At Christie's, Mockery Brings in Millions

NEW YORK — The thirst for contemporary art is unquenchable. On Wednesday evening Christie’s outshone Sotheby’s with a stunning $272 million score. Of the 75 works on offer, only five failed to sell.

More than the impressive total realized in a two-hour session, it is the intense interest maintained throughout that spelled out truly important news for the contemporary art market.

In the same businesslike atmosphere that was so striking at Sotheby’s the day before, an astonishing world record was set right at the beginning. Roy Lichtenstein’s “Ohhh...Alright...,” painted in 1964, flew off to $42.64 million. The picture is based on an image printed in the June 1963 issue of “Secret Hearts,” which was published by D.C. Comics.

The close-up view of a lachrymose woman, telephone in hand, is outlined in heavy black strokes. Color is largely applied in dots that imitate the broad screen of cheap color printing in the 1960s. The easy punch of the image, effective from 10 yards or 10 meters away, and its tongue-in-cheek spoofery, combined to make the Lichtenstein supremely desirable to present-day contemporary art buyers.

A second world-record price later greeted a three-dimensional work. “Red Curlicue” signed with Alexander Calder’s initials “CA” is made of sheet metal painted a bright red. The monumental stabile, as the Paris-based American artist called those of his works that were set on the ground and did not sway in the wind, is 192 inches, or about 488 centimeters, high. Executed in 1973, “Red Curlicue” brought $6.35 million. It too has a tongue-in-cheek touch, conveyed by the curling movement of a tapering metallic sheet, which calls to mind cutouts made by children amusing themselves with paper and scissors.

The two record-setting works, so dissimilar at first glance, both encapsulate the mockery found in the majority of works of contemporary art that most appeal to buyers. Collectors like it best in the New York school of Pop Art from the 1960s to the early 1970s.

On Wednesday, Andy Warhol continued to be the great beneficiary of the trend, following the world record set two days earlier at Phillips, de Pury & Company when “Men in Her Life” went up to $63.36 million. Warhols of every subject and in every medium consistently exceeded expectations.

Early on “Brillo Box (3 cents off)” which depicts in poster style a pack of Brillo soap pads, made three times the high estimate as it reached $3.05 million. This was followed by “A Set of Boxes,” in which Campbell’s tomato juice, Heinz tomato ketchup, Brillo soap pads and Kellogg’s corn flakes are happily associated. Here, the bill was $2.32 million — again more than the high estimate.

When “Campbell’s Soup Can (Tomato)” of 1962 came next and made a hefty $9.04 million, Christopher Burge, who was wielding the gavel, briefly looked nonplussed — that price was only within the expected price bracket.

Lichtenstein fared brilliantly too, even if his work did not trigger the same intense competition. “Girl in Mirror,” a 1964 image also in comic-strip style but painted in porcelain enamel on steel in an edition of eight, did amazingly well at $4.89 million.

The new art-historical approach taken to the New York school of the 1960s made itself felt on an even wider scale than in Sotheby’s Tuesday sale.

Artists who had not nearly been as often in the limelight as Warhol or Lichtenstein prompted vigorous competition. “Out Box #1”, a small 1972 oil painting on canvas by Wayne Thiebaud, scrupulously depicts a wooden tray laden with outgoing mail. While the subject owes nothing to comic strips, the style does. The picture fetched $1.53 million, neatly doubling the high estimate.

Attention to works on paper, observed at Sotheby’s continued at Christie’s on a larger scale. It began with the first lot, Cy Twombly’s rhythmical blue-green scribble on gray ground done in May 1971 in house paint and wax crayon. Untitled, it would have been difficult to sell in earlier days. This week, the scribble gracefully climbed to $2.37 million.

Warhol’s “Dance Diagram,” a sketch in black pencil indeed based on diagrams from dance books published in 1956, “Lindy Made Easy (with Charleston)” and “Fox Trot Made Easy,” bears no connection to the silk-screen images that have made him famous. But it more than doubled its high estimate when it made a whopping $1.53 million.

Fun art from a younger generation of artists was helped by the wave that carried the historic works of the 1960s. “Teddy Bear Orange,” an outsized mirror in a colored glass frame reproducing the ultra-simplified outline of a teddy bear, is one of four versions — blue, green, orange and pink — that were executed between 1988 and 1998 according to the specifications given by Jeff Koons. The teddy bear mirror sold above its high estimate for $1.31 million. This served as an hors d’oeuvre for the jocular artist’s monumental “Balloon Flower (Blue)” made between 1995 and 2000,. also one of several versions ordered by Koons in different colors.

The stainless steel piece with transparent color coating looks like a bunch of inflatable balloons made for Gulliver’s children. The larger the joke, the bigger the price. On Wednesday, the cost to an admirer of contemporary art was a tidy $16.88 million.