sotheby’s contemporary art evening auction to feature major gerhard richter, jean-michel basquiat...

8/3/2019 Sothebys Contemporary Art Evening Auction To Feature Major Gerhard Richter, Jean-Michel Basquiat & Francis Bac

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For Immediate ReleaseFor Immediate ReleaseFor Immediate ReleaseFor Immediate ReleasePress Release London

London | +44 (0)20 7293 6000 | Matthew Weigman | [email protected] Warren | [email protected]

Sothebys Forthcoming Contemporary Art Evening AuctionSothebys Forthcoming Contemporary Art Evening AuctionSothebys Forthcoming Contemporary Art Evening AuctionSothebys Forthcoming Contemporary Art Evening AuctionHighlighted byHighlighted byHighlighted byHighlighted by Desirable and FreshDesirable and FreshDesirable and FreshDesirable and Fresh----ToToToTo----MarketMarketMarketMarket

Gerhard Richter, JeanGerhard Richter, JeanGerhard Richter, JeanGerhard Richter, Jean----Michel Basquiat and Francis Bacon ArtworksMichel Basquiat and Francis Bacon ArtworksMichel Basquiat and Francis Bacon ArtworksMichel Basquiat and Francis Bacon Artworks

Orange Sports FigureOrange Sports FigureOrange Sports FigureOrange Sports Figure bybybyby JeanJeanJeanJean----Michel BasquiatMichel BasquiatMichel BasquiatMichel Basquiat

((((EstimateEstimateEstimateEstimate: : : : 3333----4444 millionmillionmillionmillion****))))

LONDON,LONDON,LONDON,LONDON, TUESTUESTUESTUESDAYDAYDAYDAY,,,, JANUARYJANUARYJANUARYJANUARY 22224444THTHTHTH,,,, 2012012012012222 --- Following Sothebys third most successful year ever (2011)

for global auctions of Contemporary Art, which totalled $1.17 billion, the company is delighted to present its

forthcoming Contemporary Art Evening Auction. The sale, which will be staged in London on Tuesday, FebruaryTuesday, FebruaryTuesday, FebruaryTuesday, February

15151515 thththth,,,, 2012012012012222, will include an array of major artworks by established Post-War and Contemporary artists including

Gerhard Richter, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alighiero Boetti and Alberto Burri, and will also feature an exceptionally

strong British Art section, comprising works by Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Bridget Riley, Leon Kossoff, among

others. The Evening Auction is estimated to realise in excess of 35.8 million*.


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Commenting on the forthcomingCommenting on the forthcomingCommenting on the forthcomingCommenting on the forthcoming sales,sales,sales,sales, Cheyenne Westphal, Sothebys Chairman of Contemporary ArtCheyenne Westphal, Sothebys Chairman of Contemporary ArtCheyenne Westphal, Sothebys Chairman of Contemporary ArtCheyenne Westphal, Sothebys Chairman of Contemporary Art

Europe,Europe,Europe,Europe, saidsaidsaidsaid:::: With the outstanding total of $1.17 billion achieved for Sothebys global sales of Contemporary Art in

2011, Sothebys leads the market in this field. Attesting to last years successes, the Evening Auction we have been able to

assemble this winter will be led by numerous desirable and fresh-to-market artworks by internationally collected blue-chip

artists such as Gerhard Richter, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francis Bacon, Takashi Murakami, Andy Warhol and Lucian Freud,

among others, and the sale carries a pre-sale low estimate of 35 million which is in-line with the various-owners

Contemporary Art Evening Auctions we staged in February and June last year.

Gerhard Richter's Eis (Ice) of 1981 is the

definitive paragon of the artists landscape

paintings. The breath taking frozen seascape

was based on a photograph the artist had

taken in Greenland, while on a solo retreat in

1972. Widely acknowledged as a reflection of

Richters psyche, Eis, whose cold landscape

shows no sign of life, poignantly captures the

artists struggle with his marriage and illustrates

his physical and emotional exodus from his

troubled life in Dusseldorf to a polar haven.

The painting carries an estimate of 23 million.

Gerhard Richters Abstraktes Bild (Rot), which was executed in

1991, exemplifies Richters intellectual inquiry into abstraction. The

1990s saw the artists thematic use of red colour throughout a

monumental series of canvases. This abstract work is at once

challenging and dense yet strikingly beautiful. Chromatically

expansive, the sweeping red hues and pulsating greens, yellows and

greys ofAbstraktes Bild, for which Richter deployed a squeegee as

his primary tool, masterfully explores the relationships between the

instinctual, the spontaneous and the arbitrary. It is estimated at

2.5-3.5 million.

