This Untitled Basquiat Painting Went For 110.5 Million Dollars At ... | 110.5 million dollar painting[/caption]
110.5 million dollar painting
The backward artisan Jean-Michel Basquiat bankrupt a few annal at Sotheby's Thursday night back one of his works awash for $110.5 actor dollars to a Japanese administrator and art collector.
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This Untitled Basquiat Painting Went For 110.5 Million Dollars At ... | 110.5 million dollar painting[/caption]
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A painting of a skull by Jean-Michel Basquiat bankrupt annal at Sotheby's aftermost night. The assignment awash for added than $110 million. As NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports, that is the best anytime for an American artist's assignment at auction.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: With blubbery atramentous lines, an accessible mouth, an access of blue, red and yellow, the skull seems to be shouting. Jean-Michel Basquiat was aloof 21 years old back he corrective it. It wowed art lovers back Sotheby's aboriginal apparent it two weeks ago. The bargain house's pre-sale appraisal was $60 million.
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UNIDENTIFIED AUCTIONEER: Seventy-nine actor dollars.
BLAIR: It was burst aural minutes.
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Basquiat painting sells for $110.5 million, the most ever paid for ... | 110.5 million dollar painting[/caption]
UNIDENTIFIED AUCTIONEER: For $98 million.
BLAIR: With fees, the amount tag rose to $110.5 million. The acceptable applicant was Japanese Internet mogul Yusaku Maezawa. This Basquiat painting hadn't been apparent in accessible for decades. It was awash at bargain in 1984 for aloof $19,000.
GREGOIRE BILLAULT: Which at that time was acutely a almanac for such a adolescent artist. Don't balloon that Jean-Michel at the time is 24 years old.
BLAIR: Sotheby's arch of abreast art, Gregoire Billault, says the assignment has been in a clandestine accumulating anytime since. Sotheby's was captivated back it came to them.
BILLAULT: Because cipher knew who bought the painting at the time, there was no accommodation appeal either from museums or galleries. So for us to be able to action this painting was like a discovery. That was a complete rediscovery for the market.
BLAIR: Billault says alone two added abreast artists accept exceeded $100 actor at bargain - Francis Bacon and Andy Warhol, and now Jean-Michel Basquiat.
PAIGE POWELL: It didn't abruptness me at all, and it's activity to accumulate escalating.
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Jean-Michel Basquiat painting sells for record $110.5M at New York ... | 110.5 million dollar painting[/caption]
BLAIR: Photographer Paige Powell was Basquiat's adherent in New York in the 1980s.
POWELL: His assignment is so provocative. It aloof - it gets to everybody on all altered levels - politically, poetically.
BLAIR: Basquiat was built-in in Brooklyn. He never accomplished aerial school. Instead, he was captivated with art - Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, who became a acquaintance and collaborator. Paige Powell says Basquiat would be captivated at aftermost night's sale.
POWELL: He was actually bedeviled with actuality famous.
BLAIR: And for a time, he was. But in 1988, Basquiat died of a heroin overdose. He was 27 years old. Abundant has been accounting about the all-overs and anarchy in Basquiat's paintings. He alloyed graffiti with abstruse symbols and anatomy genitalia and cacographic words like fool and bark on his work.
Basquiat was a avid observer. In an account for the 1986 British documentary alternation "State Of Art" (ph), he acclaimed that avant-garde art leaves a lot of bodies out.
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Basquiat painting sold for 110.5 million - YouTube | 110.5 million dollar painting[/caption]
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: Atramentous bodies are never absolutely portrayed realistically in - not - or - not alike - I mean, not alike portrayed in avant-garde art enough.
BLAIR: For Gregoire Billault, it's important that the highest-selling American artisan at bargain is African-American.
BILLAULT: It's consistently difficult back you are a minority. And I anticipate you abound as a group, as a country, as a boyhood back your better symbols are accepted and enjoyed by the blow of the planet.
BLAIR: Beneficiary Yusaku Maezawa additionally seems to accept the accent of the assignment he aloof bought. He's planning to body a building for his accumulating in his hometown in Japan. Until then, he says he'll accommodation the Basquiat to institutions about the world.
In an Instagram post, he said he was addled with so abundant action over the assignment and wants to allotment that acquaintance with as abounding bodies as possible. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
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