Andy Warhol’s Coke bottle sets art market fizzing with £22m sale

A mystery telephone bidder beat seven others to capture the almost seven-foot tall 1962 painting.

£138 million of art was sold in a packed auction room in Manhattan's Upper East Side which included couturier Valentino, model Stephanie Seymour and Hollywood mogul Michael Ovitz. 

Driven by wealthy collectors from Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, the art market continues to soar. Over £1 billion is expected to be spent on Modern and Impressionist art during New York's autumn auction season which concludes tonight with Christie's Modern Art sale headed by works by Warhol and Jeff Koons.

Among the big sellers during the season have been a Modigliani for £42.9million, a Matisse bronze for £30.3 million, a Juan Gris for £17.8 million and a Monet for £15.3 million.

Sotheby's auction last night was powered by pop art sales. Alex Rotter, head of Sotheby's contemporary art department, said of the Warhol work: "It's the most amazing thing in the world to me...it just proves Andy Warhol and Coca-Cola are the greatest things in America."

Mr Rotter added that it was not until the Eighties that the artist's work began to be recognised by buyers.

Warhol created the Coke painting in 1962. Artist Elizabeth Rea, who sold the painting, made a spectacular return given that she bought it for £89,000 at Christie's in 1983. It was the largest and last of the pop artist's four paintings of Coca-Cola bottles. The Coke canvas was one of five Warhols that went under the hammer with his 1986 depiction of The Last Supper selling for £4.2million.

It was also a good night for Francis Bacon. Figure in Movement, 1985, sold for £8.7 million. Mark Rothko's yellow, orange and white painting Untitled sold for £14 million; while Roy Lichtenstein's Ice Cream Soda, 1962, fetched £8.7 million and his 1972 work Still Life with Lobster went for £3.7 million. Six records for artists were broken.