Barnett Newman’s Onement VI sold for $43,845,000. (Click on image to enlarge).
Records were set for Barnett Newman, Gerhard Richter, Nate Lowman, Dan Colen and a sculpture by Yves Klein at Sotheby’s $294 million contemporary evening art sale in New York last night. The sale was led by Barnett Newman’s Onement VI which sold for $43,845,000 after competition from five bidders. This doubled a world record price set last May at Christie’s.
Richter’s Domplatz Mailand (Cathedral Square, Milan) sold for $37,125,000 – a record for Richter and for any living artist at auction. The global nature of the art market was underlined in a sale with collectors from 35 countries registered to bid, 20% of them new to either Sotheby’s or the category. Works by Francis Bacon and Jeff Koons were among 11 of the 64 works on offer which failed to sell.
The auction featured eight works donated by artists and foundations to raise money for the Whitney Museum’s new building at the High Line. They made $11,806,000, nearly double the high estimate of $6.6 million.
A sculpture by Yves Klein made with sea sponges drenched in his trademark blue pigment sold for $22 million. Nate Lowman’s “Black Escalade” made $665,000 over a high estimate of $450,000. The artist was born in 1979, as was Dan Colen, whose 53rd and 3rd sold for $1,085,000.
(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for April 2 and April 20, 2013).