Jackson Pollock painting sells for record $181m at auction

A Jackson Pollock artwork, described as one of history’s “first truly abstract paintings”, has sold at auction for $181m (£135m) in New York.

Number 7A, 1948, which went under the hammer at the renowned Christie’s auction house on Monday, smashed the previous record for the most a work by the late American artist has taken at auction.

The painting, which came from the private collection of media magnate SI Newhouse, is also now the fourth most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, according to ARTnews.

Also in the collection was a bronze sculpture by Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi, which sold for $107.6m – the second highest amount a sculpture has ever gone for at auction.

Pollock, who died in 1956, was a major figure in the abstract expressionist art movement. His drip painting technique is one the art world’s most recognisable and often imitated.

The previous auction record for one of Pollock’s artworks was $61.2m for his Number 17, 1951 painting, which was sold in 2021. Other pieces have sold for higher prices in private sales.

Christie’s called Number 7A, 1948, which depicts black drips of paint with touches of red on a huge canvas spanning more than three metres, a key piece of art history.

“It is with this work that Pollock finally frees himself from the shackles of conventional easel painting and produces one of the first truly abstract paintings in the history of art,” it wrote in its description of the piece online.

Other artworks sold at the Christie’s auction included pieces by Mark Rothko and Joan Miro, which also both broke previous records for works by the artists at auction.

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