The sagging market for contemporary art burst back into life when a painting by Andy Warhol sold for $43.8m at Sotheby’s New York, far above its pre-sale estimate of $8m-$12m.
Collectors bought more than $134m (€90m, £81m) of art at Wednesday night’s auction, clearing the sale’s high estimate of $97.7m, and making their presence felt in a market that has suffered during the past 12 months of financial turmoil.
The value of contemporary art rose spectacularly before the calamities of last autumn, since when it has fallen sharply.
However, Oliver Barker, senior international specialist in contemporary art at Sotheby’s, said the sale was “irrefutable proof that there is plenty of life left in this market”.
“Over the last year there has been a great deal of caution based on the fallout from the financial situation. But this shows that the collecting impulse has not gone away. It is almost as if people in the room had some kind of itch and wanted to scratch it,” he said.
Nowhere was the buyers’ pent-up demand more conspicuous than in the battle for the 1962 Warhol painting “200 One Dollar Bills”.
The bidding was opened by Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s auctioneer, at $6m, but it was doubled by the first bid from the floor – an unusually aggressive move.
Five more collectors joined in the bidding war, which went up swiftly in $1m increments, before an anonymous buyer clinched the painting on a telephone bid.
“There were gasps in the room,” said Mr Barker of the audacious doubling of the opening bid. “It was as if someone just wanted to come in and land a sucker blow.”
Alex Rotter, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art in New York, described the painting as a “hugely important work for American art history”, which was one of the starting points of Pop Art.
The painting’s anonymous seller bought it in 1986 for $385,000.
Other highlights from the evening included the sale of Jasper Johns’ “Gray Numbers” for $8.7m, an untitled Willem de Kooning painting for $6.1m, and a sculpture by the same artist, “Large Torso”, for $5.7m.
Another Warhol painting to surpass expectations was a self-portrait from 1965, which had been gifted to Cathy Naso, a young receptionist at The Factory, the artist’s New York headquarters.
It sold for $6.1m, more than three times its pre-sale estimate.
“I think I’m dreaming,” said Ms Naso. “Andy has made me famous for 15 minutes and I’ve come to realise that 15 minutes of fame is more than enough.”
Records were also set for Alice Neel, Juan Muñoz and Germaine Richier, as well as for a Jackson Pollock work on paper and a Willem de Kooning sculpture.
