$23.8 million beaks record for postwar art

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A red-hot contemporary-art market notched another new price record Wednesday, when a sculpture by David Smith sold at auction for $23.8 million and broke a mark for postwar art set just 24 hours earlier.

 

The American artist's large stainless-steel sculpture "Cubi XXVIII" was billed as the highlight of Sotheby's post-war and contemporary-art auction, but it surpassed expectations when bidders drove the price to $23.8 million, including commission.

 

That was nearly twice the high-end estimate. The sale broke the record for a single piece of post-World War Two or contemporary art, set Tuesday when Mark Rothko's painting "Homage to Matisse" sold at Christie's for $22.4 million.

 

The previous record had held firm since 1989.

 

The price for the Smith sculpture contributed to the sale's total take of $114.5 million, which exceeded the high estimate of $108 million.

 

"It was the best contemporary-art sale we've ever had," said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's head of contemporary-art and the evening's auctioneer. He cited the "depth of bidding" and "global buying" as factors contributing to the strong prices.

 

The price for the Smith sculpture was nearly five times the artist's previous record, also set just a day earlier. Smith died in 1965 shortly after he completed the work, which evokes a gate or an arch.

 

The auction capped two weeks of successful sales at Sotheby's and rival Christie's, which dominate the top echelons of the auction world. Most of the auctions surpassed their high-end pre-sale estimates, something that has not occurred in recent memory.

 

Works by other artists, including Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly also sold well, with the record for Twombly broken twice, first by the painting "Untitled (Rome)" which sold for $7.97 million, then by "Untitled (New York City)" which fetched $8.7 million, far above the old mark of $5.6 million.

 

Warhol's "Jackie Frieze," a series of 13 silkscreens of presidential widow Jacqueline Kennedy in mourning, rendered in white or varying shades of blue, sold for $9.2 million. Another iconic image, 1964's "Flowers," sold for $6.7 million, beating the high estimate.

 

Other artists whose work broke records included Hiroshi Sugimoto, Francis Alys, Vija Celmins and Louise Bourgeois, whose "Spider" sculpture sold for just over $3 million, doubling her record.

 

Damien Hirst also set a record for a painting, while Warhol's mark for sculpture was broken as well.

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Rothko painting breaks record

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Christie's sale of post-war and contemporary art met its advance billing as the biggest auction of its kind Tuesday, with a Mark Rothko oil painting setting a new world record of $22.4 million for any post-war work at auction.

 

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New marks were also set for artists Roy Lichtenstein, Francis Bacon and several others, as the auction house achieved the highest total for the increasingly lucrative post-war and contemporary market, selling $157.4 million. That exceeded the presale high-end estimate of $145 million.

 

Christie's honorary chairman Christopher Burge, who served as the evening's auctioneer, said the bidding at all price levels was "incredibly buoyant."

 

"We had a record number of records," Burge said.

 

The sale included 18 new records among the 40 artists included in the sale. Rothko sets records for both his painting and a work on paper.

 

Only four of the 70 lots on offer failed to sell.

 

Christie's had said before the auction that it anticipated a high total sale because an unusual amount of high-quality art had come onto the market, and said afterward the strong prices reflected a "very broad and deep market."

 

The sale's star was Rothko's 1954 oil-on-canvas "Homage to Matisse." It was the only abstract-expressionist piece by the artist, who died in 1970, to carry a title.

 

The large-scale work consisted of contrasting monolithic blocks in red, yellow and blue. Its sale price of $22.4 million included the auction house's commission, beating its high estimate of $20 million.

 

It also eclipsed the old mark for a Rothko by more than $5 million, as well as that of any post-war work by nearly $2 million.

 

Lichtenstein's "In the Car," sold for $16.2 million, beating the high estimate of $15 million and the old record for a Lichtenstein of $7.16 million, set in 2002. The painting was offered by the late pop artist's son, Mitchell.

 

The third-highest priced item was a Willem de Kooning untitled work from 1977, which fell well short of the artist's record of $20.7 million and sold for $10.66 million, far above the high estimate of $6 million.

 

Bacon's "Study for a Pope I" saw yet another artist's mark fall, fetching $10.1 million.

 

More records fell when works by David Smith, Elizabeth Peyton, Hans Hofmann, Robert Indiana, Richard Prince, Gilbert & George, Christopher Wool, Robert Smithson, Walter de Maria, Alice Neel, Bill Viola and Kiki Smith hit the block. New marks were also set for works on paper by Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha and Rothko.

 

The semi-annual sales, which have been enjoying especially strong results, wrap up Wednesday with Sotheby's auction of contemporary and post-war art.

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All the major news outklets are picking it up.

 

They always do.