Eh, it’s not like JMBasquiat got to enjoy that kind of wealth. Even 10 years ago these paintings were only selling at $5,000,000 and he’d been dead for decades at that point.
Dead at 28. The fortune comes to those flipping the works after he’s dead.
And these prices are just a proxy for moving large amounts of money around.
Back in the late 1940’s when Pollock was painting, or as I put it, throwing paint on a canvas. He had little money and was under the patronage of, I think, Peggy Guggenheim, he would trade some of paintings to the local grocer for food and beer. I have often wondered if that grocer kept them long enough to sell when Pollock’s started rising in price, especially after his death.