Christie’s Auction: Art, Money, Excitement, Disappointment

Last week, I wrote about crashing the Met Gala by means of sheer luck and a bit of wiliness. It turned out to be a disappointing experience. When you get up close to high-society glamour, you realize it’s a façade — celebrities are regular people doing regular things, just with more money. I gained little more than bragging rights.

It was a slightly different experience on Tuesday when I found myself at an art auction at Christie’s New York. Founded in London in 1766, Christie’s today is one of the world’s premier auction houses, with locations in some of the world’s most fashionable cities (Paris, Milan, Dubai, and the like). The one in midtown Manhattan is the Christie’s flagship, and regularly breaks price records for world-class art. The night before, Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn — images of which, until today, were being projected onto buildings at Rockefeller Plaza — sold for $195 million, a record-setting price for an American painting and for a 20th-century painting.

AS

About the Author

Arjun Singh

Arjun Singh is an editorial intern at National Review.

Featured Tags

Manage following

New York City

Last week, I wrote about crashing the Met Gala by means of sheer luck and a bit of wiliness. It turned out to be a disappointing experience. When you get up close to high-society glamour, you realize it’s a façade — celebrities are regular people doing regular things, just with more money. I gained little more than bragging rights.

It was a slightly different experience on Tuesday when I found myself at an art auction at Christie’s New York. Founded in London in 1766, Christie’s today is one of the world’s premier auction houses, with locations in some of the world’s most fashionable cities (Paris, Milan, Dubai, and the like). The one in midtown Manhattan is the Christie’s flagship, and regularly breaks price records for world-class art. The night before, Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn — images of which, until today, were being projected onto buildings at Rockefeller Plaza — sold for $195 million, a record-setting price for an American painting and for a 20th-century painting.