Painting by French ‘master of black’ sets new world record

PARIS: A canvas by the French artist Pierre Soulages has sold for $10.5 million, a new world record for the “painter of black” who is about to celebrate his 100th birthday. The work from 1960 of thick black stripes went for 9.6 million euros at an auction in Paris just days before the Louvre opens a huge retrospective celebrating Soulages’ long career. The prolific veteran, who turns 100 on Christmas Eve, and who is still painting, took the radical decision to paint almost entirely in black in the late 1970s. Called “the world’s greatest living artist” by former French president Francois Hollande, Soulages told AFP earlier this year that if he was not 100 percent happy with a painting “I burn the canvas outside. If it is mediocre, it goes,” he added.