For Immediate Release 20 June 2007 Contact: Rhiannon Broomfield 020 7389 2664
[email protected] FREUD SELLS FOR £7.86 MILLION ($15.6 MILLION / €11.6 MILLION) AT CHRISTIE’S £74 MILLION RECORD SALE OF POST-WAR AND CONTEMPORARY ART • Christie’s auction realises £74.1 million ($147.3 million / € 109.6million), the highest ever total for the category in Europe • Lucian Freud’s portrait of Bruce Bernard realises £7.86 million ($15.6 million / €11.6 million) - the world record price for any work by a living European artist at auction • 15 artist records smashed, including those for Lucian Freud, Piero Manzoni, Michael Andrews and Antoni Tàpies, among others • 17 works sell for over £1 million / 42 for over $1 million London – Christie’s record-breaking auction of Post-War and Contemporary Art on 20 June 2007 realised £74,072,800 / $147,256,726 / €109,553,671, a record total for any auction in this category in Europe. The top lot of the sale was a portrait of Bruce Bernard by Lucian Freud (b.1922) which sold for £7,860,000 ($15,625,680/ €11,624,940), a world record price at auction for any work by a living European artist and a world record price for the artist at auction. The fast-paced sale saw auction records broken, including those for Lucian Freud, Piero Manzoni, Michael Andrews and Antoni Tàpies among others, as international clients competed for the works on offer. Buyer activity at the auction was 25% United Kingdom, 37% rest of Europe, 27% Americas, 10% Asia and 1% Middle East (by lot).