The Painting That Set Clyfford Still's Auction Record

Clyfford Still's 1949-A-NO . 1 (1949) sold for $61.68m at Sotheby's in New York on November 9, 2011.

Still's monumental abstract was one of four works sold to help establish the Clyfford Still Museum, which opened the same year as the sale, as a wing of the Denver Art Museum.

When 1949-A-No. 1 sold for its record-breaking price, there was speculation about the identity of the anonymous buyer. They snapped up a second painting by Still for $19.7m in the same sale, as well as a Joan Mitchell painting for the then record price of $9.3m.

The smart money was on Qatar Museums, although we will have to wait for it to open a long-planned museum of Modern art in Doha to confirm this.

The Clyfford Still Archive ended up in Denver despite the fact that neither the artist nor his wife, Patricia "Pati" Still, had a deep connection with the Colorado city during their lives. After leaving New York in 1957, they moved to a farm in New Windsor, Maryland, where he painted and she devoted her life to documenting his abstract art, including creating watercolor records of them.

When Clyfford Still died in 1980, he left in his will the stipulation that his estate be given in its entirety to an American city willing to establish a permanent museum dedicated solely to his work. (It was to have no café or shop to distract visitors.) Pati, who had protected his archive and 95% of his paintings for three decades, took up Denver's offer to build a museum shortly before her death in 2005.

The sale beat Still's previous auction record by $42.68m, a 200% rise. The previous record was set by 1947-R-No.1 (1947), which sold for $19m at Christie's on November 15, 2006.

A Brief History of Clyfford Still at Auction