«I LIKE MONEY ON THE WALL»

“A perfect storm between supply and demand” is how Nicholas Maclean of London and New York dealership Eykyn Maclean described the roof-raising sales of postwar and contemporary art in New York this week. The action started at Sotheby’s on Tuesday with a rollicking $375m, the highest total the firm has ever racked up.

Leading the pack of winners was Rothko’s “No.1 (Royal Red and Blue)” (1954), which made $75.1m, well over its upper estimate of $50m (pre-sale estimates don’t include commission; results do). A perfect little Pollock “drip” painting, “Number 4, 1951” (1951), set a new world record for the painter at $40.4m. The major winners were Warhol, pop art and abstract expressionist works, with names such as Kline, De Kooning and Bacon being hotly contested.

-Financial Times

 November 16 2012