmingham, Alabama, went for US$62.9 million, way above the estimate of US$45 million.
The work was a direct response to an article Warhol saw in Life magazine that ran with an image by Associated Press photographer Charles Moore.
Warhol's 1962 painting White Marilyn, completed shortly after Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe took her life, sold for US$41 million, well above its estimate of up to US$18 million.
Newman's Black Fire I, a 1961 canvas showing a thick column of black alongside smaller ribbons of white and black, surpassed his auction record set last year when Onement VI went for US$43.8 million. When the hammer fell on Black Fire I at US$84.2 million, the room gave a standing ovation.