With its 1950s roots and recent authentication scandals one might assume that Pop Art would have lost some of its attraction. Lacking the antique appeal of the Impressionists and, by its very nature, devoid of the rarity value of many Fine Arts movements, it is nonetheless as popular now as in its heyday.
In the past few weeks, two masters of the American Pop Art movement have proved their worth in the only way that matters on the international art market – by attracting astonishingly high bids at auction.
The death of author Michael Crichton resulted in the sale of one of Jasper Johns’ most iconic works, ‘Flag’, which hung in the author’s bedroom and was sold for nearly $29 million at Christie’s in New York. ‘Flag’ also became the second most expensive work of art by a living artist ever to sell at auction; only Lucian Freud’s ‘Benefits Supervisor Sleeping’, which sold for $33.5 million, has attracted more interest. Only a few days later a 1986 self-portrait by Andy Warhol, the property of fashion designer and film director Tom Ford, sold for $32 million at Sotheby’s, New York.
This year’s spring auctions have been so successful that some more effusive art commentators are predicting a return to form for the international markets. Mark Porter, CEO of Christie’s America, said, “There are a lot of rich people in the world, even after 2008, who feel the art market is a great inflation hedge. That’s why you see so many bidders: they’re comfortable spending money.”
It seems fitting that Pop Art – with its close associations with the concepts of commerce and mass-production – should be seen as a bellwether for the economic recovery of the art market in general, although Abstract Expressionism is also more than holding its own. An untitled canvas by Mark Rothko sold for $31.4 million, far exceeding pre-auction estimates of $18 to $25 million, while Jackson Pollock’s ‘Number 12A, 1948: Yellow, Gray, Black’, sold for $8,8-million, double the low end of its $4-million to $6-million estimate.
BIG
