yesterday in New York passed the evening auction Christie's postwar and contemporary works of art. The first part of the auction, in which customers were offered works from the collection of the famous American writer and screenwriter Michael Crichton, fetched 93.32 million dollars. Top-lot auction was a sheet of Jasper Johns "Flag", which substantially exceeded estimeyt at 10-15 million dollars and was sold for the sum of 28.64 million dollars.

The work of Jasper Johns "Flag", one of the most memorable images of the XX century, painted in the encaustic technique around 1960-1966 years and is an excellent interpretation of the image of the American flag. She had never appeared on the market. Michael Crichton bought the canvas for more than 30 years ago directly from the artist. The last time the product was brought to the attention of the public 18 years ago in the exhibition of paintings of pop art, held at London's Royal Academy of Arts. Cloth Jones historically is one of the first iconic images of Pop Art, replacing the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning and to pave the way for new daily images of Warhol and Lichtenstein. This work Jones is among the greatest cultural artifacts of all time along with the "Mona Lisa" Da Vinci's "Marilyn" Warhol.

Among the top lots should be noted "studio work (collage) "Robert Rauschenberg and the canvas by Pablo Picasso's" Woman with children ».

Source: press release Christie's