The auction, which totaled $357,622,500, is part of a week of exceptional auctions at Christie’s that has already achieved over $1 billion. Other top lots included Mark Rothko’s 1962 Untitled (Rust, Blacks on Plum) which achieved $35,712,500, four pieces by Joseph Cornell, totaling $43,967,500, and works from Richard Diebenkorn, Francis Bacon, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, which all sold for upwards of $20 million.
Several other artists set records at the auction, including Sam Gilliam, whose Lady Day II set a new world auction record for the artist when it sold for $2,172,500. A work by Robert Colescott appeared in a Christie’s evening sale for the first time, with Cultural Exchange (1987) selling for $912,500. The Philip Guston drawing Window set a record for highest price paid for a work on paper, selling for $3,132,500, far exceeding its estimate of $300,000-500,000.
