Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (809-4) being sold for a record £21,321,250 at Sotheby’s in London last night.
THERE was a new record for a living artist when Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (809-4) made £21,321,250 at Sotheby’s in London. It was from the collection of Eric Clapton.
Alex Branczik of Sotheby’s said: The combination of outstanding provenance and gold-standard quality in this sublime work by this blue-chip artist made for an historic auction moment. Gerhard Richter’s international appeal as one of the hottest Contemporary artists was once again confirmed this evening. The price of $34.1 million smashed the previous record for Richter by nearly $13 million and brings the highest-ever auction price for a work by a living artist.”
Eric Clapton bought the painting for $3.4 million at Sotheby’s in New York in 2001.
Sotheby’s evening auction of Contemporary Art and 20th Century Italian Art on October 12 made a combined total of £60 million sterling and set a new record for an October series of evening sales during Frieze Week. The Contemporary Art day sale today brought a total of £10,175,075 with sell-through rates of 68.4% by lot and 70.5% by value.
Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby’s Chairman of Contemporary Art Europe, said: “This October we witnessed auction history being made at Sotheby’s with the new benchmarks we achieved. The depth of participation during this landmark series was truly international – across our evening sales alone, bidding came from 27 countries spanning South America, North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. These results – established during this extremely important week on the international arts calendar – reconfirm London’s position as a major centre for the contemporary art market on the global stage.”
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for September 13, 2012).