Picasso painting smashes auction record

Picasso's "Women of Algiers" has become the most expensive painting to sell at auction, going for $179 million at Christie's in New York.

The previous record for a painting sold at an auction was $142.2 million, paid for British painter Francis Bacon's "Three Studies of Lucian Freud" in 2013, according to BBC News.

The Picasso oil painting, featuring a cubist depiction of nude courtesans, is part of a 15-work series the Spanish artist created in 1954-55 designated with the letters A to O.

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