In today’s Jacob Kassay-exceeding-market-expectations news (we can’t get enough), a small Kassay diptych, estimated at $30,000 to $40,000 at Phillips de Pury’s contemporary dale sale this afternoon, sold for $104,500. This wouldn’t be surprising given that the guy usually sells for multiples above his high estimate at auction, but this particular Untitled, made with Kassay’s signature silver deposit and acrylic on canvas, is about a third of the size of the canvas that set an artist’s record ($290,500) at the Phillips sale in New York back in May of this year.
So: it’s a new record! Sort of. By square inch anyway.
As scary as it might be to imagine a couple of arts reporters doing math, we did (imagine a group of cavemen discovering fire and you get the picture).
The new lot is 14 in. x 11 in. There are two canvases. So that’s 308 square inches total. $104,500 divided by 308 is $339.29 per square inch.
The previous lot that set the way more official record was 48 in. x 36 in., a total of 1,728 square inches. Divided into $290,500, that yields a far less impressive result of $168.11 per square inch.
(Trust us when we say that it took a sizable corner of the office a great deal of time to do this calculation: an incredible feat in mathematics!)
Congrats, Mr. Kassay! Treat yourself to some of that silver deposit you like so much.
