During Christie’s sale of art owned by bestselling author Michael Crichton this evening, Jasper Johns‘ 1960–66 Flag sold for $28.6 million, a new record for a work by the artist at auction. That hulking figure is nearly double the $10–15 million estimate that had been tagged to the landmark work, which had an unsurpassable provenance, having been acquired by Crichton directly from the artist in 1973. Flag‘s buyer was New York dealer Michael Altman, who declined to comment after winning the painting. Pennsylvania dealer Richard Rossello, who was sitting near Altman, has also been floated as the possible buyer of the painting. Though $28.6 million was enough to set a record for a Johns at auction, it was not large enough to surpass the record price for a work of art by any living artist at auction: that figure is held by Lucian Freud, whose 1995 Benefits Supervisor Sleeping sold for $33.6 million at Christie’s New York in 2008. Nonetheless, Johns is still believed to hold the record for the price of a work sold by a living artist, since a larger version of Flag was reportedly sold recently to collector Steve Cohen for $110 million. Art+Auction Editor at Large Judd Tully has filed a full report from the auction on ARTINFO.
Jasper Johns’ Flag Sells for a Record $28.6 Million at Christie’s
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