Christie's New York City Art Auction Makes Over $150M Off Two Pieces of Art by Andy Warhol: Total Sales Reach Over $850M
A New York auction house made over $850 million dollars Wednesday, its highest total ever, with pieces from famous 20th century artists.
Christie's contemporary art sale was led by the biggest single-item sale for almost $82 million of Andy Warhol's "Triple Elvis," Fortune reports.
The total for the Wednesday night event was $852.9 million, surpassing pre-sale estimates of $836 million for the works up for grabs. Eighty pieces of art were included in the sale, 22 of which were expected to sell for $10 million each and nine more were evaluated to sell for over $20 million each.
"Tonight's result is a testimony to the depth of interest in art across the globe, and to the talent of the Christie's team," Christie's CEO Steven Murphy said.
The top sales were for Andy Warhol's "Triple Elvis (Ferus Type)" and "Four Marlons," which sold for more than what experts evaluated the value at $82 million and $69.6 million respectively.
Despite the large sums collected from these two artworks, they still don't top Warhol's all-time high sale of $104.5 million, which was paid for "Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)" at Sotheby's last year.
Beyond Warhol, Cy Twombly's untitled blackboard painting also began a high number of bidders, eventually settling for much more than the expected price of $55 million, at $69.9 million.
Christie's had promoted the auction as an opportunity to purchase once-in-a-lifetime pieces by big-name contemporary artists. Bidders from around the world came to New York for the sale, according to The New York Times, including top U.S. collectors like former Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz, vice chairman of Blackstone Group J. Tomilson Hill and New York businessman Andrew Saul.
Christie's sale easily outmatched Sotheby's Tuesday auction that brought in $343.6 million. The Sotheby's listed items were much lower in valuation than Christie's lineup, but the 78-piece collection fell well below its own pre-sale estimate of $418.6 million.
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