Phillips Auction Featuring Basquiat Painting Worth $70M to Accept Bitcoin, Ethereum Payments

On May 18, the auction house Phillips will be hosting an evening sale featuring the work of the American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Phillips’ Evening Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art will auction Basquiat’s “Untitled, 1982” piece worth an estimated $70 million. According to the announcement, Phillips has revealed the auction will accept ethereum or bitcoin for the artwork.

The renowned art collector Yusaku Maezawa and the 225-year-old auction house Phillips will be hosting an art auction on May 18, featuring the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The American artist is very popular within the neo-expressionism movement and has been compared to the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso who co-founded the Cubist art movement.

The art featured at the Evening Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art will be Basquiat’s sixteen-foot wide “Untitled, 1982” painting. The “Untitled, 1982” standing at eight feet tall and over 16 feet wide, has an estimated value of around $70 million, according to the auction house Phillips.



“This striking horizontal format is likely a nod to Pablo Picasso’s masterwork ‘Guernica,’” the Phillips announcement notes. “I hope that Untitled will continue its great journey in good hands and that it will bring smiles to many people all around the world,” the painting’s consignor Yusaku Maezawa said.

The announcement further details that the auction company will allow people to purchase the Basquiat artwork with cryptocurrencies. “Phillips is pleased to announce that the auction house will accept cryptocurrency for the work, in either ethereum or bitcoin,” the firm disclosed.

The bitcoin and ethereum payment support for the Basquiat is not the first time Phillips has dabbled in crypto solutions and non-fungible token (NFT) technology. Last year, Phillips revealed it was auctioning a world-famous piece of artwork called the “Laugh Now Panel” created by the anonymous street artist Banksy.

The Banksy “Laugh Now Panel” auction was the company’s first time selling artwork for crypto payments in a physical art auction. During the same week as the Phillips Banksy auction announcement, the auction house Sotheby’s detailed it would leverage the exchange Coinbase in order to sell Banksy’s “Love is in the Air” image.

Phillips recently hosted a Valentine’s Day 2022 “My Kawaii Valentine Online Auction,” which introduced the first auction data-generative NFT created by a virtual human. “Among the NFTs in the sale is Drowning in Love, the world’s first NFT created by the virtual artist, Monoc, using real-time auction data,” Phillips explained on February 8.

In the lead-up to the Basquiat auction, Phillips says the Basquiat art will embark on an international tour to London, Los Angeles, and Taipei. Following the exhibits, the artwork will be auctioned at Phillips’ New York headquarters at 432 Park Avenue.

What do you think about Phillips accepting bitcoin and ethereum for the $70 million Basquiat artwork being sold at the auction in May? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.