A David Hockney painting sold for a record $7.9 million (£5.1 million) to an undisclosed bidder after aggressive bidding at an auction filled with some of the world’s best-known collectors, suggesting that the art market is making a recovery despite tough economic times.

Beverly Hills Housewife, a 12ft by 6ft diptych, was the star of Christie’s postwar and contemporary art sale in New York on Wednesday night. It had been expected to sell for between $6 million and $10 million, The previous record for a Hockney painting was $5.4 million, paid for The Splash at Sotheby’s in 1996.

Marc Porter, president of Christie’s Americas, said the sale was “a clear and resounding vote of confidence in the market” in which collectors were prepared to compete for rare works.

The Hockney painting was one of 20 works auctioned from the collection of Betty Freeman, a Los Angeles philanthropist and arts patron, who died at the age of 87 in January.

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Born in 1937, Hockney was already one of Britain’s best known artists by the time he reached his mid-20s. Having arrived in Los Angeles in 1966, the artist asked Ms Freeman if he could paint her swimming pool for a series that became known as California Dreaming.

Once he met Ms Freeman, however, Hockney decided to focus on the tanned housewife, who is pictured standing in a long pink gown on the patio of her home.

Brook Mason, US correspondent for The Art Newspaper, described Beverly Hills Housewife as having “raw power”.

She said that the frenetic atmosphere at the auction indicated that big American collectors “weren’t sitting on their hands”.

“The market’s still alive and this record is lifting confidence,” she said. “It’s still an event, it’s not like ‘Oh, we’ll skip the auction because the market’s so weak’.”

Among the collectors at Christie’s Manhattan auction house were Steven Cohen, the billionaire hedge fund manager, Peter Brant, the paper magnate, and the former tennis star John McEnroe.

Ms Mason said: “We tend to think that New York is hard hit by the recession but 69 per cent of the buyers on Wednesday night were American, which is very telling.”

Thirty of the 54 works on sale at Christie’s sold for more than $1 million and four for more than $5 million. Four pieces at the auction, which included works by Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, were unsold.

Total sales came to $93.7 million, including a $2.2 million record for a Claes Oldenburg sculpture called Typewriter Eraser. The auction had been estimated to bring in as much as $104.5 million.

The prices include Christie’s commission. Christie’s did not name the buyer of the Hockney painting.

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