After four days of consecutive auctions, the Contemporary evening auction tipped Sotheby’s weeklong series over one billion US dollars. The $210.5 million Contemporary evening auction in New York last night was powered by towering figures of contemporary art, with Francis Bacon’s triumphant finale to his Pope paintings realising $46.3 million. Also leading the sale were: Cy Twombly’s Untitled ($38 million), Andy Warhol’s Elvis ($21.6 million), Ed Ruscha’s Cold Beer Beautiful Girls ($18.8 million) and Georg Baselitz’s Women of Dresden – Visit from Prague ($11.2 million, a new artist record). The evening’s final lot, Sean Scully’s Song ($2 million), earned the artist a new auction record.
The Now evening auction realised $72.9 million. Work by women artists achieved $28 million (nearly double the $10.3–14.4 million estimate) and work by artists of colour realised $35.1 million (above the $15.9–22.9 estimate) or nearly half of the auction’s total sale value. In one energetic hour, nine out of 23 lots set records: Adrian Ghenie’s Degenerate Art ($9.3 million), Matthew Wong’s The Night Watcher ($5.9 million), Avery Singer’s Happening ($5.3 million), Christina Quarles’s Night Fell Upon Us Up On Us ($4.5 million), Jennifer Packer’s Fire Next Time ($2.3 million), Simone Leigh’s Birmingham ($2.2 million), Anna Weyant’s Falling Woman ($1.6 million), Lucy Ball’s Special Guest ($907K, in her auction debut), and Virgil Abhloh’s Unique” Efforescence” Desk ($151K for a dedicated work of art).