(New York) Works by Warhol, Van Gogh and Hockney dominated auctions on the New York art market on Thursday evening, with Christie’s achieving $528 million in sales this week despite a cyberattack that disrupted its site Internet.
Highlight of the posh evening at the prestigious Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, flowers (1964) by the American pop art master Andy Warhol sold for $35.5 million after “nearly five minutes of bidding battle,” according to a press release from Christie’s, owned by the Artémis holding of French billionaire François Pinault.
The auction company is, however, very far from its own absolute record for a work from the 20th century.e century: the painting Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) by the same Warhol sold for $195 million during a wild evening in May 2022 at Rockefeller Center in New York, one of the world’s centers of arts and finance.
Behind Warhol, Garden corner with butterflies by Vincent Van Gogh went for $33.2 million and A Lawn Being Sprinkled (1967) by David Hockney from the collection of Norman Lear, American television producer, director and actor who died at age 101 in 2023, was purchased for $28.6 million, at the low end of its estimate.
In total, Christie’s enjoyed an evening of 413.3 million dollars, with 65% of buyers from North and Latin America, during a week of spring sales in New York with $527.9 million traded.
“Tonight’s sales results demonstrate the power of pop art,” said Emily Kaplan, director of this sale at Christie’s, in a press release, praising “Andy Warhol’s incomparable legacy for contemporary art.” .
Since last Thursday, Christie’s has suffered a cyberattack disrupting its website where part of the auction takes place. But the company assured this week that it had “managed” this “technological security problem”.
Its competitor Sotheby’s, which belongs to Franco-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi, sold around fifty modern art paintings on Wednesday evening for $235 million, including Grindstones in Giverny (1893) by Claude Monet for $34.8 million and broke British-Mexican painter Leonora Carrington’s (1917-2011) own record with Dagobert’s distractions sold for $28.5 million.
Against the backdrop of wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, with fewer Russian buyers in the market, global art auctions reached $14.9 billion in 2023 compared to $16 billion in 2022 ( -14.5%), the year after the pandemic which had shattered all ceilings.