Collectors lined up to spend record amounts at this week’s contemporary art auctions in New York City.  On Wednesday, Christie’s contemporary-art auction brought in a record $412.2 million. And the evening before, Sotheby’s set a record of its own, bringing in $375.1 million, the highest total for any sale in Sotheby’s history. Thursday’s evening sale at Phillips de Pury, while far behind its larger peers, was solid in its own right, totaling $79.9 million, in the middle of the pre-sale-estimate range.

Standing-room-only crowds at Christie’s witnessed extraordinary works sell for extraordinary prices.  On the heels of Monday’s successful auction benefiting the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Warhol’s 1962 painting “Statue of Liberty” sold for $39 million, or $43.7 million including the standard buyer’s commission to the auction house.  Another impressive Warhol, a 1966 image of Marlon Brando leaning on his motorcycle’s handlebars, was sold by Donald L. Bryant Jr.—a New York businessman, art collector and owner of the Bryant Family Vineyard, a boutique winery in the Napa Valley—for $20.1 million ($23.7 million with fees).  Mr. Bryant had bought the painting at Christie’s in 2003 for $5 million.

Sotheby’s sale was highlighted by a classic Mark Rothko picture, entitled “No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue),” which sold to a telephone bidder for $67 million, or $75.1 million including Sotheby’s fees.  Shortly before the Rothko sold, Jackson Pollock’s drip painting “Number 4, 1951” sold for $36 million, or $40.4 million with fees, an auction record for Pollock’s work.  The drip painting has a rather long sales history, including the 1963 sale through the Leo Castelli Gallery for $22,500.  Also noteworthy was the Pollock’s provenance, as the work was once owned by the artist’s psychiatrist, Ruth Fox.

Phillips offered several ordinary examples of big names, including Andy Warhol’s lipstick-enhanced “Mao” (1973), which sold for the top lot price of $13.5 million, and Gerhard Richter’s huge abstract, “Kegel (Cone)” (1985), which sold for $11 million, or $12.4 million with fees. Perhaps more notable were sales by works of younger, emerging artists, which some same is Phillips specialty.   Tauba Auerbach’s “Untitled (Fold)” sold for a record $290,500 to New York dealer Alberto Mugrabi.  And Dan Colen’s bubble gum-on-canvas “S&M” (2010), sold for a record $578,500 (estimated at $200-300,000) to New York art advisor Wendy Cromwell.