Martin Kippenberger auction record set at Christie's New York

An untitled painting by Martin Kippenberger set a new auction record for the artist at Christie's May 12 auction in New York.

The lot achieved an increase of 55% on a $12m estimate, selling for $18.6m. This latest result equates to a substantial 264.7% increase on his previous record sale, set at £3.2m ($5.1m) at Christie's London in 2012.

The fact that this is one of the German artist's best known paintings is likely to be the cause of the growth.

Martin Kippenberger Christie's
Martin Kippenberger's series of self portraits parody a photograph of Picasso

Kippenberger (1953-1997) worked in a range of mediums including sculpture, performance and painting, and brought a punk ethos to the art world during his career.

He is perhaps best known for the series of self-portraits he produced during the late 1980s - from which the current painting is drawn - that were based on David Douglas Duncan's iconic photo of Pablo Picasso.

Christie's International Specialist Loic Gouzer commented that the contemporary art on offer saw "strong demand with fierce competition from a largely international collector base."

"Martin Kippenberger's Untitled was sold for the world record price of $18,645,000, after six minutes of bidding from in the room and on the phone."

Road House by Peter Doig also performed well, achieving $11.9m - a new auction record for the artist.

Doig is a Scottish born artist whose dreamy and abstract work is inspired by a variety of different sources, most notably in his series of paintings inspired by the closing scene of 1980s horror Friday the 13th.  

The contemporary day auction took place 24 hours before Christie's Post War and Contemporary evening sale, which will include work from Francis Bacon and Andy Warhol

It was expressly directed at younger people, with a video released on the company's website showing a skateboarder riding past the works on offer.

We have a superb range of art and photography memorabilia available, including this signed drawing by Damien Hirst.

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