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The Scream sells for record $120m at auction The Scream sells for record $120m at auction
(40 minutes later)
Edvard Munch's painting The Scream, one of the world's most recognisable works of art, sold for $120 million (£74m) at Sotheby's on Wednesday, setting a new record as the most expensive piece of art ever sold at auction. To mere mortals it hardly seemed like a bargain but someone, somewhere, last night decided that owning a rare version of Edvard Munch's iconic painting The Scream was worth shelling out an eye-watering 119.9 million dollars (£74m).
The sale at Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art auction featured other works by Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and Joan Miro, but Munch's vibrant piece was the centerpiece of the auction in a salesroom packed with collectors, bidders and the media. The price, one of the highest ever paid for a work of art and the highest for one bought at an open auction, came after just 12 minutes of bidding and was won by a so-far anonymous telephone bidder.
The vibrant pastel from 1895 was conservatively estimated to sell for about $80 million at Sotheby's, but two determined bidders drove the final price to $107 million, or $119,922,500 including commission, during a 15-minute bidding war. As the auctioneer's gavel came down at Sotheby's in New York the crowd in the room cheered the remarkable event. Bidding had started at a relatively modest 50 millon dollars with at least five interested parties but the field had rapidly winnowed as the price sky-rocketed.
One of four versions by the Scandinavian painter, which was being sold by Norwegian businessman Petter Olsen, The Scream easily eclipsed the old auction record held by Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, which went for $106.5 million at Christie's two years ago. The intense interest in the paining is mostly due to it's huge stature in both the art world and in global popular culture. The 1895 painting, which is one of only four versions of the work in existence and widely seen as the best one, is one of a handful of artistic images that have crossed over from the world of high art to popular culture.
The sales room at Sotheby's erupted in applause and cheering when the hammer came down. The buyer, who won the auction via telephone bidding, was not identified by Sotheby's. It has inspired film references from the knife-wielding villain of the Scream slasher movies to a famous scene in Home Alone, where child star Macauley Culkin imitated the painting's famous pose.
In recent decades The Scream, a picture of a person with hands pressed to head against a backdrop of swirling vibrant colours, has become a ubiquitous image, appropriated for everything from coffee mugs to editorial cartoons. For many mainstream art lovers, it is perhaps second in familiarity only to the Mona Lisa and is certainly among the best-known works of art still in private hands. It is also greatly celebrated by the therapy industry with it's horrific depiction of stress and terror.
Three other images of The Scream, including two which were stolen and later recovered, are in museums in Norway. "This is not a a beautiful landscape in Surrey or a harbour on the French Riviera. It is a representation of extreme anxiety. Imagine if a shrink in London had this on their wall. It's a fantastic painting for their profession. Of course, they could not afford it," said Mark Winter, director of Munch Experts, a company which specialises in appraising and valuing works by the Norwegian expressionist.
Overall, the Sotheby's auction brought in $330.6 million and 80% of the lots on offer were sold. It was Sotheby's highest total ever for an Impressionist and Modern Art auction. This version is the only one whose frame was hand-painted by the artist to include his poem which explains the work's inspiration where Munch described himself "shivering with anxiety" and feeling "the great scream in nature".
Picasso's Femme assise dans un fauteuil sold for $29.2 million, Miro's Tete humaine went under the hammer at $14.86 million and Dali's Printemps necrophilique was auctioned at $16.3 million. All those prices included sales commission. It was sold by Norwegian businessman Petter Olsen, whose father was a friend and patron of the artist, and proceeds of the sale will fund a new museum, art centre and hotel in Hvitsten, Norway, where Olsen's father and Munch were neighbours.
"It is a unique chance for someone to acquire this version. It is the crown jewel of the four but you really need a national budget to buy it. And not the budget of a small country either," said Winter.
Now The Scream will join a select group of works that have sold for more than a 100 million dollars, including Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust which sold in 2010 for 106.5 million dollars.
Yet even that hefty price tag feels like a snip compared to the staggering 250 million dollars paid by oil-rich Qatar to snag Paul Cezanne's The Card Players for a new art museum. Details of that deal only emerged earlier this year, but it was struck in 2011.
Simon Shaw, head of Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art in New York, said the work was one of the most important to ever emerge from private hands on to the open market. "Instantly recognisable this is one of the very few images which transcends art history and reaches a global icon. The Scream arguably embodies even greater power today than when it was conceived," he said.