Art works from Microsoft founder Paul Allen's collection fetches $1.6B
All 155 of the artworks put up for auction in New York sold, with the proceeds going to charity's selected by Allen's estate
Major works of art that were owned by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen went for big bucks at a two-day Christie's auction.
Included were works by artists including Cézanne, Seurat, and van Gogh.
The auction brought in a record-breaking $1.6 billion.
All 155 of the artworks put up for auction Wednesday and Thursday in New York sold, and five paintings sold for prices above $100 million.
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Staff hang a Claude Monet 1904 painting 'Waterloo Bridge, temps couvert', for display at Christie's in London. ((AP Photo/Sang Tan, File) / AP Newsroom)
Georges Seurat’s pointillist "Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version)" sold for $149.2 million, Wednesday evening's highest price.
Christie's experts said that pointillism, a technique when it was developed by Seurat and Paul Signac involving dots of color that combine to form an image, was of particular interest to Allen because of his computer background.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, died from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2018. (REUTERS/Richard Clement / Reuters Photos)
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Other highlights from Wednesday's sale included Paul Cézanne’s "La Montagne Sainte-Victoire," which sold for $137.8 million, and van Gogh's landscape "Verger avec cyprès," which sold for $117.2 million.
"La Montagne Sainte-Victoire" by Paul Cezanne, an oil on canvas from the Paul G. Allen Collection. ((Christie's/Courtesy of the Paul G. Allen Estate via AP, File) / AP Newsroom)
Topping the sales Thursday was Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen's sculpture, "Typewriter Eraser, Scale X," which fetched $8.4 million.
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All proceeds will benefit philanthropies chosen by Allen's estate.
Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with his childhood friend Bill Gates, died from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2018.
The Associated Press contributed to this report