Most expensive 20th-century painting sold at a private sale

Interchanged (1955), aka Interchange, by artist Willem de Kooning (USA, b. Netherlands, 1904–97), sold for $300 million (£197.8 million) at a private sale in September 2015. Despite the overall abstract appearance of Interchanged, there is the suggestion of the image of a seated woman in its centre, highlighted in pink.

David Geffen Foundation sold Interchanged to billionaire hedge-fund manager Kenneth Griffin. At the same sale in September 2015, Griffin bought another significant Abstract Expressionist work from the Geffen Foundation, Jackson Pollock’s Number 17A (1948). The total sale price for the pair was reportedly $500 million, also making the Pollock work one of the most expensive paintings ever sold at $200 million (£131.3 million).

Interchanged was originally sold in 1955 for $4,000 (£980) to architect Edgar J Kauffman Jr. When the estate of Kauffman, following his death, was auctioned in 1989, Interchanged set a then record of most expensive contemporary artwork sold, when it went under the hammer for $20,680,000 at Sotheby's in New York City, USA, on 8 November 1989.