$85 Million Bacon Ushers in a New Era of Evening Auctions

Our famous auction house, Sotheby’s, debuted an innovative new format for the live auction events. Led by three private collections, The Ginny Williams Collection, The Collection of Harry W. And Mary Margaret Anderson and the Vanguard Spirit : Modern and Surrealist Masterworks from an Important Estate, the nigh saw spirited bidding with Sotheby’s specialists in New York, London and Hong Kong taking phone bids live on camera, and auctioneer Oliver Barker presiding over the live stream event in London. 

The Contemporary Art Evening Auction achieved a total of $234.9 million – and saw several auction records. Leading the night was Francis Bacon’s 1981 large-format masterwork Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus, one of the most ambitious, enigmatic and important works of Bacon’s oeuvre. The artist’s third-highest price ever at auction. 

Other highlights were Roy Lichtenstein’s White Brushstroke I, executed in 1965 as part of the artist’s iconic Brushtroke series, which achieved $27 million and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s invigoratiog Untitled (Heda), a work on paper executed in 1982, that brought $15,2 million. 

You want to learn more about this innovative and historic auction night, find all the details here.