Part of the art-photography collection of bankrupt commodities broker Refco fetched more than $5m when they went under the hammer in New York at the weekend.

Forty works by contemporary photographers each went for between $50,000 and $750,000 on Friday at Christie’s Rockefeller Centre auction rooms.

A 1969 portrait of artist Andy Warhol by Richard Avedon sold for $102,000, while Andreas Gursky’s 1954 photograph Avenue of the Americas fetched more than its estimate at $374,400.

The most expensive work was John Baldessari’s Beach Scene Nuns Nurse, which sold for $744,000.

An earlier auction of 200 lesser works raised more than $1.1m, while the remaining Refco photographs will be sold later this week.

The fabled collection graced the walls of Refco’s offices in New York and Chicago until they were removed in November last year following the company’s collapse, when it emerged that chief executive Phillip Bennett had been hiding more than $400m of debts.

The works were acquired over three decades by Frances Dittmer, the ex-wife of former company chairman Thomas Dittmer. The collection was sold by order of the US bankruptcy court.

Amy Cappellazzo of Christie’s said: “The Refco Collection is an outstanding assemblage of contemporary photographs. The works together provide a highly influential international review of contemporary photography and its developing role as a fine art medium in its own right”

Posted: 05|8|06 at 8:49 am. Filed under: US News.