About 7,000 miles away, in New Jersey, the artist\u2019s sister summed up her family\u2019s response: \u201cWe were speechless.\u201d<\/b>
\nTOKYO \u2014 As Sotheby\u2019s contemporary art auction heated up in New York last week, the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa sat on the floor of his living room here, streaming the auction live on his laptop and relaying bids for Jean-Michel Basquiat \u2019s 1982 skull painting on his iPhone to a Sotheby\u2019s specialist. After the price sailed past the $60 million guaranteed minimum, Mr. Maezawa \u2014 who hadn\u2019 t gone into the sale with his own limit in mind \u2014 felt that the competitive bidding reinforced the work\u2019s enormous value.
\u201cI decided to go for it, \u201d Mr. Maezawa said in an interview at his home on Friday.
As Mr. Maezawa was bidding, Basquiat\u2019s sister Jeanine Basquiat was about 7,000 miles away in New Jersey, hoping the auction would turn out well. When she heard that Mr. Maezawa had paid $110.5 million \u2014 the record price for an American artist at auction \u2014 she called her older sister, Lisane Basquiat, in California. \u201cThere wasn\u2019 t a lot to say, \u201d Lisane said in a rare telephone interview. \u201cWe were speechless.\u201d
If members of the Basquiat family are keepers of the Basquiat flame, Mr. Maezawa has now ensured it will continue burning, at least in the near future \u2014 in no small part because he posted about his purchase on Instagram and Twitter right after the auction.
\u201cVast numbers of people are aware of Jean-Michel Basquiat all over the world, \u201d said the dealer Jeffrey Deitch, a longtime Basquiat expert, \u201cand that is really only because of the immense price.\u201d
Whether or not this month\u2019s sale recalibrates the market for this Brooklyn-born artist, who died of a heroin overdose at 27, remains to be seen. While collectors are likely to consign their works by him in an effort to ride this wave, few top paintings are expected to come up for sale anytime soon. And auction prices don\u2019 t necessarily translate into intrinsic value.
Still, most agree that the Basquiat sale has cemented his place in the revenue pantheon with Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon; confirming that he is not some passing trend; and forcing major museums to acknowledge that, by not having the artist in their collections, they passed over a crucial figure in art history.
\u201cIt\u2019s an artist who we missed, \u201d said Ann Temkin, the chief curator of paintings and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, which does not own a single Basquiat work. \u201cWe didn\u2019 t bring his paintings into the collection during his life or thereafter.\u201d
In part, Mr. Maezawa\u2019s purchase may help correct this omission, given that he plans to open a museum to showcase his collection in Chiba, his hometown. \u201cI want to show beautiful things and share them with everyone, \u201d he said, adding that he plans to lend pieces to museums around the world. \u201cIt would be a waste just to keep it all to myself.\u201d
Technically, however, his Basquiats are in private hands rather than public institutions, as are the other examples widely considered the artist\u2019s best work \u2014 generally paintings made from 1981 to 1983. Given Basquiat\u2019s short career (1980-87) , there are simply not a lot of great Basquiats out there. (Peter Brant, Eli Broad and Philip Niarchos are among the collectors who have them.)
\u201cYou\u2019 re talking about a handful of masterpieces, which are distributed among a few collectors who are not sellers, \u201d said the art dealer Brett Gorvy, a former Christie\u2019s chairman. \u201cYou\u2019 re going to have to wait a long time if you are a major collector to see another extraordinary painting like this.\u201d
Even the Basquiat estate does not have many leading pieces left, art experts say; the two it sold at Phillips this season, for example, each went for under $4 million.
