PARIS.- The Post-War and Contemporary Art department has realised €79M for the year 2019 in France, making it one of the highest result for the department.

Laetitia Bauduin, Director of the department: “These very strong results prove that our strategy to offer three milestones during the year is rewarding. The highlight of the year is with no doubt our Paris Avant-Garde sale which attracts more and more international collectors and which is getting stronger over the years. We are particularly pleased to have established a new world auction record for Nicolas de Staël for which Parc des Princes was sold for 20,000,000 euros, and becomes the highest price achieved for a post-war and contemporary work sold in France this year".

The top lot of these two sales was Concetto spaziale [Attese] by Lucio Fontana which sold for €2,650,000.

The international bidders coming from 20 countries registered in last night’s sale paid a beautiful tribute to Jean Dubuffet through three of his works coming from the prestigious collection of Eileen and I.M Pei. The Brouette I (1964) was sold for €634,000 against a presale estimate of €350,000-550,000, the poetic Voyage du grand nuage (1955) achieved €125,000 and the Chaise bleue (1967) realised €262,000; bringing the grand total for this splendid collection to US$36,5 million.

Further highlights of the evening sale included Keith Haring’s monumental and emblematic work, Untitled, executed in 1988 and which was acquired for €2,230,000 while Yu-Gyo by Japanese artist Kazuo Shiraga was sold for €778,000 against a presale estimate of €350,000-450,000.

The Day Sale which attracted international bidders from 22 countries realized strong prices such as for Serge Poliakoff’s Composition abstraite which was sold for €237,500 against a presale estimate of €120,000-180,000 and for Pierre Alechinsky impressive painting Le Bélier which realised €175,000 against a presale estimate of €70,000-100,000.