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Macklowe art collection becomes most expensive ever sold at auction
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A person walks past Andy Warhol’s Self Portrait during the New York press preview on May 6 for the Macklowe Collection at Sotheby's in the United States. (AFP/Timothy A. Clary)
T
he famed Macklowe collection, subject of a bitter divorce battle between a New York property developer in the United States and his ex-wife, became the most expensive art collection ever sold at auction on Monday.
Sotheby's sold its second offering of works from the collection for US$246.1 million, bringing the total value of the group of paintings to $922.2 million, a spokesman told AFP.
That exceeds the $835.1 million that the Rockefeller collection sold for in 2018, then the highest total ever made by a single private collection at auction.
Among the highlights of Monday evening's sale were Mark Rothko's Untitled, which fetched $48 million and Gerhard Richter's Seestück, which went for $30.2 million.
Andy Warhol's Self Portrait sold for $18.7 million while Willem de Kooning's Untitled went for $17.8 million.
Sotheby's won the rights to sell the Macklowe works back in September 2021. It sold 35 of the pieces in November 2021 for $676.1 million before selling the remaining 30 on Monday.
Sotheby's had described the paintings as the "most significant collection of modern and contemporary art to ever appear on the market”.
During divorce proceedings, Harry Macklowe and his ex-wife Linda had been unable to agree on how much the vast collection was worth.
A New York judge ruled in 2018 that they should sell all 65 works and split the profits.
