Modern Art Fever: Basquiat Fetches $16.3M

Well, it's no $120 million, but a Jean Michel Basquiat painting made a splash at an auction last night at Phillips de Pury & Company, selling for a whopping $16.3 million—an all-time high for the neo-expressionist. Coming just two days after a record-setting Christie's auction, the sale provided further evidence that the modern art market is blisteringly hot. "After the results this week, you can really tell how fast this market has developed," one dealer tells the New York Times.

In addition to the show-stopping Basquiat sale, the auction featured two Andy Warhol paintings, which sold for $10.3 million and $6.2 million respectively, and a Willem de Kooning, though it sold for a disappointing $11 million, on the low end of its estimated price. The sales follow an auction at Sotheby's at which Andy Warhold's Double Elvis went for $37 million. (More Jean-Michel Basquiat stories.)