Illustrated on the first page is one of the most important highlights

in the sale, Jean-Michel Basquiat's Orange Sports Figure, an

unrivalled pictorial masterpiece and an exceptionally rare work to

come to auction. The work, estimated at 3-4 million, was painted


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in 1982, the definitive year for Basquiats oeuvre. Adorned with his trademark crown, this work engenders a powerful

and ambiguous scrutiny of black athleticism: the aspirational black sports figure is celebrated yet simultaneously

satirised by an autobiographical allusion to Basquiat's Haitian heritage the cheap labour destination for the export

manufacture of baseballs, an American sport notoriously regarded as predominantly white. This racial tension is

powerfully presented by Basquiats inimitable and remarkable synthesis graffiti, primitivism and abstract expressionism.

Nero Plastica, a marvellous volcanic topography of molten black

plastic, is demonstrative of Alberto Burris poetic use of fire as an

artistic tool. It follows in the wake of Burris Combustione legno,

which realised the remarkable price of 3,177,250 at Sothebys

London in October 2011. Nero Plastica has never before

appeared at auction, presenting an exciting debut of a work from

Burris most important corpus of works. Heralded as the first artist

to introduce the unpredictability of this natural phenomena into

artworks, Burri began executing his first corpus of dedicated

plastic works in 1960, of which this work, made in 1965, is a fine

example. The visceral qualities of the work belie Burris past as a

qualified doctor, then as a prisoner-of-war from 1944-45, during

which time he turned to art. Nero Plastica appears to reference a

living and bleeding body, lacerated and tortured by the atrocities

of war. The work carries an estimate of 800,000-1,200,000.

Figure with Monkey by Francis Bacon, which depicts a suited

man reaching towards a caged monkey, captures an important

theme within Bacons oeuvre whereby man and beast appear

indistinguishable and interchangeable. Executed in 1951, this

remarkable work followed a stay in Zimbabwe and Southern

Rhodesia during 1951. During his travels Bacon produced

wildlife paintings and a small series of encaged, screaming

monkeys. The present work, in which the open-mouthed,

bestial scream of the monkey forms the focal point of the

painting, presents Bacons fascination with wild animals and his

impulse to expose mans primal nature. Scarcely reproduced

and rarely exhibited since its creation, the re-emergence of

this significant early work marks a moment great art-historical

significance. The work is estimated at 1.8-2.5 million.


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In the wake of the strong prices achieved for works on paper by

Lucian Freud in 2011, including the auction record which was

established by Sothebys London in June 2011**, the sale will include

an outstanding group of works on paper by Lucian Freud. This

exceptional and encyclopaedic fresh-to-market private collection of

five drawings spans more than four decades and attests to Freuds

masterful draughtsmanship. Combined, these extraordinary works are

estimated to realise in excess of 1.5 million. Highlighting the group

is Lucian Freuds black charcoal on paper Lord Goodman, executed in

1985. This masterful portrait magnificently illustrates the artists

inimitable analysis of the human subject and his incomparable

aptitude as a draughtsman. Paralleling a smaller drawing of the same

sitter that is now held in the permanent collection of the National

Portrait Gallery, this drawing is of museum quality and ranks in the

very highest tier of works on paper by Freud from the 1980s. Freud's Lord Goodman is one of the outstanding

portrayals in the medium of Lucian Freud's entire oeuvre and is estimated at 400,000600,000. (Please see

separate press release for further details about this collection.)

Mappa is a superlative example from Alighiero

Boettis famed series of bold map tapestries, in

which Boetti uses world maps to delineate

geographical territories and conceptualise the

evolving geopolitics of the Cold War. The work,

estimated at 700,000-900,000, was

acquired directly from the artist and will be

offered for sale for the first time. Mappa was

designed in 1983 in Trastevere, Rome and

subsequently sent to Kabul, Afghanistan to be

embroidered. Boetti was fascinated with the

culture and indigenous craft of Afghanistan, a territory that had been off-limits to the artist following political unrest in

1979. The embroidered text around the map poignantly alludes to the artists protest against the Soviet military

occupation that prohibited him from returning to his beloved Kabul; translated from Italian, it reads Give birth to the

world in Kabul Afganistan. Boetti simultaneously draws attention to his artistic powers of creation in re-imagining the

world, while also alluding to the transitory nature of the political world versus the seemingly unchangeable geography

of the planet.


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Appearing at auction and on public view for the first time, Gerhard

Richters Abstraktes Bild(numbered 768-4) represents one of the

most vivid and commanding works from the artists astounding opus

of abstract paintings. With its powerfully graphic vertical stripes, this

work which is estimated at 3-4 million, belongs to a cycle of

abstracts executed in 1992 for which Richter innovatively

implemented a squeegee as his paintbrush. The result is an

extraordinary visual tension between controlled action and chance.

