THE ARTS

Auction News: Jackson Pollock’s classic drip painting, “Number 19, 1948,” was auctioned for $2.4 million--well above its pre-sale estimate of $1.5 million to $2 million--on Tuesday night at Christie’s New York. The Pollock sale, along with the $1.2-million sale of Francis Bacon’s “Study for a Portrait on a Revolving Chair,” were bright spots in a $10.6-million auction of contemporary art that only found buyers for 38 of the 60 items offered. The Pollock went to an unidentified European collector, but Americans were spirited underbidders, according to Christie’s auctioneer Christopher Burge.