FIRST OFF . . .

More than $240,000 was raised for AIDS research, education and patient care Sunday at an Art Against AIDS/Los Angeles auction held at Butterfield & Butterfield. The auction brings the total raised by the two-year Art Against AIDS campaign--which has included events in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco--to nearly $5 million. “We were absolutely delighted,” Sally Morrison, director of development for the American Foundation for AIDS Research, said Monday. She noted that proceeds from the auction will be split equally between AmFAR and AIDS Project Los Angeles. The top price at the auction, which included works by Richard Diebenkorn, Laddie John Dill, Larry Bell and Carlos Almaraz, was generated by a David Hockney lithograph, “Walking Past Two Chairs,” which went for $65,000.