Seeing Red & Green

The benefit sale (Auction) Red at Sotheby's last night brought in more than $42.5 million. The big worry leading up to the event was that the real art buyers would not show up, and the social crowd wouldn't buy art. Jitters about the health of the art market caused Sotheby's to revise its original estimate — of $40 million — down to between $21 million and $29 million, a decrease of about 28%. They need not have bothered. The sale scored well for many of the biggest name artists — Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Richard Prince, Andreas Gursky, Cecily Brown, and John Currin — whose works sold for multiples of the high estimates. Bansky's "Keep It Spotless," estimated at between $250,000 and $350,000, sold for $1.87 million. The singer Bono, Gagosian Gallery, Mr. Hirst, and Sotheby's organized the event.