The Basquiat sisters, in a joint telephone interview, said they didn\u2019 t need the price to tell them their brother\u2019s work belonged in the history books. But it was still nice to have Jean-Michel\u2019s auction value enter the stratosphere. \u201cIt\u2019s humbling and satisfying to see this happen 30 years after he passed away, \u201d Lisane said. \u201cWe have been walking on Cloud 9.\u201d
The sisters had never seen this particular painting before, so Sotheby\u2019s invited them to New York to view it in advance; Lisane called it \u201cbreathtaking.\u201d
Mr. Maezawa, too, got a private pre-sale viewing. \u201cHe\u2019s a very serious collector, \u201d said Amy Cappellazzo a Sotheby\u2019s chairwoman, \u201chugely engaged.\u201d
While he \u201cdidn\u2019 t expect the price to go that high, \u201d Mr. Maezawa said his love for Basquiat runs deep \u2014 he paid the previous high price for the artist last year ($57.3 million) . And he saw that others felt the same, including one other buyer willing to go the distance (later revealed to be the casino magnate Frank J. Fertitta III) , since the two wound up in a bidding war.
\u201cI learned that so many people wanted to have this piece of art so much, \u201d Mr. Maezawa said. \u201cI was sure that my eye was certain.\u201d
Mr. Maezawa said he started collecting about 10 years ago, and the apartment he rents in Tokyo is testament to his passions for art \u2014 Richard Prince\u2019s \u201cRunaway Nurse\u201d ($9.6 million at Christie\u2019s last year) in the stairwell; a Roy Lichtenstein in the dining room; a large Christopher Wool ($13.9 million) in the living room, along with two Calder mobiles.
Mr. Maezawa is also seen as ushering in a new chapter of collecting in Japan, a country previously known for the Impressionist art bubble of the\u2019 80s. He is a collector \u201cwho became a businessman, and not a businessman who became an art collector, \u201d said Aki Ishizaka, the former head of Sotheby\u2019s in Japan and now an art adviser.
Curled up in a scarlet red armchair designed by the French designer Jean Roy\u00e8re, Mr. Maezawa \u2014 who does not work with an art adviser \u2014 said he was driven entirely by his love of art and not financial investment. \u201cI just follow my instinct, \u201d he said. \u201cWhen I think it\u2019s good, I buy it.\u201d
Having forgone college to form an indie rock band \u2014 he was the drummer \u2014 Mr. Maezawa started his company in 1998, now the large Japanese online fashion mall, Zozotown. His net worth of about $3.5 billion makes him the 14th richest person in Japan.
Given a culture here in which people are typically reluctant to flaunt their wealth \u2014 buyers at last year\u2019s Tokyo Art Fair said they did not even want their wives to know about their purchases \u2014 Mr. Maezawa is considered something of a renegade.
He is also a flashy presence on social media, posting photos of his purchased artworks on Instagram \u2014 along with pictures of his Bombardier Global 6000 private jet and collection of watches by Patek Philippe and Richard Mille.
He has become friendly with celebrities like the actor Leonardo DiCaprio, and he attended the Metropolitan Museum of Art Gala with his girlfriend, the model Saeko Dokyu \u2014 although he said the flashiness \u201cwas a little too much for me.\u201d
By contrast, the Basquiat sisters say they guard their privacy, having taken over management of the estate \u2014 along with their stepmother Nora \u2014 from their father, Gerard, who died in 2013.
\u201cJeanine and I have been Basquiats since the day we were born, \u201d Lisane said. Although they take pride in their brother, she added, \u201cwe also have our own lives.\u201d
The sisters said Jean-Michel\u2019s \u201cgenius\u201d was evident early on. \u201cHe was creative, and that\u2019s what fed him \u2014 he absorbed everything, \u201d Jeanine said. \u201cHe saw himself as someone who was going to be big.\u201d
Lisane added: \u201cHe always had a pen in hand and something to draw on or write on. He got into the zone, and it was a beautiful thing to watch.\u201d
When the hammer came down on the Basquiat this month, Mr. Maezawa said he felt overwhelmed and relieved, \u201clike an athlete who wins a gold medal and cries.\u201d
Asked whether he aimed to buy another major Basquiat in the future, Mr. Maezawa said with a puckish smile, \u201cDon\u2019 t you think two is enough?\u201d<\/p>\n

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