ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½

Skip to main content

Art from Microsoft founder Paul Allen sells for $1.5 billion

This undated photo provided by Christie's shows "Small False Start," 1960, by Jasper Johns, encaustic, acrylic and paper collage on fiberboard, from the Paul G. Allen Collection. The painting was one of 60 pieces from the Paul G. Allen collection auctioned by Christie's in New York, on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022, bringing $1.5 billion in a single night. (Christie's/Courtesy of the Paul G. Allen Estate via AP, File) This undated photo provided by Christie's shows "Small False Start," 1960, by Jasper Johns, encaustic, acrylic and paper collage on fiberboard, from the Paul G. Allen Collection. The painting was one of 60 pieces from the Paul G. Allen collection auctioned by Christie's in New York, on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022, bringing $1.5 billion in a single night. (Christie's/Courtesy of the Paul G. Allen Estate via AP, File)
Share
NEW YORK -

Works by artists including Cezanne, Seurat, and van Gogh sold for a record-breaking $1.5 billion during the first part of Christie's two-day auction of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen's masterpiece-heavy collection.

All 60 of the artworks put up for auction Wednesday night in New York sold, and five paintings sold for prices above $100 million.

Georges Seurat's pointillist "Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version)" sold for $149.2 million, the evening's highest price. The larger version of "Les Poseuses" is at the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia.

Christie's experts said that pointillism, a revolutionary technique when it was developed by Seurat and Paul Signac involving dots of colour that combine to form an image, was of particular interest to Allen because of his computer background.

The auction house quoted Allen saying he was "attracted to things like pointillism or a Jasper Johns `numbers' work because they come from breaking something down into its components -- like bytes or numbers, but in a different kind of language."

Other highlights from Wednesday's sale included Paul Cezanne's "La Montagne Sainte-Victoire," which sold for $137.8 million, and van Gogh's landscape "Verger avec cypres," which sold for $117.2 million.

"Never before have more than two paintings exceeded $100 million in a single sale, but tonight, we saw five,' Max Carter, vice chair of 20th and 21st-century art at Christie's, said in a news release.

Eighteen works sold for record prices for the artists, who ranged from the 17th-century Flemish painter Jan Brueghel the Younger to the 20th-century photographer Edward Steichen.

All proceeds from the sale will benefit philanthropies chosen by Allen's estate.

Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with his childhood friend Bill Gates, died from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2018. During his lifetime, he donated more than $2 billion to causes including ocean health, homelessness and advancing scientific research.

The previous single-evening auction record of $852.9 million was set at Christie's contemporary art sale in New York in 2014.

The Paul Allen estate sale continued on Thursday.

CTVNews.ca ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½

The province's public security minister said he was "shocked" Thursday amid reports that a body believed to be that of a 14-year-old boy was found this week near a Hells Angels hideout near Quebec City.

Since she was a young girl growing up in Vancouver, Ginny Lam says her mom Yat Hei Law made it very clear she favoured her son William, because he was her male heir.

An Ontario man says it is 'unfair' to pay a $1,500 insurance surcharge because his four-year-old SUV is at a higher risk of being stolen.

The Montreal couple from Mexico and their three children facing deportation have received a temporary residence permit.

Local Spotlight

They say a dog is a man’s best friend. In the case of Darren Cropper, from Bonfield, Ont., his three-year-old Siberian husky and golden retriever mix named Bear literally saved his life.

A growing group of brides and wedding photographers from across the province say they have been taken for tens of thousands of dollars by a Barrie, Ont. wedding photographer.

Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.

The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is celebrating an important milestone in the organization's history: 50 years since the first women joined the force.

It's been a whirlwind of joyful events for a northern Ontario couple who just welcomed a baby into their family and won the $70 million Lotto Max jackpot last month.

A Good Samaritan in New Brunswick has replaced a man's stolen bottle cart so he can continue to collect cans and bottles in his Moncton neighbourhood.

David Krumholtz, known for roles like Bernard the Elf in The Santa Clause and physicist Isidor Rabi in Oppenheimer, has spent the latter part of his summer filming horror flick Altar in Winnipeg. He says Winnipeg is the most movie-savvy town he's ever been in.

Edmontonians can count themselves lucky to ever see one tiger salamander, let alone the thousands one local woman says recently descended on her childhood home.