The Contemporary Art sale at Dorotheum on 23 May 2024 saw long contests and hefty bids.

A screen print series by Andy Warhol fetched almost 1.1 million euros. The master of Pop Art depicted ten celebrities, including artists and scientists, in his Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century in 1980. One of the figures portrayed is Franz Kafka, whose death anniversary marks its 100th year. Only a few examples of this art-historically significant series have survived in their entirety. The price achieved at Dorotheum is the highest auction result to date for this iconic portrait series.

Bids for the 1971 painting Thirsty Angel V (Annunciation) - Bounded Angel by Mikuláš Medek, a key protagonist of Czech post-war art who was ostracised under socialism, climbed to an outstanding 468,000 euros. Both of Emilio Vedova’s large-format paintings offered at the sale (De America No.2 and Oltre) reached impressive results, changing hands for 364,000 and 357,500 euros, respectively. A red relief painting by Antoni Tàpies garnered a stunning 364,000 euros.

Works by Gerhard Richter, Manolo Valdés, Carla Accardi, Serge Poliakoff, Allen Jones and Victor Vasarely also met with great interest among collectors. The Italians Toti Scialoja and Mario Ceroli and the American Paul Jenkins fetched record prices.

Among Austrian artists, works by Wolfgang Hollegha, Kurt (Kappa) Kocherscheidt and Arnulf Rainer were especially successful. Rainer’s black overpainting from 1960/61, the cover lot of the auction catalogue, sold for 169,000 euros.