The Music Gallery: Can Music Ever Be Valued As Fine Art?

Recently a Christie\\\’s art sale became the highest auction in history. The sale included works by Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat, among others and in total generated $495 million. The sale established 16 new world auction records, with nine works selling for more than $10m (£6.6m) and 23 for more than $5m (£3.2m). Christie\\\’s said the record breaking sales reflected \\\”a new era in the art market\\\”.

The top lot of Wednesday\\\’s sale was Pollock\\\’s drip painting Number 19, 1948, which fetched $58.4m (£38.3m) – nearly twice its pre-sale estimate.

Lichtenstein\\\’s Woman with Flowered Hat sold for $56.1 million, while another Basquiat work, Dustheads (top of article), went for $48.8 million.

All three works set the highest prices ever fetched for the artists at auction. Christie\\\’s described the $495,021,500 total – which included commissions – as \\\”staggering\\\”. Only four of the 70 lots on offer went unsold.

In addition, a 1968 oil painting by Gerhard Richter has set a new record for the highest auction price achieved by a living artist. Richter\\\’s photo-painting Domplatz, Mailand (Cathedral Square, Milan) sold for $37.1 million (£24.4 million). Sotheby\\\’s described Domplatz, Mailand, which depicts a cityscape painted in a style that suggests a blurred photograph, as a \\\”masterpiece of 20th Century art\\\” and the \\\”epitome\\\” of the artist\\\’s 1960s photo-painting canon. Don Bryant, founder of Napa Valley\\\’s Bryant Family Vineyard and the painting\\\’s new owner, said the work \\\”just knocks me over\\\”.

Written by djxenia