$140m for Pollock

The $140m quoted as the price obtained by Sotheby's for Pollock's Number 5, 1948 would make it the highest figure known to have ever been paid for a painting. The story was broken in yesterday's New York Times, which reported that the painting had been put up for purchase by its current owner, David Geffen. Ranked number 45 in the Forbes list of richest Americans, with a net worth of $4.5bn, Geffen was one of the three founders along with Steven Spielberg of the Dreamworks movie studios. He is a keen collector of American artists' work, including Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. Last month he sold two other paintings by Jasper Johns and de Kooning for a combined sum of $143.5m, prompting speculation that he was storing up resources for a bid to buy the Los Angeles Times newspaper. The buyer of the Pollock, according to the sources quoted anonymously by the New York Times, was a Mexican financier who is also shrouded in secrecy, David Martinez. Little is known about him other than that he has recently embarked on a blitz of fine art purchasing. He bought a de Kooning at the Basel art fair in June for $15.5m. He is also known to have spent $55m buying his apartment at Columbus Circle in Manhattan. The Pollock work, Number 5, 1948, 4 ft by 8ft and is one of his first drip paintings. For the full story - click the title Irish Art