NEW YORK, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- The creator of the U.S. label Geffen Records, David Geffen, reportedly has sold Jackson Pollock's "No. 5, 1948" painting for about $140 million, a record price.
Art experts with knowledge of the transaction said that price would be the highest sum ever paid for a painting, with the No. 2 being the $135 million that cosmetics heir Ronald S. Lauder paid for Gustav Klimt's "Adele Bloch-Bauer I," The New York Times reported Friday.
The experts want to remain anonymous so they are not perceived as betraying the confidence of the seller or the buyer of the Pollock painting.
The buyer has been identified as David Martinez, a Mexican financier who recently bought a two-floor apartment in the south building of the Time Warner Center for $54.7 million, the newspaper said.
Geffen reportedly is selling off paintings to raise money to put in a bid for the Los Angeles Times.
The Pollock, a tangled composition of browns and yellows, is unusually large, measuring about 4 by 8 feet, and was painted on fiberboard.
