A large painting by Willem de Kooning fetched over $66 million at an auction in New York, setting a new record for the expressionist artist. The anonymous buyer placed his bid in a phone call.
Image: picture-alliance/AA/R. Tang
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De Kooning's "Untitled XXV" measures 1.96 meters by 2.24 meters (roughly 6.4 feet by 7.4 feet) and was painted by the Dutch-American artist in 1977.
The Christie's auction house did not reveal the name of the buyer who bought the work on Tuesday. The firm initially valued the painting at $40 million (37 million euros), saying that it comes from the most successful creative period for the abstract artist and was inspired by landscapes around his home in Louse Point in Springs, New York.
"In the '70s he found new love ... and that gave him inspiration, but also his arrival in Springs where he designed and built his own studio," said Brett Gorvy, Christie's head of post-war and contemporary art.
De Kooning was born in Rotterdam and emigrated to the US in 1926, at the age of 22Image: picture-alliance/dpa
"He suddenly found his voice again. He described this 1977 period almost like a gambler throwing dice, and each time he was a winner. It was a phenomenal period of creativity where he basically produced the best paintings since the work he was doing in the 50s," Gorvy said.
The Tuesday price of $66.3 million (some 62 million euros) is the highest ever for De Kooning, who died in 1997. At the auction in 2006, the same work was sold for $27.1 million, setting a new record for post-war and contemporary art.
The British music star Eric Clapton also bought a painting by the German artists Gerhard Richter at the same auction, according to Christie's. Richter's work fetched over $20 million.
The world's 10 most expensive artworks
As Modigliani's painting "Reclining Nude" just fetched the second-highest sum for a painting at an auction in November 2015, find out which other artworks make up the top 10.
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Picasso's 'Women of Algiers': $179.4 million
From 1954-55, Pablo Picasso did a series of 15 paintings inspired by Delacroix's "Les Femmes d'Alger," with versions named "A" through "O." He started them after the death of Henry Matisse, as a tribute to his friend and artistic rival. "Version O" broke the world record for an auction sale, selling for $179.4 million (167.1 million euros) at Christie's on May 11, 2015.
Image: Reuters
Modigliani's 'Reclining Nude': $170.4 million
At the Christie's auction held on November 9, 2015, seven potential buyers spent nine frantic minutes bidding on this painting. It was finally snapped by a telephone bidder from China. The nude, painted in 1917-18, provoked a scandal at its first exhibition in Paris. The police shut the art show down after a crowd gathered outside the window.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo
Bacon's 'Three Studies of Lucian Freud': $142.4 million
This 1969 triptych documents Francis Bacon's friendship and rivalry with fellow painter Lucian Freud. At the time it was sold, in November 2013, it obtained the highest price for a work of art at an auction, until Picasso - and now Modigliani - surpassed that record in 2015.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Giacometti's 'Pointing Man': $141.3 million
The Italian-Swiss master Alberto Giacometti holds quite a few records for auction sales, and he broke his own record in 2015, when the 1947 bronze sculpture "Pointing Man" was sold for $141.3 million at a Christie's auction. Not bad, considering it was created in a single night.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/V. Hatfield/Christies
Klimt's 'The Woman in Gold': $135 million
This 1907 painting by Gustav Klimt is considered one the most elaborate and representative of his "golden phase." In 2006, it was sold through a private sale brokered by Christie's for a record sum for a painting, $135 million. That same year, Jackson Pollock's classic drip painting "No. 5 1948" broke that record, obtaining $140 million through another private sale.
This agonizing character painted by Edvard Munch is one of the most iconic paintings in the world. The Expressionist artist had actually made four versions of it: Three are in Norwegian museums, and the fourth one was sold for the screeching price of $119.9 million in May 2012 at Sotheby's.
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Picasso's 'Nude, Green Leaves and Bust': $106.5 million
Inspired by his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walther, Picasso created this painting in a single day in 1932. If you add the eight minutes and six seconds it took for the auction record bid at Christie's in May 2010, it still appears to be well-invested time.
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Warhol's 'Silver Car crash': $105.4 million
This 1963 double-panel work provocatively depicts a lifeless body right after a car crash. It obtained the largest sum paid for a work by the Pop artist at a Sotheby's auction in New York in November 2013.
Image: AUSSCHNITT: picture-alliance/dpa/Sotheby's
Picasso's 'Boy with a Pipe': $104.2 million
This portrait of an adolescent holding a pipe and wearing a garland of flowers in his hair was created during the Spanish master's "Rose Period" in 1905. Just a little under a century later, the painting fetched an impressive sum at a Sotheby's auction in 2004.
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Giacometti's 'Walking Man I': $104.3 million
Amidst the economic crisis, the stick-man sculpture fetched a record sum at the time of its auction in 2010. As opposed to the quick creation of "Pointing Man," Giacometti struggled to produced this iconic work, which was originally planned as part of a larger public commission in 1961.
