RECORDS SET AT AUCTION OF CONTEMPORARY ART

A Jasper Johns collage bid for $3.6 million was the highlight of a record session Monday at Sotheby’s in which more than 90 works of contemporary art were sold for more than $13 million.

An anonymous telephone bidder paid $3,630,000 for “Out the Window,” a 1959 wax and newspaper collage on canvas by Johns from the collection of Ethel Scull. The bid, a record for any contemporary artwork at auction and for any living artist, topped the pre-sale estimate of $1.5 million to $2 million, said Sotheby spokesman Matthew Weigman.

The record total for a session of contemporary art, $13,244,000, was achieved for 93 lots, Weigman said. The sale was to continue today with works from the estate of taxi magnate Robert C. Scull.

Two other Johns works sold for $308,000 apiece: “Alphabets,” a monochrome gray oil, to a Japanese dealer; and “Target,” a collage in wax, pastel and newsprint, to a New York dealer.

“Duck Pond,” a Willem de Kooning oil, was bought by a New York dealer for $473,000. A private collector bid $396,000 for an untitled oil by Mark Rothko, while an untitled oil by Franz Kline went for $341,000. Richard Diebenkorn’s oil “Ocean Park” went for $352,000.

Individual artists’ records were set for works by Ellsworth Kelly, $242,000; Bruce Nauman, $220,000; Larry Rivers, $126,500; and Robert Morris, $45,100.