November 4, 2008 - “There was a lot of anticipation leading up to tonight’s sale,” said Simon Shaw, Senior Vice President and Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department in New York. “This was the first true test of our market in this new environment, and what we saw tonight is that the market is clearly alive. Tonight’s sale was assembled over the summer, and by the time the catalogue came out, we were living in a completely different world. Nevertheless, tonight’s total was not significantly different from that achieved in May.”

Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematist Composition from 1916 sold for $60,002,500, not only a record for the artist, but a record for any Russian work of art ever sold at auction**. Regarded as an icon of Russian art and a paradigmatic example of the 20th century avant-garde, the masterwork was executed in 1916, the same year that Malevich published his Suprematist Manifesto. The painting had been featured in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam for the past fifty years before being restituted to the artist’s family. The Heirs of Kazimir Malevich issued a statement through a spokesperson as follows: “The heirs are delighted with the extraordinary sale of Suprematist Composition which confirms Kazimir Malevich’s position among the greatest masters of the 20th century.”

Edgar Degas’ Danseuse au repos reaffirmed its position as the preeminent work by the artist ever to be sold at auction tonight, commanding $37,042,500, and establishing a new record for the artist at auction. It last appeared on the market in the summer of 1999 when it achieved a price of $28 million, a record that stood until this evening. Completed in 1879, this exquisite pastel and gouache is remarkable for the great quality of its richly worked surface and the detail of its vision and scope.

A record was also set tonight for a work by Edvard Munch, when his exceptionally rare masterpiece from 1884, Vampire, sold for $38,162,500, with interest from four bidders. One of a group of four oil paintings of this theme that Munch completed between 1893 and 1894, Vampire is the only example not owned by a museum; the others reside in institutions in Oslo and Gothenburg.

Also among the top ten lots, selling within pre-sale estimates, were -- Juan Gris’s Guitare, painted in December 1913, which sold for $6,578,500 (est. $6/8 million)*; Portrait of Nini by Pierre-Auguste Renoir which brought $5,570,500 (est. $5/7 million); Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Bal Masqué which fetched $4,562,500 (est. $4/6 million); and Henri Matisse’s Jeune Femme Assise en robe Grise aux Bandes Violettes which achieved $4,226,500 (est. $4/6 million).

The three masterworks by the Russian artist Boris Grigoriev from the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield Mass brought $8,083,500, setting a new record at auction for the artist when his Shepherd of the Hills sold for $3,722,500 (est. $2.5/3.5 million). The funds raised by the sale of the three paintings will benefit future acquisitions and direct care of their Collection.