Tecnología: These 10 Pieces of Art Just Sold for Almost $800 Million (BusinessWeek)

The art market is on such a tear even the insiders are scratching their heads. Since New York’s spring sales started last week, at least $2.1 billion of art has been sold at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, with the top 10 lots accounting for almost $800 million.

Christie’s said collectors from 35 countries were bidding at its May 11 sale while Sotheby’s said clients from more than 40 countries were out in force the next evening. They jockeyed for Impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary art.

Christie’s Global President and auctioneer Jussi Pylkkanen takes bids on Pablo Picasso’s “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’),” which sold for nearly $179.4 million, setting a world record for artwork at auction, during a sale at Rockefeller Center in New York on May 11.

“There’s a lot of money out there and people are chasing great works,” said Mera Rubell, who, along with her husband, Don, runs a private museum in Miami showcasing their collection. “Now the young artists are selling for millions.”

That means bargain hunters will be sorely disappointed: Picasso and Monet may be at record highs, but prices for living (if not quite young) artists are nipping at their heels. The 60-year-old Christopher Wool’s canvas spelling “Riot” in chunky black letters sold for $29.9 million — the same price paid for a 1948 Picasso portrait of his lover Francoise Gilot.

Records were smashed. In just 11 minutes, bidding for a Picasso surged from $100 million to $160 million before settling at $179.4 million, the most expensive work ever purchased at auction. The value of the work increased by 462 percent.

You know the market is frothy when a Monet that sells for $40.5 million doesn’t make the final cut for a top 10 list.

Pablo Picasso’s “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’)” sold for a record $179.4 million.

This is the most expensive work ever sold at auction: Pablo Picasso’s colorful 1955 painting “Women of Algiers.” The price smashed the record held by Francis Bacon’s $142.4 million triptych, “Three Studies of Lucian Freud,’’ since November 2013. The Picasso buyer so far is unidentified. (Christie’s, May 11)

Alberto Giacometti, “L’Homme au Doigt,” $141.3 million

Mark Rothko “No. 10,” $81.9 million

Pablo Picasso, “Buste de Femme (Femme a la Resille),” $67.4 million

Vincent Van Gogh, “L’Allée des Alyscamps,” $66.3 million

Lucian Freud, “Benefits Supervisor Resting,” $56.2 million

Andy Warhol “Colored Mona Lisa,” $56.2 million

Claude Monet, “Nympheas,” $54 million

Francis Bacon “Portrait of Henrietta Moraes,” $47.8 million