Stolen Art DealerRauschenberg’s large silkscreen painting: a colour-washed portrait of John F. Kennedy in a dark suit, pointing, fills the right side; an eagle and a Coca-Cola logo sit above him, a blue parachute photo below, a red box diagram at lower left and a yellow-and-red smear at upper left.
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Catalogue No. 08 · Christie’s · New York
Buffalo II
Sold for
$88.8million
Christie’s, New York · 15 May 2019 · 14th of 392 in the Record Book
Confirmed by two sourcesAbout $116.8 million in today’s money: 1,300 years of the typical US household’s income. Source
- Artist
- Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925–2008)
- Title
- Buffalo II
- Date
- 1964
- Medium
- Oil and silkscreen ink on canvas
- Size
- 243.8 × 182.9 cm (96 × 72 in)
Look closer
Kennedy, pointing
John F. Kennedy dominates the canvas, taken from a photograph of the October 1960 debate with Nixon. Christie’s says his pointing gesture is repeated twice. The image was on a screen before the assassination, and its meaning changed afterwards.
Astronaut on parachute
Below Kennedy sits a NASA photograph of an astronaut on a parachute, taken from Life magazine in September 1963. Only the helmet shows along the lower edge. It puts the space race beside the Kennedy image.
Listen to the story
The narration from our Reel, about a minute long.
Read the narration
They reportedly paid sixteen thousand nine hundred dollars for it. Robert Rauschenberg painted it in nineteen sixty-four. Kennedy, from a nineteen sixty debate photo. Rauschenberg screened it just before the assassination. By the time he printed it, it showed a dead president. Below him, an astronaut on a parachute, from Life magazine. At the nineteen sixty-four Venice Biennale, he won the Grand Prize in Painting. In nineteen sixty-five, a Chicago couple, the Mayers, bought it from his dealer. They kept it for fifty-four years. In May twenty nineteen, it came up at Christie's, New York. Sold… for eighty-eight point eight million dollars: nearly five times his previous record. Christie's says that after Venice, he had the screens destroyed. Reportedly sixteen thousand nine hundred dollars. Half a century later, eighty-eight point eight million dollars.
Robert Rauschenberg made Buffalo II in 1964. It is a silkscreen painting, built from newspaper and magazine photographs transferred onto the canvas. Its dominant image is John F. Kennedy, taken from a photograph of the October 1960 Kennedy–Nixon debate.
Rauschenberg had that photograph put on a screen just before the assassination in November 1963. By the time he printed it, it showed a dead president. The painting was shown at the 1964 Venice Biennale, where he won the Grand Prize in Painting. Christie’s says he then had his silkscreens destroyed.
Robert and Beatrice Mayer of Chicago bought it from his dealer, Leo Castelli, in the mid-1960s. The price was reportedly $16,900. They kept it for more than 50 years.
At Christie’s New York on 15 May 2019 it sold for $88.8 million with fees. That was nearly five times his previous auction record, $18.6 million for Johanson’s Painting in 2015. As of October 2026, no higher Rauschenberg price has been reported.
The sale
- Auction house
- Christie’s, New York
- Date
- 15 May 2019
- Lot
- 5B
- Estimate
- $50–70 million
- Sold for
- $88.8 million (including buyer’s premium)
Test your eye on the market: set your estimates
Provenance
1964
Painted by Robert Rauschenberg. Shown at the New School Art Center, New York, in March and April 1964, then at the Venice Biennale from June, where he won the Grand Prize in Painting.
1964–1965
Leo Castelli Gallery, New York.
Mid-1960s
Acquired from Castelli by Robert B. and Beatrice C. Mayer, Chicago. Christie’s dates the purchase to 1965, while other sources say 1964. The price was reportedly $16,900. Disputed
1967–1970
Lent by the Mayers to the São Paulo Bienal, to a Mayer collection show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in 1968, and to the Kunstverein Hannover and Kunstmuseum Basel in 1970.
1965–2019
Held in the Mayer family collection in Chicago for about 50 years, according to press reports. Reported
15 May 2019
Sold at Christie’s New York, in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, for $88,805,000 including fees. The buyer was not named.
See it on a wall
Sources
- Christie’s lot page: Buffalo II, lot 5B
- The Art Newspaper: Rabbit hops to a record $91m at Christie’s
- HENI News: The silkscreen that set Robert Rauschenberg’s auction record
- Galerie Magazine: Robert Rauschenberg silkscreen could sell for $50 million at Christie’s
Prices include the buyer’s premium, in US dollars at the time of sale, unless marked as a hammer price.