Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Peter Doig, a relatively unknown U.K. painter, became the most expensive living European artist last night, Sotheby's said at its London sale that totaled 45.8 million pounds ($90.2 million), beating the auction house's top estimate.

Doig's ``White Canoe,'' which Charles Saatchi sold to Sotheby's last year, fetched 5.7 million pounds including commission, overtaking Lucian Freud's painting of a red-haired man in a chair, sold in 2005 for 4.2 million pounds. Doig's works cost less than 40,000 pounds in the 1990s.

``Some people just do not realize that this kind of price appreciation in such a short time is not rational, or they do realize and just don't care,'' said hedge-fund manager and art collector Adam Sender in an e-mail.

Wealthy young buyers from Russia to Asia have helped to raise prices of the top quarter of contemporary works 57 percent above their peak before 1990's crash. A Sotheby's employee grabbed the arm of the Doig buyer and dragged him away before this reporter could ask his name.

A dark-haired man in a blazer, he bought three or four lots last night and half a dozen paintings at London's Italian sales in October.

The main auction room was jammed. Dealers sat open-mouthed as Doig's price rose to five times the Scottish-born artist's previous record. Eleven new highs were set.

Gursky Record

They included records for Gerhard Richter, Frank Auerbach, Andreas Gursky and the duo Tim Noble & Sue Webster, whose blinking red heart previously lit Saatchi's London gallery and was bought by New York dealer Larry Gagosian.

The 1.7 million pounds paid for Gursky's ``99 Cents II'' double photograph was a record both for the artist and for a photo, beating Gursky's previous highest price for a diptych of the 99-cent store sold by Sender.

The hedge-fund manager said he paid $300,000 for the images, which in November, about three years later, sold for $2.5 million at Phillips de Pury & Co. in New York.

At its Olympia outlet yesterday, Sotheby's set a record for the one-time graffiti artist Banksy. ``Bombing Middle England,'' a work of acrylic and spray paint on canvas, took 102,000 pounds and doubled its top estimate.

Doig, born in Edinburgh in 1959, has lived in London, Canada and Trinidad, according to the Saatchi Gallery Web site. He was educated at St. Martin's School of Art, among other places, and he was a trustee of the Tate Gallery from 1995 to 2000.

``White Canoe,'' a 1991 painting of a boat on a lake that mirrors trees, was inspired by the 1980 movie ``Friday the 13th,'' according to Sotheby's.

Must Have

``It was always going to be something that someone absolutely had to have,'' said Henry Allsopp, a London dealer who said he dropped out of the bidding contest at 1.5 million pounds.

Nineteen percent of the lots didn't sell, including works by Martin Kippenberger, Thomas Scheibitz, Georg Baselitz, Antoni Tapies and Zao Wou-Ki. By value, 94.l percent of the lots were sold, confirming that higher-priced works did well.

``It's a new world,'' said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's New York- based contemporary art chief and the night's auctioneer. ``The new buyers don't care about price.''

Almost one in five of last night's buyers had never bought contemporary art at Sotheby's before, said Cheyenne Westphal, Meyer's London colleague. During the Dot.com bubble, too, rising prices drew in new buyers.

Publicly traded Sotheby's, whose shares tend to move up and down depending on its auctions' success, had valued its evening sale of contemporary art at between 28.5 million pounds and 39.4 million pounds, before commissions.

Bonus Bankers

The sale was part of an auction week that was expected to take in as much as 412 million pounds, according to estimates supplied to Bloomberg by the auction houses. Sotheby's said its evening sales of impressionist, modern and contemporary art were Europe's biggest ever. London's contemporary art sales, which auctioneers said may be aided by bonus-rich bankers, were valued at as much as 132 million pounds by Sotheby's, Christie's International and Phillips.

Prices for contemporary art have quadrupled since 1996, according to Art Market Research's index of the top 25 percent of works by Richard Prince, Hirst, Doig, Michelangelo Pistoletto and other artists.

Sotheby's and Christie's just raised their commissions and now charge buyers 20 percent on the first 250,000 pounds of the hammer price and 12 percent on the rest. Estimates are before commission and records are calculated after adding buyers' fees.

Tonight, Christie's will auction contemporary art at its King Street site, including a Francis Bacon painting valued at around 12 million pounds.

To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in London at lsandler@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 8, 2007 04:46 EST