By Kenneth Barry
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A painting by Pop Art master Roy Lichtenstein has topped an auction of postwar and contemporary art at Sotheby’s on Wednesday, selling for $5.1 million (2.8 million pounds).
Wednesday’s auction broke price records for nearly a score of artists, including Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly and Claes Oldenburg.
Sotheby’s sale of 58 lots -- all of which were sold -- totalled $65.7 million. It was the second strong auction of postwar and contemporary art in as many days.
A day earlier rival New York auction house Christie’s sold $102.1 million in art works, a record for Christie’s.
Among Sotheby’s most successful sales was a taxidermied horse, suspended in leather harness from the ceiling, by Maurizio Cattelan. Titled "The Ballad of Trotsky", it was expected to fetch between $600,000 and $800,000 but sold for $2.08 million, a record for the artist.
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Last week, Sotheby’s sold the world’s most expensive painting when Picasso’s "Boy with a Pipe" fetched $104 million.
Wednesday’s better-than-expected sale underscored the appeal of postwar and contemporary art among collectors, Sotheby’s art experts said. "It was a very good sale. New buyers are coming into the market all the time," Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art and the auctioneer, told reporters after the sale.
The 1961 Lichtenstein painting, "Step-on Can with Leg", was bought by an anonymous buyer on the telephone.
Johns’ watercolour, "Corpse and Mirror", sold for $3.14 million. Kelly’s large, bold, two-colour "Chatham XIII" sold for $2.92 million. Oldenburg’s sculpture, "Sewing Machine", went for $1.46 million.
A painting by Clyfford Still, "1960-F", fetched a record $3.14 million, surpassing the artist’s previous $1.91 million record. A work by Andy Warhol, "The Last Supper", sold for $2.92 million.
Sotheby’s sale exceeded the auction house’s estimate before the event of $46 million to $64 million.
Commenting on the record price for the Cattelan, Meyer said, "Contemporary controversial sculpture has a big market, and this is one of the key pieces of this artist."
