A painting by abstract artist Mark Rothko has fetched
$75.1 million (£47.2m) at an auction in New York.
Rothko's No 1
(Royal Red and Blue), described by Sotheby's as "a seminal, large-scale
masterpiece", was the subject of a heated bidding war.
The price far
exceeded the pre-sale estimate of $35m-$50m (£22m-£31.4m) but fell short of the
record $86.9m (£54.6m) a Rothko fetched in May.
The sale also
saw a 1951 Jackson Pollock work sell for $40.4m (£25.4m).
Pollock's
Number 4, a characteristic drip painting, easily outstripped the previous
highest price - $23m (£14.4m) - fetched at auction by a work by the abstract
expressionist.
The Rothko
painting was one of eight works hand-selected by the Russian-American artist
for his landmark solo show in 1954 at the Art Institute of Chicago.
It had been in
the same collection for 30 years before coming to auction.
Tuesday's sale
of post-war and contemporary art at Sotheby's saw plenty of interest from
investors, raising a total of $375m (£236m) - the best auction result in the
auction house's history.
Andy Warhol had
a strong showing, with Green Disaster (Green Disaster Twice) selling for $15.2m
(£9.5m) and The Kiss (Bela Lugosi) fetching $9.3m (£5.8m).
Another Warhol
work, Suicide, that had been estimated to sell for between $6m (£3.7m) and $8m
(£5m) ended up going for $16.3m (£10.2m).
A
"screaming pope" by British artist Francis Bacon sold for nearly $30m
(£18.9m), a Willem de Kooning piece fetched just under $20m (£12.5m) while a
work by Gerhard Richter went for $17.4m (£10.9m).
Franz Kline's
Shenandoah fetched $9.3m (£5.8m), setting another artist's record.
"If you
want to talk about the market being happy, healthy and well, here it is,"
said Sotheby's auctioneer Tobias Meyer, worldwide head of contemporary art.
"That's
probably about as good as it gets."
Further high
prices are expected at a second Sotheby's contemporary and post-war art sale on
Wednesday, with two Christie's sales focusing on the same period also taking
place in New York this week.
Source: BBC
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