Enjoy three animated stories about Sotheby's 1988 Auction in Moscow, featuring David Bowie, Alexander Rodchenko and Ilya Kabakov.
Elton John and David Bowie were among the buyers at Sotheby’s 1988 Auction in Moscow. Although they didn’t come to the auction in person, their representatives were on the phone to them from the auction room. Elton John bought Restored Painting No 5 by Igor Kopystiansky and a Landscape by Svetlana Kopystianskaya. Restored Painting No 7 by Igor Kopystiansky based at the work by Nicolas Poussin was bought by David Bowie.
The highest-selling lot at Moscow’s Sotheby’s 1988 was Alexander Rodchenko’s abstraction Line (1920), sold for £330 000. All in all, £586 000 was raised from three paintings, a poster and three photographs by the avant-garde artist.
Ilya Kabakov’s work It Is All About Him was acquired by Alfred Taubman, who owned Sotheby’s at the time of the auction. Taubman donated the work to the Soviet Ministry of Culture in the hope that it would be included in the collection of a future Soviet Museum of Contemporary Art, which never opened.