Gerhard Richter Sets a New Record at Sotheby’s

The paintings of artist Gerhard Richter are being snapped up like gold bars! Richter’s painting “Domplatz, Mailand”, an oil representing the Piazza del Duomo in Milan, was sold Tuesday at a Sotheby’s auction in New York for a whopping $37,125,000 to collector Don Bryant, founder of the California-based Bryant Family Vineyard Napa.

The German artist broke his own record, for his piece “Abstraktes Bild (890-4)”, which was auctioned by Sotheby’s for $34.2 million last October in London. As a result of these two sales, Richter is now considered to be the highest-earning living artist in the world. And it’s not just collectors who are enthused with the artist; a retrospective devoted to the artist at the Pompidou Center in Paris that ran from June and September 2012 attracted 425,000 visitors. Richter’s signature mix of abstract and figurative styles has officially become part of the canon.

“Domplatz, Mailand” was sold as part of a Sotheby’s auction dedicated to contemporary art. The sale proved disappointing for other artists, with works such as Francis Bacon’s “Study for Portrait of PL” fetching estimates of $30-40 million but not finding any bidders.

Photo credit: ANTONY DICKSON/AFP via Figaro.