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A Jackson Pollock painting titled Number 7A, 1948 sold for $181 million (£135 million) at Christie’s auction house in New York on Monday. The sale set a new auction record for the late American artist, surpassing all previous results for his work. Described by experts as one of history's first truly abstract paintings, the masterpiece was the centerpiece of the evening's auction.
The painting, which came from the private collection of media magnate SI Newhouse, is also now the fourth most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, according to ARTnews.
Also in the collection was a bronze sculpture by Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi, which sold for $107.6m - the second highest amount a sculpture has ever gone for at auction.
Pollock, who died in 1956, was a major figure in the abstract expressionist art movement. His drip painting technique is one of the art world's most recognisable and often imitated.
The previous auction record for one of Pollock's artworks was $61.2m for his Number 17, 1951 painting, which was sold in 2021. Other pieces have sold for higher prices in private sales.
Christie's called Number 7A, 1948, which depicts black drips of paint with touches of red on a huge canvas spanning more than three metres, a key piece of art history.
"It is with this work that Pollock finally frees himself from the shackles of conventional easel painting and produces one of the first truly abstract paintings in the history of art," it wrote in its description of the piece online.
Other artworks sold at the Christie's auction included pieces by Mark Rothko and Joan Miró.
