Bacon Art Sets New Record

“When I die, my paintings won’t be worth anything, I’ll be forgotten,” Francis Bacon once told a friend, the Times reports. How wrong the artist, who died in 1992, was. One of his canvases was sold Feb 7th for £26.34 million, breaking the record for any postwar and contemporary work of art sold in Europe. What he would have made of the fact that so many people wanted to attend this art auction that bookings were required is anyone’s guess. Almost 1,000 collectors, art dealers and hangers-on descended on Christie’s in London to witness the sale as a barometer of the art market. After sipping water and juice in the foyer, they took their seats in three separate salerooms to watch the theatre of six-figure sums being tossed from one corner of the room to another. Despite worries in the City and the banking and credit crisis, those with an unquenchable thirst for modern art are not short of cash. Months after coaxing art collectors into paying £18.5 million for a Monet, Jussi Pylkkanen was back on the rostrum to sell Bacon’s Triptych 1974-77. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art