Tulip-Mania is upon us

Francis Bacon Triptych

 A Francis Bacon triptych became the priciest artwork at auction in the biggest sale ever last night in New York.

Bacon’s “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” sold for $142.4 million at Christie’s to Acquavella Galleries. It bested Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” which Sotheby’s sold in May 2012, by more than $20 million.

A few minutes later Jeff Koons’s sculpture “Balloon Dog (Orange)” fetched $58.4 million, an auction record for a living artist.

The third-priciest lot was a graphic oversized Coca-Cola bottle by Andy Warhol that went for $57.3 million.

Sotheby’s activist investor Daniel Loeb and Blackstone Group  James Tomilson Hill III attended the packed postwar and contemporary art auction that totaled $691.6 million — well in excess of the previous record of $495 million set by a Christie’s sale of contemporary art in May. Eleven of the 69 lots last night sold for more than $20 million and only six failed to find buyers.

Records were smashed for 10 artists, including Willem de Kooning, Donald Judd, Ad Reinhardt, Lucio Fontana, Christopher Wool, Wade Guyton and Wayne Thiebaud.     By Katya Kazakina and Philip Boroff November 13, 2013  Bloomberg Business Week