Sotheby’s Contemporary Sale Smashes Records

Courtesy Sotheby's

Francis Bacon’s “Triptych, 1976" (unpublished estimate in the $70 million range) sold for $86,281,000, a record for the artist and the most expensive work of contemporary art ever sold at auction.

Photo by David Gursky

The view from the floor at last night's record setting auction.

Andy Warhol Mark Rothko Dan Flavin Tom Wesselmann Francis Bacon Yves Klein Takashi Murakami Jeff Koons

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This was another eye-popping jewel from the Lauffs, who, though listed among the world’s greatest art connoisseurs, simply gave Paul Wembers, a brilliant museum curator from Krefeld, Germany, carte blanche to assemble a cutting-edge postwar art collection.

All in all, 22 lots from the Lauffs collection made more than $96 million total, sailing past pre-sale expectations of $47.1–65.2 million. The entire collection came with an undisclosed financial guarantee from Sotheby’s, and the house surely made a bundle on the upside in return for their gamble. Several more works from the collection are scheduled to hit the block at Sotheby's later this year.

Bacon and the Last Supper
A billboard-scaled, 35-foot-long Andy Warhol canvas, Detail of the Last Supper (Christ 112 times) (1986) in yellow acrylic on black silkscreen (est. $10–15 million), found a new home, selling to uber Warhol trader Jose Mugrabi for a relatively modest $9,561,000.

But even 112 Christs were just a mild distraction to the epic telephone duel over the evening’s cover lot, Francis Bacon’s gold-and-glass-framed Triptych, 1976 (unpublished estimate in the $70 million range), which went to an anonymous European telephone bidder for a record $86,281,000.

The mythology-infused and intellectually complex composition, which replays some of Bacon’s favorite angst-ridden themes and crackles with his bravura painting technique, crushed his previous record, set at Sotheby’s last May when Qatar’s Al-Thani ruling family paid $52,680,000 for the artist’s Study from Innocent X.

The triptych now ranks as the fourth most expensive artwork ever to sell at auction and the most expensive in the contemporary category.

“Every single dollar is deserved,” said auctioneer and contemporary art head Tobias Meyer about the Bacon in a post-sale remark. “It’s one of the greatest paintings of the 20th century.”

Judd Tully is Editor at Large for Art+Auction magazine. For more on the May sales, read his A+A Sales Preview, his pre-sale Overvalued/Undervalued column, and his report on Christie's postwar and contemporary sale earlier this week.