IT may look like little more than blackboard scrawls to the untrained eye, but a Cy Twombly work fetched US$70.53 million in New York last week, setting a new auction record for the painter.

    A smattering of applause broke out in the room after bidding concluded for the star lot of Sotheby’s main evening post-war and contemporary art auction of the season.

    “Untitled” was produced by the U.S. artist as part of his acclaimed Blackboard series in 1968, using oil-based house paint, wax crayon and pencil on canvas.

    The former army cryptographer painted six bands of repeated loopy lines on a gray background, which was sold by a prominent U.S. collector to benefit a reform temple in Los Angeles.

    Sotheby’s said the price set a new record at auction for the artist, just edging out the previous record of US$69.6 million.

    It marked a phenomenal investment for a picture that British collector Charles Saatchi sold for US$3.7 million in 1990.

    Auctioneer Oliver Barker explained the price by saying that it came from the Blackboard series largely seen as Twombly’s greatest achievement, and produced between 1968 and 1970.

    “They’re ones that people have a great affinity to,” he said.

    Twombly was born in Virginia but based himself primarily in Italy from 1957 until his death in 2011 aged 83 in Rome.

    Another standout of the night was an Andy Warhol acrylic silkscreen of Mao Zedong, from the artist’s first series of the late Chinese leader, which sold for US$47.51 million. Sotheby’s said it was the highest price paid for a Warhol of the week of auctions at its showroom and that of archrival Christie’s.(SD-Agencies)