Jean-Michel Basquiat's 'Untitled' (1982) Sells for $85 Million USD at Phillips Auction
One of Basquiat’s largest works measuring 16-feet wide.
Jean Michel Basquiat‘s infamous 1982 painting of a horned devil resurfaced on Wednesday night as the centerpiece of a Phillips auction in Manhattan. The Basquiat was originally sold in 2004 for $4.5 Million USD to art collector Adam Lindemann, and again in 2016 to Japanese retail billionaire Yusaku Maezawa for a then-record-breaking price of $57.3 million USD.
At Phillips’ 20th-Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, the 1982 Untitled painting now sells for $85 million USD, with the winning placed out of Asia via a Phillips representative in Taipei, Taiwan.
Out of the nearly 1,500 paintings completed by Basquiat in eight years, this Untitled artwork is one of his largest, with a canvas measuring 16-feet wide. Appearing in a mix of acrylic and spray paint, the monumental work is said to be a self-portrait, created in the year the young artist first soared to international stardom. The auction result marks the most expensive lot the house has ever sold, surpassing Andy Warhol‘s Men in Her Life canvas which was presented at another Phillips New York evening sale in 2010.
In addition to the Basquiat painting, all 36 available lots from the Phillips sale were cleared for $224.9 million USD, a record-breaking number for Phillips. Other pieces at the sale include Yayoi Kusama’s Untitled (Nets), Yves Klein’s Monochrome bleu sans titre (IKB 267), Pablo Picasso’s Figures et plante, and Andy Warhol’s Flowers. More information can be found on the Phillips’ website.
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