Christie's Hits Jackpot With Contemporary Art Sale

Warhol, Basquiat and Koons help Christie's New York break its auction house record at the autumn contemporary art sale.

Published

7 months ago

Categories

Finance

Topics

United States

People

Andy Warhol

Places

United States of America, New York City, New York

Companies

Christies International Plc

Transcript

As the bids climbed steadily, Christie's New York was on its way to another record-breaking Contemporary Art sale. Thanks to the popularity of artists like Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, the auction house beat its May record, posting sales totaling $412 million U.S. dollars. Confirming the market's confidence in contemporary art says Christie's specialist, Koji Inoue. SOUNDBITE: Koji Inoue, Specialist, Post-War and Contemporary Art Department, Christie's, saying (English): "The market is robust, healthy, objects of great provenance, freshness of the market and coming with very attractive prices, proven to do very, very well. It's amazing that contemporary art has become a blue chip, sort of, value." It was a night for distinctions. Franz Kline's auction record was shattered by more than 30 million dollars. And an untitled work by former street artist Basquiat beat the painter's previous top sale price. A sign, according to Christie's, that this is the beginning of even greater things for the 80's art generation.