Picasso's Women of Algiers smashes auction record

Picasso's Women of Algiers has become the most expensive painting to sell at auction, going for $160m (£102.6m) at Christie's in New York.

Eleven minutes of prolonged bidding from telephone buyers preceded the final sale - for much more than its pre-sale estimate of $140m.

The final price of $179.3m (£115m) includes commission of just over 12%.

The sale also featured Alberto Giacometti's life-size sculpture Pointing Man, which set its own record.

It is now the most expensive sculpture sold at auction, after going for $141.3m (£90.6m). Both buyers chose to remain anonymous.

The previous world record for a painting sold at auction was $142.4m, for British painter Francis Bacon's Three Studies of Lucian Freud in 2013.

The Picasso oil painting is a vibrant, cubist depiction of nude courtesans, and is part of a 15-work series the Spanish artist created in 1954-55 designated with the letters A to O.

"This is an absolutely blockbuster picture - it's one of the most exciting pictures that we've seen on the market for 10 years," said Philip Hoffman, founder and CEO of the Fine Art Fund Group.

"Yes there are one or two [Picassos] that could even smash that record but it has a huge wall presence, it's a big show-off picture.

"For anybody that wants to have a major Picasso, this is it - and $179m in 10 years' time will probably look inexpensive," said Hoffman.

The previous world record for a painting sold at auction was $142.4m, for British painter Francis Bacon's Three Studies of Lucian Freud in 2013.

The Picasso oil painting is a vibrant, cubist depiction of nude courtesans, and is part of a 15-work series the Spanish artist created in 1954-55 designated with the letters A to O.

"This is an absolutely blockbuster picture - it's one of the most exciting pictures that we've seen on the market for 10 years," said Philip Hoffman, founder and CEO of the Fine Art Fund Group.

"Yes there are one or two [Picassos] that could even smash that record but it has a huge wall presence, it's a big show-off picture.

"For anybody that wants to have a major Picasso, this is it - and $179m in 10 years' time will probably look inexpensive," said Hoffman.

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From BBC News

This is the most expensive artwork ever sold!

This painting of two girls from Tahiti has become the most expensive artwork ever sold.

Nafea Faa Ipoipo (Tahitian for When Will You Marry?), by French artist Paul Gauguin, has just been bought for £197 MILLION.

The artwork was painted in 1892

It was previously owned by a Swiss art collector, who had loaned it to a museum in Switzerland for decades.

The buyer's identity hasn't been revealed, but it's reported to be a museum in Qatar, in the Middle East.

The previous record holder was a painting called The Card Players by another French artist, Paul Cezanne. It fetched £158 million.

From CBBC newsround

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin  7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist who was not well appreciated until after his death. Gauguin was later recognized for his experimental use of colour and synthetist style that were distinguishably different from Impressionism. His work was influential to the French avant-garde and many modern artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Gauguin’s art became popular after his death and many of his paintings were in the possession of Russian collector Sergei Shchukin.

He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer. His bold experimentation with color led directly to the Synthetist style of modern art, while his expression of the inherent meaning of the subjects in his paintings, under the influence of the cloisonnist style, paved the way to Primitivism and the return to the pastoral. He was also an influential proponent of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms. in Wikipedia

Paul Gauguin's Complete Works

Water Lilies painting Nympheas by Monet sells for £32m

A 1906 Claude Monet water lilies painting, Nympheas, has sold for £31.7m in London, the second highest price ever paid for the artist at an auction.

Inspired by the lily pond in Monet's garden at Giverny in France, the painting was the top lot at Sotheby's sale of modern and impressionist works.

The dream-like Impressionist painting Nympheas dates back to 1906 and was bought by an anonymous bidder.

Nympheas was the centrepiece of a seminal exhibition in 1909 that unveiled Monet's Water Lily series at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris.

The painting was in the personal collection of French art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel throughout his life.

It has since been displayed in the world's top art galleries, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris.

Another painting from the same series, Le Bassin Aux Nympheas (Pool of Water Lilies), still holds the record for a Monet painting sold at auction. It fetched $85.3 million at Christie's in London in 2008.

The series of about 250 oil paintings, which was Monet's main focus during his last 30 years, is seen as the French artist's greatest achievement.

It had a huge impact on the evolution of modern art.

"The Nympheas selling for such a huge sum is again a reflection that this is still a market that is driven by trophies, that the great works by the major masters are still really sought after," said Philip Hook from Sotheby's.