Andy Warhol was this week emerging as the star of contemporary art sales in New York with a 1962 painting of a young, between husbands, Elizabeth Taylor selling for $63m (£39m) and a Coca-Cola bottle selling for $35m. The 2.1 metre (7 feet) coke bottle had eight bidders battling it out at Sotheby's last night before it eventually went for a price well in excess of the $20-25m estimate. For Sotheby's, it was a buoyant contemporary sales night with $225.5m being spent, above the estimate of $214m and considerably more than the $134m spent at last year's equivalent sale.
The previous evening at Phillips de Pury's new Manhattan saleroom, Warhol's 'Men in Her Life' – based on an image of Taylor – hadachieved the second-highest price paid for a Warhol at auction, with the record set at Christie's in 2007 when $71.7m was paid for Green Car Crash (Green Car Burning I).
The next Warhol up for auction will be a Campbell's vegetable soup can due to be sold at Christie's tonight with an estimate of $30-50m.
