The Contemporary Art Evening Sale, which took place on 14th May at Sotheby’s New York, was a record auction from every point of view. Firstly, for its turnover: 362,037,000 dollars, well above the best estimates which expected the auction to realize between 288.1 million and 354.7 million dollars. This is the second best result ever achieved in the world for a contemporary art auction and the most important sale in the history of Sotheby’s. 73 lots of the 83 presented were sold and represented 86.8% of the works by value.
The most memorable highlight is certainly the record achieved by Francis Bacon with his “Triptych”, sold for 86,281,000 dollars (estimate 70 million). The work has obtained the record for the highest price in a contemporary art auction, previously held by Rothko’s “White center” (just 72.8 million dollars).
Besides Bacon, other seventeen artists broke their previous record at auction: Yves Klein, Takashi Murakami, Robert Rauschenberg, Tom Wesselmann, Piero Manzoni, Robert Smithson, Georg Baselitz, Hans Hofmann, Lee Krasner, Dan Flavin, Claes Oldenburg, Carl Andre, Joseph Beuys, Robert Mangold, Brice Marden and Jeff Wall.
The presence of works belonging to the Helga and Walter Lauffs collection was extremely important for the success of the auction. This is one of the most extraordinary collections of contemporary art left in private hands to ever appear on the market. The works belonging to the collection sold for a total of 96,105,000 dollars (estimate 47.1 – 65.2 million).
One of the most important works of the Helga and Walter Lauffs collection was certainly Yves Klein’s “MG 9”. During the auction, the artist’s previous record (“RE 1” sold for 6.1 million by Christie’s in 2000) was broken by far both by “IKB 1”, which totalled 17.4 million (estimate 5 – 7 million), and by the wonderful painting “MG 9”, sold for 23,561,000 dollars (estimate 6 – 8 dollars).
But Klein is not the only artist whose previous record was thrashed. The natural-size sculpture by Takashi Murakami, “My lonesome cowboy”, beat the artist’s previous best result. A few months ago “Vapor Trial” was sold by Sotheby’s for 2.4 million dollars. The sculpture presented at the auction this time totalled 15,161,000 dollars (estimate 3 - 4 million).
Piero Manzoni, one the most appreciated artists at international level, more than doubled his previous record. Indeed, during the last Italian Sales of London his “Achrome” sold for 2.2 million pounds (4.5 million dollars). The price achieved by the artist in the auction held on 14th May is 10,121,000 dollars (estimate 4.5 – 6.5 million).
An artist who has definitely seen his quotations rise is Robert Smithson. “Alogon #3” sold for 4,297,000 dollars (estimate 1.5 – 2 million). The artist’s previous best result was “Untitled”, a sculpture from 1964 sold by Christie’s in 2005 for 620,000 dollars.
Other important results include Robert Rauschenberg’s “Overdrive” which, the day after the great nineteenth-century artist’s death, became his new record at auction. The work totalled 14,601,000 dollars (estimate 10 – 15 million) beating “Photograph”, sold in May 2007 for 10.7 million dollars.

(Article translated by Giorgina Arcuri)