Still’s abstract most valuable artworks at auction in 2011

Clyfford Still’s abstract painting 1949-A-No.1 that fetched $61.7 million at Sotheby’s tops the Bloomberg list of the most valuable artworks at auction in 2011.

According to Bloomberg News calculations, the priciest 10 lots valued at USD 413.6 million, compared with a total of USD 698.6 million in 2010.

The report added that the value of the most expensive works of art sold at the auction have witnessed a 41 percent decrease in 2011.

Roy Lichtenstein’s I Can See the Whole Room!… And There’s Nobody in It! valued at USD 43.2 million at Christie’s on November 8 is placed on the second place of the list.

Il Canal Grande da Palazzo Balbi by Francesco Guardi fetched USD 42.7 million at Sotheby’s on July 6 and ranked third on the list.

Spanish master Pablo Picasso’s La Lecture was selected as the fourth expensive painting of the year 2011 with a value of USD 40.5 million at Sotheby’s on February 8.

Other artworks named on the list include Gustav Klimt’s Litzlberg am Attersee, Egon Schiele’s Houses with Laundry (Suburb II), Andy Warhol’s Self-Portrait, Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for a Portrait of Lucian Freud, George Stubbs’s Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath, with a Trainer, a Stable-Lad, and a Jockey and Mark Rothko’s Untitled #17.

According to the report, none of the artworks could cross the USD 100 million threshold in 2011. This comes while in 2010, Pablo Picasso’s 1932 painting “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” fetched USD 106.5 million at Christie International, and Alberto Giacometti’s bronze “Walking Man,” were sold for USD 103.4 million at Sotheby’s.