Christie's sale of Postwar and Contemporary art on Wednesday night made history when it brought a record-breaking total of $853 million. The previous record sale total was $745 million set in May by Christie's.

International buyers, primarily from Asia, Europe, and the U.S., pursued top-tier works to new price levels. Records were set for artists Ed Ruscha, Peter Doig, Georg Baselitz, Cindy Sherma, Martin Kippenberger, Sturtevant, Seth Price and Cy Twombly.

A record was set for a living female artist, too, when a telphone bidder paid $7.1 million for "White No. 28” by Japanese painter Yayoi Kusama. 

The night was ruled by Andy Warhol. His silvery triple image of a gun-toting 7-foot tall Elvis Presley, “Triple Elvis [Ferus Type],” sold to an anonymous European telephone bidder for $82 million. Quickly following was another Warhol 1960s work of film icon Marlon Brando. Biker cool "Four Marlons" fetched $70 million.

Asian buyers picked up rich-colored abstractions by Gerhard Richter at $17 million and Willem de Kooning at $17.5 million along with Lucian Freud's portrait “Julie and Martin” for $17 million.

A European bidder took Cy Twombly's untitled gray-backed scribble work to a record $70 million and also won Roy Lichtenstein's "Sunrise" for $16 million.

Other highlights included Jeff Koons' "Balloon Monkey (Orange)" which brought $26 million and Ed Ruscha's "Smash" which fetched $30 million, well over the $20 million top estimate. A few works only got one bid, as happenend earlier this week at other sales. For one, Francis Bacon's "Seated Figure" got a solo bid of $45 million.

Only five works went unsold, including Lichtenstien's "Keds," out of 80 offered, making it a 94% sell-through. The sale reached an impressive 97% of its potential value.