Record art auction raises fortune for charity
Late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s prized collection of paintings and sculptures have been sold for a record $1.5bn, with the proceeds to be donated to charities Allen supported before his death in 2018.
Christie’s said the event, the largest art auction in history, saw works by Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne and Gustav Klimt each sell for more than $100m, breaking individual records for those artists.
According to the BBC, the most expensive piece of art bought was Seurat’s 1888 work Les Poseuses, Ensemble (small version), a renowned work of pointillism, which fetched $149.2m, including fees, Christie’s said.
The report cited experts as saying that the super wealthy were ‘viewing art as a safe investment amid a tumultuous global economy and Russia’s war in Ukraine’.
Allen co-founded Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend, Bill Gates.
He died from complications arising from non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
In 2010, he pledged to leave the majority of his fortune to charity after his death. At the time, Forbes magazine ranked him as the 37th richest man in the world, worth an estimated $13.5bn.
