Basquiat painting sells for R1.3bn

– Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting In this Case sold for $93.1 million (about R1.3 billion) in an auction this week at Christie’s in New York, the second-highest price paid for a work by the late artist.

The 1983 painting, which depicts a skull on a red background, sold for $81 million, but with fees and commissions the final price came to $93.1 million, well above the estimate of $50 million.

It was another skull, Untitled, that set the record for the most expensive by Basquiat (1960-1988), which went for $110.5 million in May 2017 at Sotheby’s in New York.

In This Case reprises two dominant themes in Basquiat’s work, anatomy and representation of African-American characters.

In a sign of Basquiat’s growing status in the art world, the same canvas was sold in November 2002 for just $999 500.

With the exception of New York-based Basquiat, African-American painters have long been undervalued by collectors and underrepresented in museums.