Richter explained his technique as letting a thing come, rather than

creating it in order to gain access to all that in genuine, richer, more

alive: to what is beyond my understanding. (Gerhard Richter, Notes

1985 in: Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Ed., Gerhard Richter: The Daily

Practice of Painting, Writings 1962-1993, London 1993, p. 119).

The present works remarkably complex, monochromatic scheme makes it an irrefutable rival to Richters other

extraordinary abstractions currently held in the prestigious collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington,

D.C.; the MoMA in San Francisco; the Kunstmuseum Winterthur in Switzerland; the Hamburger Kunsthalle in

Germany and numerous others.

Takashi Murakamis vibrant Open Your Hands Wide, Embrace

Happiness!, which carries an estimate of 600,000

800,000, is a superlative example among his anim-inspired

floral motifs, a globally-recognised trademark of the renowned

artist. The motif has notably been embraced in collaborations

with Louis Vuitton and hip-hop artist Kanye West. According

to Murakami, the present works endless, repeating plane of

flowers stems from his time teaching schoolchildren how to

draw flowers at a preparatory school. His initial repulsion by

overtly cute flowers, which made him feel uneasy, soon

blossomed into artistic appreciation. Murakami explains, I

really wanted to convey this impression of unease, of the

threatening aspect of an approaching crowd (the artist cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Serpentine Gallery,

Takashi Murakami, 2002, pp. 84-85).

Diamond Dust Shoes by Andy Warhol is an impressively large-scale, glittering composition of acrylic and diamond

dust depicting womens shoes provided to the artist by iconic fashion designer Halston, and references his early days

as a fashion illustrator on Madison Avenue. Warhol recognised high-heels as an agent of glamour, and when re-visited


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this emblematic theme in 1980, he employed his new silkscreening

technique using diamond dust a direct reference to movie-star glamour,

high fashion, fame and money, subjects Warhol loved and frequently

explored. For the present work, which is estimated at 700,000-

1,000,000, Warhol took a series of Polaroid pictures of the shoes,

selected one to print, then finished the composition using large crystals of

pulverized glass to achieve brighter sparkle than that of real diamond dust.

Roy Lichtenstein's Nude in

Apartment is a spectacular late

work executed in 1995, and

which has never before appeared at auction. It references the early

images of ladies from his Cartoon series, for which the artist is

internationally acclaimed. Dominating the work is the life size female

figure facing a full-length mirror. In other important works, the artist has

employed mirrors, windows and other reflective surfaces to explore rich,

complex visual interactions with light. This work is estimated at

600,000-800,000.

Leon Kossoffs Christ Church No. 1, August 1991 is an arresting image

of an iconic landmark of Londons East End, and the first of Kossofs

Christ Church series to have ever been offered for sale. For the Christ

Church paintings, Kossoff made a dedicated pilgrimage half-way across

London to revisit the East End, where he spent his formative years

amongst the areas immigrant community. Kossoff, born to a Jewish

family of Ukrainian descent, found the Christ Churchs imposing

Christian architecture to be a representation of foreign territory. His

intense rendering of a bold icon of Christianity expresses his own

assimilation into an ostensibly hostile culture, in which he and other

London immigrants like him are outsiders. The painting is also highly

indicative of Kossoffs lifelong artistic engagement with Londons

particular inner-city urban landscape. London, like the paint I use seems

to be in my blood stream,Kossoff wrote. Its always moving the skies, the streets, the buildings, the people who walk

past me when I draw have become part of my life(the artist in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Tate Gallery, Leon

Kossoff , 1996, p. 36).


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Bridget Rileys exuberant Tabriz, executed in 1984, belongs to

the cycle of Egyptian Palette paintings produced following

Rileys travels in Egypt in the winter of 1979-1980, which had a

profound influence on the artist. Riley was immediately struck

with the art found in the tombs of the Pharaohs, which depicted

magnificent scenes in a surprisingly limited number of hues.

Tabriz, estimate at 250,000-350,000, is among the most

optically arresting and jubilant of this important series. In keeping

with Rileys inimitable technique and inspired colour palette, the

present work is restricted to only six colours of uniformly sized

lines. The result is a spectacular optical illusion, which distorts the

width of the lines and even the tone of the pigments, creating a

rhythmic, pulsating effect.

Notes to Editor:Notes to Editor:Notes to Editor:Notes to Editor:

*Estimates do not include buyers premium**Lucian Freuds Beach Scene with a Boat, colour chalk and pen and ink, executed in 1945, sold at Sotheby's London on June 15, 2011, 2.6million ($4.2 million)

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sotheby’s contemporary art evening auction to feature major gerhard richter, jean-michel basquiat...

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