Market News: Highest Price Paid for Murray at Auction
This work by Elizabeth Murray, Little Fingers (2001), sold at Sotheby’s on November 15 setting an all-time auction record for the artist.
In an exciting week at the fall auctions, the highest price paid for a work by Elizabeth Murray was set at Phillips only to be broken two days later in a separate sale at Sotheby’s.
On November 13, 2019, Phillips offered in its 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale a work which was long believed lost. The publication accompanying Murray’s career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 2005 illustrated 2. B. !, a unique work completed in October 1990, in an incorrect orientation and identified it as “lost or no longer extant.”
The pre-auction estimate for the work was $40,000-60,000. Bidding for the work opened at $40,000 and quickly soared to above $100,000. The final price paid was $200,000, setting the all-time highest price paid for a work by Elizabeth Murray at auction. Prior to this sale the highest price paid was $132,000 in 2007 at Sotheby’s for Murray’s seven-part painting titled Long Arm (1982).
Two days later, Little Fingers (2001) was offered at Sotheby’s Contemporary Day Sale on November 15, 2019. Pre-auction estimate for the work was $60,000-80,000. Bidding was aggressive and the painting quickly soared well beyond its early estimate. As the price neared $200,000, bidding seemed to slow slightly only to take off clearing $300,000. The final price paid was $437,500, breaking the previous day’s sale record and establishing a new highest price mark for the artist.
These results indicate clear market confidence in work of Elizabeth Murray. As predicted by Kenny Schachter earlier this year in Artnet News following a rocking sale of a paintings by Jennifer Bartlett and Elizabeth Murray at Sotheby’s: “Get out and get yourself a Bartlett and/or Murray […] they are both great and certain to reach higher heights.”