Recently a Christieundefineds art sale became the highest auction in history. The sale included works by Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat, among others and in total generated $495 million. The sale established 16 new world auction records, with nine works selling for more than $10m (£6.6m) and 23 for more than $5m (£3.2m). Christieundefineds said the record breaking sales reflected undefineda new era in the art marketundefined.
The top lot of Wednesdayundefineds sale was Pollockundefineds drip painting Number 19, 1948, which fetched $58.4m (£38.3m) - nearly twice its pre-sale estimate.
Lichtensteinundefineds Woman with Flowered Hat sold for $56.1 million, while another Basquiat work, Dustheads (top of article), went for $48.8 million.
All three works set the highest prices ever fetched for the artists at auction. Christieundefineds described the $495,021,500 total - which included commissions - as undefinedstaggeringundefined. Only four of the 70 lots on offer went unsold.
In addition, a 1968 oil painting by Gerhard Richter has set a new record for the highest auction price achieved by a living artist. Richterundefineds photo-painting Domplatz, Mailand (Cathedral Square, Milan) sold for $37.1 million (£24.4 million). Sothebyundefineds described Domplatz, Mailand, which depicts a cityscape painted in a style that suggests a blurred photograph, as a undefinedmasterpiece of 20th Century artundefined and the undefinedepitomeundefined of the artistundefineds 1960s photo-painting canon. Don Bryant, founder of Napa Valleyundefineds Bryant Family Vineyard and the paintingundefineds new owner, said the work undefinedjust knocks me overundefined.
