$93.1m for a Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting In this Case sold for $93.1 million (about R1.3 billion) on Tuesday at a Christie’s auction in New York.

It was 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). It went for $110.5 million in 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, barely more than a hundredth of the price paid on Tuesday.

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

On Tuesday, Christie’s presented several black artists as part of its big spring sale. –