A floral painting by the late US artist Georgia O’Keefe has sold for $44.4m (£28.8m) at auction, setting a record for an artwork by a female artist.
The piece smashes the previous record of $11.9m (£7.5m) for an untitled work by Joan Mitchell, set in May.
Sotheby’s in New York said the $15m (£9.5m) estimate on O’Keefe’s work was shattered after an intense bidding war between two rivals.
The art auction record is $142.4m (£90.8m) for a Francis Bacon piece.
The British artist’s triptych, Three Studies of Lucien Freud, was sold at auction last year.
O’Keefe, who died in 1986 at the age of 98, was celebrated for her large-format depictions of flowers which she painted as if they had been seen in close-up.
Her Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1 smashed the own artist’s previous best of $6.2m (£3.9m) set in 2001, and was one of three works which were placed in the sale.
It was offered at auction by the O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which holds a large body of the artist’s works.
The proceeds of the sale will be put towards the museum’s acquisitions funds.
Analysis by Will Gompertz, BBC Arts Editor
What struck me about the Georgia O’Keeffe sale was not the high price paid for the work. Nor was it the discrepancy between what the market will pay for art made by men and what it will pay for art made by women, the reasons for which have never been entirely clear.
Is it ingrained sexism, or, as Germaine Greer told me, that in her opinion, historically work by female artists has generally not been as good as that produced by their male …read more
Source:: BBC Entertainment
