A large-scale metal sculpture by David Smith (USA) has become the most expensive work of contemporary art ever sold at auction, fetching $32.35 million at Sotheby's in New York. Five bidders competed for Smith's Cubi XXVIII which was the starting lot at a sale of 54 contemporary works that brought in $155.6 million. The 1965 sculpture was finally snapped up by Manhattan dealer Larry Gagosian at nearly twice its high estimate of $16.3 million.
Experts attributed the record price to the fact most of Smith's works are in museums or permanent collections and therefore make extremely rare auction appearances. The second best price of the evening was the $12.5 million paid for Jackie Frieze, one of two works in which Andy Warhol assembled portraits of Jackie Kennedy in a frieze format.
The image of Jackie Kennedy's pretty, veiled visage is among Warhol's most iconic, and this work of 1964, a lineup of 13 of them, in blue and grey highlighted by other colors, is one of only two such friezes Warhol made. Other artists whose work broke records included Hiroshi Sugimoto, Francis Alys, Vija Celmins and Louise Bourgeois, whose "Spider" sculpture sold for just over $3 million, doubling her record. Damien Hirst also set a record for a painting, while Warhol's mark for sculpture was broken as well.
November 14, 2005
