Christie’s Sales Skyrocketing as Collectors Invest in Priceless Art

Despite stock market drop, Cy Twombly, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol works attract massive bids.

May 18, 2017 12:09 pm

Despite a rocky day for the stock market yesterday, it didn’t keep high-end art collectors and dealers from showering Christie’s auction house in green.

Per Christie’s official post-auction release, at yesterday evening’s postwar and contemporary art sale, the hammer fell for 68 of the 71 lots offered, with a total haul of $448 million.

Per the Wall Street Journal, that handily surpassed the total pre-auction estimate of $343 million.

(Courtesy of Christie’s)

The big winners at the auction? According to the Journal, that would be New York dealer Larry Gagosian, who snapped up the highest-end piece of the night, Cy Twombly’s “Leda and the Swan,” for $52.9 million. Other highlights included a 1963 Francis Bacon piece, “Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer,” which sold to a London dealer for $51.8 million; Roy Lichtenstein’s “Red and White Brushstrokes,” which $28.2 million; and a Jean-Michel Basquiat, “La Hara,” which went for $35 million.

Christie's See Giant Gains, Thanks to Cy Twombly
(Courtesy of Christie’s)

Even famed pop artist Andy Warhol made an appearance, as his “Big Campbell’s Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable)” sold for a respectable $27.5 million and “Last Supper,” $18.7 million.

 

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