Sotheby's moves into the Breuer: Klimt makes history

Another historic night working with the Associated Press and Sotheby's where we witnessed the sale of Gustav Klimt's, 'Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer'. The painting sold for $234 Million. This sale makes it the world's most expensive work of art sold at auction and second most expensive over all. (Read more about the painting's history - AP and sale here - WSJ) Also on view and sale were works by Keith Haring, Cecily Brown, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jess, Mark Tansey, Edward Hopper, Roy Lichtenstein and so many more.

Best Prompting was there with a 85" monitor mounted in the back of the room for the Auctioneers to find their words for auction intros, buyers premiums and notes of sales and the lot details as well as closing remarks.

Backstage we had a two Macbook Pros set up with Blackmagic ATEM for in show updates to the script as the auction unfolded. This was the first Sotheby's auction to take place in their new home on Madison Ave in the Breuer building that formally housed the Whitney Museum of American Art, briefly was part of the MET and even hosted the Frick Collection during renovations.

Basquiat

Cecily Brown

Edward Hopper

Keith Haring

Roy Lichtenstein

Klimt - Munch

Tansey

Pettibon & Brown

Also on sale this week was the solid 18k gold toilet called, "America" by artist/provocateur Maurizio Cattelan. That auction had underwhelming results in my opinion selling for $12M with few bidders interested. (read more here: ArtNews) This was surprising especially compared to the banana auction last year.

Stay tuned for more images from behind the lenses....