A work by Jean-Michel Basquiat featured behind the artist on the 1985 cover of The New York Times Magazine—a story that confirmed the artist’s stardom—sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong for HKD 289 million ($37.2 million). The untitled triptych is now the eighth most expensive Basquiat work sold at auction.
The painting depicts two figures; one painted fully-black with teeth and intestines exposed and another riding what appears to be a donkey. The work was sold during a live-streamed evening sale at Sotheby’s Hong Kong curated by Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou.
Only two phone bidders competed for the work. the painting was then sold to the buyer on the phone with Sotheby’s Asia Chairman Nicholas Chow. The work hammered at HKD 250 million ($32.2 million), below its HKD 255 million ($32.8 million) low estimate, amid a silent auction room.
Despite the work’s visibility in an important milestone in the artist’s career, it failed to generate the bidding drama many top Basquiat lots typically do at auction. Some reasons for that may lie in the fact that the untitled work is without the signature features many collectors look for in Basquiat’s works: images of skulls, the artist’s distinctive crown image, the coded words or scrawls. The work also falls far from the coveted year, 1982.
The anonymous seller of the work purchased it from an American collector at an unknown date. The previous owner purchased it at Christie’s London in 2005 for just £1 million.