New records at Christie’s postwar art sale
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Roy Lichtenstein. In the Car. 1963. Sold for $16.2 million
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A Christie’s auction of postwar art (New York, Tuesday, November 8) took $157.4 million (GBP90.4 million) in one day, the highest ever for a contemporary art auction. The top seller was a Rothko oil painting, «Homage to Matisse», which went to an anonymous telephone bidder for $22.4 million. The red, orange and blue canvas was one of the artist's favorites, and he stood in front of it at his wedding. The painting set a record not only for the artist but for any work of postwar art sold at auction.
The auction on Tuesday evening hit auction highs for eighteen artists. A painting by Roy Lichtenstein «In the Car» (1963) fetched impressive $16.2 million. The Pop image, which features a man and woman behind a car window, was sold to a Manhattan dealer, who was bidding for a client. The sale also marked a milestone for photography. Richard Prince's 1989 «Untitled (Cowboy)» became the first photograph ever to sell for more than $1 million with a $1.2 million bid.
The total take for the evening beat the auction house's own top estimates and was the highest ever for a contemporary art auction, Christie's said. The previous record was set by the gallery's own sale in May.
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