Picasso painting sets record for art at auction, selling for $179M
NEW YORK - A vibrantly colored Picasso painting of a harem of women in Algiers became the highest selling painting ever at auction.
Les Femmes d' Alger, or Women of Algiers (Version O), fetched $179.4 million at Christie's New York Monday night, the auction house announced.
The oil-on-canvas painting full of vibrant reds, bright yellows and electric blues created in the 1950s is part of a Picasso series, according to Christie's. The Spanish painter was inspired by an 1834 work by Eugene Delacroix that now sits in the Louvre. Picasso intended the series to be an elegy to his friend, Matisse, who died just weeks before Picasso started the works.
Picasso often spoke of creating his own version, author Francoise Gilot wrote, saying that Picasso had her take him to see the Delacroix painting at least once a month.
The Delacroix work featured women in a harem smoking from a hookah.
Previously, Christie's sold the painting in 1997 for $31.9 million.
The previous auction record was set by Francis Bacon's Three Studies of Lucian Freud, which drew $142.4 million in 2013.
The painting was among two dozen masterpieces from the 20th century Christie's offered in a curated sale titled "Looking Forward to the Past."
The prices are guided by investment value as well as collector behavior, experts say.
"I don't really see an end to it, unless interest rates drop sharply, which I don't see happening in the near future," Manhattan dealer Richard Feigen said told the Associated Press.
Impressionist and modern artworks continue to corner the market because "they are beautiful, accessible and a proven value," Sarah Lichtman, professor of design history and curatorial studies at The New School, told the news organization.
La Femme d'Alger is part of a 15-work series Picasso created in 1954-55 designated with the letters A through O. It has appeared in several major museum retrospectives of the artist.
Pointing Man, depicting a skinny 5-foot-high bronze figure with extended arms, has been in the same private collection for 45 years. Giacometti, who died in 1966, made six casts of the work; four are in museums, and the others are in private hands and a foundation collection.
Contributing: Associated Press