Roy Lichtenstein work sells for $44.8M

Works by Roy Lichtenstein and Francis Bacon were sold at auction this week for $44.8 million apiece, Sotheby's in New York said Thursday. The New York Times reported an unidentified telephone bidder bought Lichtenstein's 1964 piece "Sleeping Girl" Wednesday night. Charles Moffett -- Sotheby's executive vice president and vice chairman of its worldwide Impressionist, modern and contemporary art department -- bought Francis Bacon's 1976 painting "Figure Writing Reflected in Mirror" on behalf of a mystery client, the newspaper reported. "Great icons make great prices," the Times quoted Tobias Meyer, director of Sotheby's contemporary art department worldwide and the evening's auctioneer, as saying after the sale. "The market is more global than ever before."