Two works from Andy Warhol’s Death and Disaster series have sold for a combined $100 million at Christie’s in New York.
1964’s Race Riot – inspired by pictures of a notorious civil rights protest in Birmingham, Alabama – went for $62.9 million.
The 1962 painting White Marilyn, completed shortly after Marilyn Monroe took her life, sold for $41 million.
Alongside works by Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, the paintings helped Christie’s set a new auction record.
In total, the sale of post-war and contemporary art raised $744 million, the highest ever total for a single auction.
The previous highest figure was set in November 2013, also at Christie’s, when the grand total was $691.5 million.
Ten auction records were set at Tuesday night’s sale, with works by American sculptor Alexander Calder and artist Joseph Cornell fetching new high prices.
After a fierce round of bidding, Newman’s Black Fire I, a 1961 canvas showing a thick column of black alongside smaller ribbons of white and black, made $84.2 million, almost double his previous highest price.
Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards surged to $80.8 million, from an opening bid of $50 million.
