The Half-Billion-Dollar Art Sale

The evening’s total, $491.4 million, was well over $200 million more than that for any previous auction, topping its high estimate of $427.8 million. (The previous record was $269 million at Christie’s in May 1990.) Of the 84 lots up for sale last night, only 6 failed to sell. ‘Not only did so much money change hands, but this sale it going to change the whole landscape when it comes to prices for postwar art’.”