SOTHEBY’S ART AUCTION SETS RECORDS

A lively contemporary art auction at Sotheby’s in New York on Thursday and Friday totalled nearly $13.4 million in sales and set auction records for 16 individuals, including Los Angeles artists Edward Ruscha and Robert Irwin.

The Whitney Museum of American Art bought Ruscha’s “Large Trademark With Eight Spotlights,” a 1962 painting of a 20th Century Fox sign, for $137,500. Robert Irwin’s untitled work, described as a 60-inch “painted metal disc with two lamps,” was sold for $49,500 to an anonymous buyer.

The event more than doubled the previous record of $6.7 million for total sales in a single contemporary art auction, set last May at Sotheby’s.

Among items fetching the biggest prices and dramatically increasing previous records was Barnett Newman’s 1952 painting, “Ulysses,” from the collection of Christophe de Menil. It was sold for $1.6 million, about six times Newman’s former high of $275,000.

Clyfford Still’s old record of $165,000 toppled twice, when a 1954 abstraction from the collection of Francois de Menil brought $797,500 and a 1948 work from a European private collection was knocked down for $577,500.

Roy Lichtenstein’s 1977 “Reclining Nude” more than doubled his work’s previous record of $231,000 when it sold for $522,500. Francis Bacon’s 1963 canvas, “Landscape Near Malabata, Tangiers,” owned by actress Patricia Neal, fetched $517,000, upping the English artist’s past record of $385,000.

Some works by major Abstract Expressionists went for stratospheric prices but failed to set records. Willem de Kooning’s 1957 oil, “Ruth’s Zowie,” for example, brought $1.5 million, while a glowing pink and orange abstraction by Mark Rothko fell under the gavel for $715,000.