More Spring sales news – Andy Warhol’s Green Car Crash sold for $71.7 million at Christie’s yesterday. As the price shot up, the bidding turned to two telephone bidders. Although buyers identities are never released by the auction houses, Ken Yeh, deputy chairman for Christie’s Asia was on the telephone line that edged out the competion. Thus I speculate that Yeh was bidding on behalf of Joseph Lau, a collector from Hong Kong who has previously purchased a 1972 Warhol portrait of Mao for $17.3 million. Purchased in November from Christie’s, the Mao portrait claimed the highest record of sale for Warhol at the time of sale.
Yesterday’s sale of Green Car Crash nearly surpassed the record for a contemporary work sold at auction, but fell just shy of the Rothko sold Tuesday for $72.8 million.
Originally seen in a 1963 Newsweek, Warhol’s Green Car Crash is a rare photograph that depicts a newly crashed car and its driver impaled by a telephone pole. Christie’s originally estimated that the piece would sell for between $25 million and $35 million.
Tags: Andy Warhol, art market, auction market, auction records, Christie’s, contemporary art, contemporary collectors, International art market, Sotheby’s, Specullector
