A painting by Spanish artist Joan Miro has fetched $16.6 million US at an auction in Paris, breaking the record for a work by the artist.
Blue Star, which features an irregularly-shaped blue star surrounded by coloured shapes and squiggles, was sold on Thursday night, according to auction house Richelieu. The auction house would not divulge who purchased the 1927 painting.
It was one of 10 works by Miro belonging to the collection of late banker Andre Lefevre, which had been sitting in a vault for 40 years.
The collection, which fetched a total of $31.3 million, also included works by Spaniard Juan Gris, whose cubist The Guitar Player (1918) garnered $3.1 million US.
Miro, who died in 1983 at age 90, is known for his surrealist-influenced style, using his subconscious to create paintings which eschewed the common conventions of painting.
A graduate of the Barcelona School of Fine Arts, Miro would eventually move to Paris, where he was influenced by the Surrealist and Dada movements, which were exploring radically different ways of producing art.
His odd shapes and lines were often his dreams put on paper, featuring fantastical landscapes of floating shapes.
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