Sale sets new record for work by living European artist
Last Updated: Thursday, June 21, 2007 | 2:20 PM ET
CBC Arts
A portrait by Lucian Freud of his friend, picture editor Bruce Bernard, sold for a record £7.8 million ($16.5 million Cdn) at auction in London on Wednesday.
The price was not only a record for Freud, but the highest sale price of a work by a living European artist.
Lucian Freud's 1992 painting of Bruce Bernard set a record price for a living European artist in its sale at Christie's auction house in London.
(Sang Tan/Associated Press)
Freud was born in 1922 in Germany and lives in Britain. His works are owned by John McEnroe and Queen Elizabeth, and he is considered a pre-eminent British artist.
The previous record for sale of a painting by a living European artist is Peter Doig's White Canoe, which went in February for £5.7 million ($12 million Cdn) at Sotheby's.
A 1959 painting by U.S. contemporary artist Jasper Johns sold for $17.4 million US at Christie's in May, making him the world's most expensive living artist, Christie's said.
The Christie's auction of contemporary art on Wednesday also set records for works by Kara Walker, Thomas Schutte, Christopher Wool, Piero Manzoni and Paula Rego.
Roy Lichtenstein's Still Life with Stretcher, Mirror, Bowl of Fruit, painted in 1972, sold for £4.1 million ($8.7 million Cdn).
Francis Bacon's Two Men Working in a Field sold for just over £5 million ($10.6 million Cdn), and his Landscape with a Car was bought for £4.2 million ($8.9 million Cdn).
A self-portrait by Bacon comes up for auction at Sotheby's in London on Thursday. It is expected to fetch up to £12 million ($25.5 million Cdn).
Andy Warhol's Three Marilyns went for £5.6 million ($11.9 million Cdn). Another Warhol image of Brigitte Bardot did not sell.
Prices for contemporary and post-war art have risen by 50 per cent since December, Christie's estimated.
London has had a week of high-profile art auctions. On Tuesday, a painting of water lilies by Claude Monet, called Nympheas, sold at a Sotheby's for $36.8 million US, above its presale estimate of $20 million US to 30 million US.
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