Courtesy ArtDaily and #DiegoVociProject.com
Painting by Bacon will lead the highest valued auction of Contemporary art ever staged in London
LONDON.- On July 1 Sotheby’s in London will offer Francis Bacon’s famed painting, Study for a Pope I, 1961, estimated £25,000,000-35,000,000. Consumed by an obsession with Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Innocent X, the Irish-born artist created this monumental work specifically for his breakthrough retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1962. For 40 years the painting remained in the collection of the celebrated art collector (and infamous playboy) Gunter Sachs, before being sold at auction in 2005 for $10m (£5.8m), a record price for any work by Bacon at that time. The subsequent ten years have seen a meteoric rise in the value of paintings by the artist. Today, the record for a Bacon stands at $142m (£89.3 million), the highest price for any work of contemporary art at auction. With the artist’s critical and commercial standing at new heights, Study for a Pope I, will lead the highest estimated sale of contemporary art ever staged in London, estimated £143.2m-204.6m.
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