2012 has been an exceptional year for Sotheby’s with record prices achieved in its New York, London, Hong Kong and Paris sale rooms in all the major collecting categories:

IMPRESSIONIST AND MODERN ART SALES HIGHLIGHTS 2012
• Highest-ever price for any work of art at auction: Edvard Munch’s The Scream – $119.9m (£73.9m) (€91m) in New York, May 2012.
• Highest price for an Impressionist or Modern work at auction in Europe this year: Joan Miró’s Peinture (Étoile Bleue) – £23.6m ($36.9m) (€29.3m) in London June 2012. This was also a new record for the artist at auction.
• Highest-ever total for an auction of Impressionist & Modern art at Sotheby’s worldwide: Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale – New York, May 2012 achieved $330.6m (£203.8m) (€250.9m).

CONTEMPORARY ART SALES HIGHLIGHTS 2012
• Highest auction total in Sotheby’s history across all sale categories: Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York, November 2012 achieved $375.2m (£236.3m) (€295.5m).
• A new auction record for the work of any living artist: Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (809-4) – £21.3m ($34.2m) (€26.4m) in London, October 2012.
• New auction records were set for major artists including:
• Jackson Pollock – Number 4, 1951 – $40.4m (£25.5m) (€31.8m) in New York, November 2012.
• Roy Lichtenstein – Sleeping Girl – $44.9m (£27.8m) (€34.5m) in New York, May 2012.
• Other strong prices achieved for:
• Mark Rothko – No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) – $75.1m (£47.3m) (€59.2m) in
New York, November 2012.
• Francis Bacon – Figure Writing Reflected in a Mirror – $44.9m (£27.8) (€34.6m) in
New York, May 2012.

OLD MASTER SALES HIGHLIGHTS 2012
In the year that saw London’s first edition of the Frieze Masters art fair, Sotheby’s established:
• Highest-ever price for a drawing at auction & highest price across all auction categories in Europe this year: Raphael’s Head of a Young Apostle, from the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth, sold for £29.7m ($47.9m) (€36.6m) in December. This was the second highest price ever achieved for an Old Master work at auction, second only to Rubens’ Massacre of the Innocents sold at Sotheby’s London in July 2002 for £49.5m.