"Ice" at Richter's Sotheby's auction sold for 4.3 million pounds

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"Ice" at Richter's Sotheby's auction sold for 4.3 million pounds


At the London auction of contemporary art Sotheby's sold the lots for a total of 50.7 million pounds, slightly exceeded the expectations of the organizers of the auction, reports Reuters. Managed to get the money through the sale of six German works by Gerhard Richter, who once again confirmed its status as the most expensive artist alive today.

The most expensive lot was made in 1992, "abstract painting" Richter, who went for 4.9 million pounds in the evaluation of 3-4 million pounds. The second most expensive lot, too, was the picture of Richter - "Ice", an anonymous telephone buyer bought for 4.3 million pounds, twice the appraised value. Other work of the artist, "Abstract Painting (Red)" (1991), sold for 4.1 million pounds, finishing third in the list of the most highly regarded of lots.

Canvas "Ice" was written by Richter in 1981 and, according to critics, is the pinnacle of German craftsmanship of the artist as a landscape painter. It shows its emptiness, and a spectacular view of the detachment of ice blocks, photographed by the artist in 1972 during a single trip to Greenland. "Ice" is a reflection of the emotions of the painter at the time and the atmosphere of the flight from Düsseldorf to the Arctic paradise, where there is no family and social obligations. Since the early 1990s, Richter turned his attention to abstraction, which is reflected in his other paintings sold at auction.

Another champion of the auction was the picture of the "Orange figure of an athlete" (1982) American Jean-Michel Basquiat, which shortly before the sale specialists discovered the rare signature of the artist, who died of a drug overdose at age 27 in 1988. Basquiat did not have the habit of signing his work, but made an exception for this canvas, inscribing his name in ink, illuminated with ultraviolet light.

This season, the auction house Sotheby's failed to get around its main rival Christie's. Tuesday auctions of postwar and contemporary art at Christie's in London, collected 80.6 million pounds. "Portrait of Henrietta Moraes," Francis Bacon was sold for 21 million pounds.

http://www.rg.ru/2012/02/16/london-site-anons.html