Miquel Barceló beats his record at a London auction

London (ACN).- The painting ‘Tres ics’ beats Miquel Barceló’s record. The painting was sold at an auction organised by Christie’s in London for 1.5 million euros. It is the highest price ever paid for a Barceló work in a public sale. According to the London auction house, the estimated price was between 475,000 and 713,000 euros. The buyer, whose identity is still unknown, paid more than double for it. ‘Tres ics’ was painted in 1990 and belongs to a series with a common theme: bullfighting. This series is one of the most appreciated collections of Miquel Barceló, born in Majorca. The painting, made on fabric, is 67 centimetres high and 102 wide.

The focus of the painting is a bullfighting arena. It illustrates a bull and the torero, holding its red cape. The  attention is on the bull arena while the audience is blurred. Barceló experiments with centrifuge force to increase the scene’s drama effect. In fact, Barceló always saw many parallelisms with painting in bullfighting and he takes the theme very personally.

Miquel Barceló was born in Felanitx, Majorca, in 1957. He dominates several art disciplines, like painting, sculpture, and ceramics. His work is characterised for its connection with nature and its plasticity, characterised by the use of volumes and natural elements in his works. Among many works, he designed the controversial cupola of the United Nations’ Human Rights Room in the Palace of the Nations in Geneva.