The evening sale of Post-War and Contemporary Art on 24 May 2023 at Dorotheum, which was markedly international with regard both to its offer and its participants, predominantly featured Italian, German, American and Austrian art.

A matte black Concetto Spaziale (Spatial Concept) by Lucio Fontana, arguably the most influential Italian artist of the post-war period, garnered a stunning 875,000 euros. Alighiero Boetti’s rare four-part ballpoint work, “non parto non resto,” a poetic wordplay, fetched 650,000 euros. A canvas dealing with the colour spectrum of light by German ZERO artist Heinz Mack achieved an outstanding 452,000 euros, his “Black Mountains” 367,250 euros.

Austrian art by Franz West, Arnulf Rainer and Hermann Nitsch, among others, was also much sought after. The sale was also characterised by an international record price: 65,000 euros is the best auction result to date for a work by Otto Zitko.

A lively interest - via live bidding - and an excellent sale rate also marked the Modern Art auction the day before. The most impressive result on 23 May 2023 was the price of 706,250 euros for a proto-expressionist work by the German-Russian painter Alexej von Jawlensky. The oil painting was executed in 1904/05 and depicts a “Laid Table” viewed from above. A flower painting by Giorgio Morandi, only a few centimetres in size, realised 260,000 euros. A paper work by the German-French artist Wols (182,000 euros) and Giorgio de Chirico’s View of Venice from 1955 (nearly 300,000 euros) far exceeded expectations.