Warhol’s Spiky Wig, Newman’s ‘Fire’ Fuel $2.2 Billion Sales

Take in the numbers: $84.2 million for Barnett Newman’s “Black Fire I”; $66.2 million for a purple and orange Mark Rothko canvas, and $30.1 million for Andy Warhol’s self-portraits in a spiky fright wig.

So went the buying frenzy during two weeks of marathon auction sales this month in New York. A string of evening and day sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips of Impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary art tallied about $2.2 billion, handily surpassing previous results. Last May, both evening and day sales in these categories totaled $1.5 billion. In November, $1.8 billion worth of art was sold.