New York: The spring auctions went out with a bang on Wednesday as Sotheby's sold more than $128 million worth of contemporary and post-war art, the highest total in its history.
Led by a pair of paintings by Willem de Kooning and Roy Lichtenstein, each of which sold for $15,696,000 including commission, the sale exceeded Sotheby's most optimistic expectations.
Sixteen of the 46 artists whose works were on offer set new records, including Robert Ryman's untitled work from 1962 which soared to $9,648,000, or more than half-again its high estimate and four times the old mark.
Virtually everything sold, with only three lots of the 66 on the block failing to find buyers.
"This was the most fabulous evening," said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's head of post-war and contemporary art and the evening's auctioneer, after the sale.
"It was the most extraordinary sale we have ever had." Bidders at every level exhibited "a determination we have not seen before," Meyer said, adding that "the contemporary market is so deep, so passionate and so strong it exceeded all of our expectations for the evening."
Officials at both Sotheby's and archrival Christie's commented this week that the red-hot contemporary market is being driven by an influx of new, determined collectors bent on owning pieces that speak to their own time.
The work by abstract expressionist de Kooning, untitled but designated XVI, nearly doubled its estimate and stole much of the thunder from Lichtenstein's Sinking Sun, which carried a $20 million estimate but fetched the same price.
Other top lots included Alexander Calder's monumental outdoor sculpture Flying Dragon, which was being sold by ExxonMobil Foundation and went for $5.6 million, shy of its low estimate.
Jeff Koons' New Hoover Convertibles, the provocative artist's sculpture featuring a trio of Hoover upright vacuum cleaners which graced the catalogue's cover, soared to $5,280,000, while Jean Dubuffet's Trinite-Champs-Elysees fetched $5,158,000, just shy of the artist's record price.
Two of the three unsold paintings, interestingly, were Warhols, which have been achieving especially strong prices in recent seasons.
Sotheby's said it was pleased with the price of the Lichtenstein, which was once owned by actor Dennis Hopper, saying they expected it to be in the realm of the $14 million hammer price, despite estimating it before the sale at around $20 million.
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