(UDHAYAM, COLOMBO) – A painting by the late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat has sold at auction in New York for $110.5m (£85.4m).
That is nearly double the price of his previous most expensive work, bought by the same person a year ago.
It has broken several other records including becoming the most expensive work by any US artist.
It is also the highest price fetched for any art by a black artist and the first piece created since 1980 to break the $100m mark.
The untitled work was done in oil stick, acrylic and spray paint, and depicts a face in the shape of a skull.
It was sold to Yusaku Maezawa, a 41-year-old Japanese fashion entrepreneur who plans to set up a museum in his home town of Chiba.
Bidding for the piece during the auction at Sotheby’s lasted 10 tense minutes. Cheers and applause erupted in the room when the work was sold to Mr Maezawa by telephone.
