AFP, NEW YORK
A Jackson Pollock painting on Monday sold for a record US$181.2 million at Christie’s in New York, leading a blockbuster day at the auction house. With its black drips of paint accented by touches of red on a huge canvas spanning more than 3m, Pollock’s Number 7A, 1948 sold for US$181.2 million, including fees. The sale makes it the fourth-most expensive work ever sold at auction, ARTnews said.
A person looks at Jackson Pollock’s Number 7A, 1948 during the Christie’s preview for the 20/21 Spring Marquee Week in New York City on May 8.
The previous auction record for the abstract expressionist painter was US$61.2 million, set in 2021. Other Pollock works have been sold privately for up to US$200 million.
“It is with this work that Pollock finally frees himself from the shackles of conventional easel painting and produces one of the first truly abstract paintings in the history of art,” Christie’s said in a statement. Danaide, a bronze head sculpted around 1913 by Romanian-born artist Constantin Brancusi, sold for US$107.6 million, topping its previous record of US$71.2 million set in 2018. No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe) by US painter Mark Rothko sold for US$98.4 million, while Catalan artist Joan Miro’s Portrait of Madame K. was bought for US$53.5 million. The sales smashed previous records for Rothko (US$86.9 million) and Miro (US$37 million) set in 2012. Monday’s eye-watering auction follows a string of records set at Sotheby’s in November last year. Austrian master Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, which he painted between 1914 and 1916, sold for US$236.4 million, becoming the second-most expensive work ever sold at auction. The most expensive painting ever sold at auction remains the Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World), a Renaissance work attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which was bought for US$450 million in 2017.
