After breezing through the buoyant Mellon sale last night, Sotheby’s auctioneer, Oliver Barker, needed to swig two glasses of water (at least that’s what I think it was) at the end of tonight’s various-owners contemporary sale.
It was slow-going and less than riveting. But he gamely extracted whatever bidding was to be had and efficiently got the job done.
Fittingly for a Veterans Day sale, this work broke the auction record for Jasper Johns:
Sold for $36 million ($32 million hammer against presale estimate of $15-20 million)
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum
For full sale results, go here.
Below is my running Twitter commentary of tonight’s action and inaction.