A work by the late British painter Francis
Bacon set a new world record for the most expensive painting ever auctioned off
after being sold for almost £90million.
His iconic 1969 triptych “Three Studies of
Lucian Freud” led to a frenzy of telephone bids after the piece went on sale at
Christie’s in New York.
The auction house have refused to confirm who
bought the painting after their bid $142 million - was successful.
It took seven superrich bidders to propel a 1969 Francis Bacon
triptych to $142.4 million at Christie’s on Tuesday night, making it the most
expensive work of art ever sold at auction. William Acquavella, the New York
dealer, is thought to have bought the painting on behalf of an unidentified
client, from one of Christie’s skyboxes overlooking the auction.
The price for the painting, which depicts
Lucian Freud, Bacon’s friend and rival, perched on a wooden chair, was more
than the $85 million Christie’s had estimated. It also toppled the previous
record set in May 2012 when Edvard Munch’s fabled pastel of “The Scream” sold
at Sotheby’s for $119.9 million and broke the previous record for the artist at
auction set at the peak of the market in May 2008, when Sotheby’s sold a
triptych from 1976 to the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich for $86.2 million.
When the bidding for “Three Studies of Lucian
Freud” finally stopped, after more than 10 fraught minutes, the overflowing
crowd in the salesroom burst into applause. Two disappointed bidders could be
seen leaving the room. “I went to $101 million but it hardly mattered,” said
Larry Gagosian, the super-dealer who was trying to buy the painting on behalf
of a client. Another contender was Hong Gyu Shin, the director of the Shin
Gallery on Grand Street in Manhattan, who said he was bidding for himself.
“I was expecting it to go for around $87
million,” Mr. Shin said. Although he explained that he collects mostly Japanese
woodblock prints and old master paintings, he found the triptych by the
Irish-born painter, who died in 1992, irresistible. “I loved that painting and
I couldn’t control myself,” he said. “Maybe someday I’ll have another chance.”
For more than a month now, Christie’s has
been billing the sale as a landmark event with a greater number of paintings
and sculptures estimated to sell for over $20 million than it has ever had
before. The hard sell apparently worked. Nearly 10,000 visitors flocked to its
galleries to preview the auction. The sale totaled $691.5 million, far above
Christie’s $670.4 million high estimate, becoming the most expensive auction
ever. It outstripped the $495 million total set at Christie’s in May.
Of the 69 works on offer, only six failed to
sell. All told, 10 world record prices were achieved for artists who, besides
Bacon, included Christopher Wool, Ad Reinhardt, Donald Judd and Willem de
Kooning.
The sale was also a place to see and be seen.
Christie’s Rockefeller Center salesroom was standing room only, with collectors
including Michael Ovitz, the Los Angeles talent agent; Aby Rosen, the New York
real estate developer; Martin Margulies, from Miami; Donald B. Marron, the New
York financier; and Daniel S. Loeb, the activist investor and hedge fund
manager.
The Bacon triptych was not the only
highflier. A 10-foot-tall mirror-polished stainless steel sculpture that
resembled a child’s party favor, Jeff Koons’s “Balloon Dog (Orange)” sold to
another telephone bidder for $58.4 million, above its high $55 million
estimate, becoming the most expensive work by a living artist sold at auction.
The pooch was being sold by Peter M. Brant, the newsprint magnate who auctioned
the canine to raise money to endow his Greenwich, Conn., foundation. In the
1990s, Mr. Koons had created the sculpture in an edition of five, each in a
different color. Four celebrated collectors own the others: Steven A. Cohen,
the hedge-fund billionaire, has a yellow one; Eli Broad, the Los Angeles
financier, owns a blue one; François Pinault, the French luxury goods magnate
and owner of Christie’s, has the magenta version; and Dakis Joannou, the Greek
industrialist, has his in red. Christie’s had estimated Mr. Brant’s sculpture
would fetch $35 million to $55 million.
(Final prices include the buyer’s premium: 25
percent of the first $100,000; 20 percent of the next $100,000 to $2 million;
and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect commissions.)
Another strong price was set for a classic
image in contemporary art history — Andy Warhol’s “Coca Cola [3],” one of only
four paintings of a single Coca-Cola bottle that the artist made in 1961 and
1962. Jose Mugrabi, the New York dealer, bought the painting from S. I.
Newhouse Jr. in 1986 and he was said to be selling it on Tuesday night. That
painting made $57.2 million. It had been estimated to sell for $40 million to
$60 million.
Three bidders went for Rothko’s “No. 11
(Untitled),” one of the artist’s abstract canvases, this one in an orange
palette and created in 1957. It was being sold by the estate of Bruce J.
Wasserstein, the financier who died in 2009. Christophe van de Weghe, a
Manhattan dealer, bought the painting for $46 million, above its high $35
million estimate. Mr. van de Weghe also bought “Apocalypse Now,” a seminal
painting by Mr. Wool, whose work is currently the subject of a major
retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. Bidding on behalf of a client, he paid
$26.4 million for the painting. Created in 1988, the white canvas is filled
with the words “Sell the House Sell the Car Sell the Kids,” a line from the
Francis Ford Coppola movie of the same title. The painting belonged to David
Ganek, the former New York hedge fund manager and Guggenheim board member. Mr.
Ganek has since resigned from the board.
After the sale, Jussi Pylkkänen, chairman of
Christie’s Europe and the evening’s auctioneer, noted how international the
bidding was. Besides a healthy showing of American bidders, there were also a
lot of potential buyers from Asia and Europe trying to get into the action.
“There were more players from the New World than ever before,” he said, “and
more people spending over $20 million.
“But,” he warned, in order to have such a successful
sale, “you have to have the material
Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once
described Francis Bacon as “that man who paints those dreadful pictures”.
However, despite being reviled by many his
work was equally acclaimed for his bold, graphic and emotional paintings.
Bacon was born in Dublin in 1909 to parents
of English heritage.
Despite his family’s wealth, throughout his
teenage years he drifted through life often turning to petty crime to make ends
meet.
He began painting in his early 20s although
his success was not immediate as he struggled to find a style that suited him.
However, in 1944, after being declared unfit
for military service, he gained a reputation for being an observer of the
darker aspects of humanity with his seminal piece Three Studies for Figures at
the Base of a Crucifixion.
A year later he met Lucian Freud who, despite
being 13 years younger, formed a friendship with Bacon.
Despite their closeness the pair were also
bitter rivals famed for their post-war paintings.
On April 18, 1992, Bacon, who was openly gay,
died of cardiac arrest that was a complication of his asthma.
His entire estate worth 22 million was left
to his close friend John Edwards, an illiterate former barman from the East End
of London.
