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Detailed Table of Content

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PART I: SUMMARY

1. Timeline
2. Auction Statistics
3. Top 10 Lots
4. Top 10 Artists
5. Top 10 Performers

PART II: AUCTION RESULTS

6. The Now Evening Auction
7. Contemporary Evening Auction
8. Contemporary Day Auction
9. Modern Evening Auction
10. Modern Day Auction

11. The Rosa de la Cruz Collection Evening Sale
12. 21st Century Evening Sale
13. 20th Century Evening Sale
14. Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale
15. Impressionist and Modern Art Works on Paper and Day Sales

16. Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sale
17. Modern and Contemporary Art Day Sale

PART III: FOCUS

18. Focus: Ultra-Contemporary Art

1. Lucy Bull
2. Jadé Fadojutimi
3. Christina Quarles
4. Adrian Ghenie
5. Avery Singer
6. Rashid Johnson
7. Jonas Wood
8. Other Artists

19. Focus: Contemporary Art

1. Jean-Michel Basquiat
2. George Condo
3. Keith Haring
4. Cecily Brown
5. Yoshitomo Nara
6. Christopher Wool
7. Damien Hirst
8. Takashi Murakami
9. Other Artists

20. Focus: Post-War

1. Joan Mitchell
2. Any Warhol
3. David Hockney
4. Roy Lichtenstein
5. Yayoi Kusama
6. Fernando Botero
7. Gerhard Richter
8. Alex Katz
9. Other Artists

21. Focus: Impressionist and Modern Art

1. Claude Monet
2. Pablo Picasso
3. Rene Magritte
4. Other Artists

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PART I: SUMMARY

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Timeline

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1. The Now Evening Auction
13 May 2024

The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

2. Contemporary Evening Auction
13 May 2024

Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

3. Contemporary Day Auction
14 May 2024

Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

4. Modern Evening Auction
15 May 2024

Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

5. Modern Day Auction
16 May 2024

Modern Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

1. The Rosa de la Cruz Collection Evening Sale
14 May 2024

The Rosa de la Cruz Collection Evening Sale (christies.com)

2. 21st Century Evening Sale
14 May 2024

21st Century Evening Sale (christies.com)

3. 20th Century Evening Sale
16 May 2024

20th Century Evening Sale (christies.com)

4. Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale
17 May 2024

Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale (christies.com)

5. Impressionist and Modern Art Works on Paper and Day Sales
18 May 2024

Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper Sale (christies.com)

Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale (christies.com)

 

1. Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sale
14 May 2024

Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale: New York Auction May 2024 (phillips.com)

2. Modern and Contemporary Art Day Sale: Morning & Afternoon Sessions
15 May 2024

Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session: New York May 2024 (phillips.com)

Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Se… New York May 2024 (phillips.com)

 

Auction Statistics

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Total: USD 1,388,814,873
1,396 Lots sold
Sell-Through Rate: 84.7%

In just one week, with Christie’s website down, and in the absence of any major private collection put up for sale, the three main auction houses realized a total cumulative turnover just short of USD 1.4 billion, through the sale of 1,396 lots spread across 7 evening sales, and 6 day sales.

This compares to USD 2,133,870,728 realized in November 2023 through the sale of 1,518 lots, with a sell-through rate of 83.1%. Two collections were sold in November 2023: the Emily Fisher Landau Collection at Sotheby’s and the Triton Collection at Phillips, contributing around USD 509 million to the total.

Despite the issues Christie’s encountered with its website, it emerges as the leading Auction House for this season with a turnover of USD 645,770,610 though 3 Evening Sales, and 2 Day Sales. It sold 592 lots, with a sell-through rate of 85.2%.

 

 

Sotheby’s generated a turnover of USD 633,377,652 though 3 Evening Sales, and 2 Day Sales. It sold 592 lots, with a sell-through rate of 85.2%.

 

This compares to USD 1,098,821 generated through the sale of 728 lots in November 2023. However, the sale of the Emily Fisher Landau Collection generated around USD 425 million in November 2023.

Price Segmentation

205 Lots sold over USD 1 million
Turnover: USD 1,137,150,800
81.9% of Total

This compares to 264 lots (USD 1.9 billion / 88.7% of total) in November 2023 and to 244 lots (USD 1.3 billion / 71.6% of total) in May 2023.

35 Lots sold over USD 10 million
Turnover: USD 660,117,950
47.5% of Total

This compares to 31 lots (USD 1.3 billion / 59.2% of total) in November 2023 and to 37 lots (USD 830 million / 45.2% of total) in May 2023.

1 Lot sold over USD 40 million
Turnover: USD 46,479,000
3.3% of Total

This compares to 8 lots (USD 484,313,500 / 22.7% of total) in November 2023, and 5 lots (USD 248 million / 13.8% of total) in May 2023.

 

 

 

Top 10 Lots

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The Top 10 Lots generated a cumulative turnover of USD 312,378,700.

With 2 works among the Top 10, Jean-Michel Basquiat brought USD 78,514,000, or 25% of the turnover generated by the Top 10 Lots. 2 women artists made it to the Top 10, Leonora Carrington and Joan Mitchell.

This compares to USD 562,649,000 generated by the Top 10 Lots in November 2023, led by Pablo Picasso’s Femme a la montre, that sold for USD 139,363,500.

 

 

#1. Jean-Michel Basquiat

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 40,000,000 – 60,000,000
USD 46,479,000

Jean-Michel Basquiat – Modern & Contempor… Lot 5 May 2024 | Phillips

GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

#2. Andy Warhol

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 20,000,000 – 30,000,000
USD 35,585,000

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987), Flowers | Christie’s (christies.com)

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)
Flowers, 1964
Acrylic, fluorescent paint and silkscreen ink on linen
82×82 inches (208.3 x 208.3 cm)
Signed twice and dated later ‘Andy Warhol Andy Warhol 65’ (on the overlap)

#3. Claude Monet

Sotheby’s New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimate on Request
USD 34,804,500

Meules à Giverny  | Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)
GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

CLAUDE MONET (1840 – 1926)
Meules à Giverny, 1893
Oil on canvas
65.5 x 100.2 cm (25 7/8 x 39 1/2 inches)
Signed Claude Monet and dated 93 (lower right)

#4. Vincent van Gogh

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 20,000,000 – 30,000,000
USD 33,185,000

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890), Coin de jardin avec papillons | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED / IRREVOCABLE BID

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890)
Coin de jardin avec papillons, 1887
Oil on canvas
50.4 x 61.4 cm (19 3/4 x 24 1/4 inches)
Painted in May-July 1887

#5. Jean-Michel Basquiat

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimate on Request
USD 32,035,000

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988), The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet | Christie’s (christies.com)

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)
The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet, 1982
Acrylic, oilstick and paper collage on canvas mounted on tied wood supports
60×60 inches (152.4 x 152.4 cm)
Signed, titled and dated (on the reverse)

#6. David Hockney

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 25,000,000 – 35,000,000
USD 28,585,000

DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937), A Lawn Being Sprinkled | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937)
A Lawn Being Sprinkled, 1967
Acrylic on canvas
60×60 inches (152.4 x 152.4 cm)
Signed, inscribed, titled and dated ‘”Lawn being sprinkled” David Hockney Los Angeles 1967’ (on the reverse)

#7. Leonora Carrington

Sotheby’s New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 12,000,000 – 18,000,000
USD 28,485,000
NEW WORLD RECORD FOR THE ARTIST
TOP PERFORMER

Les Distractions de Dagobert | Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)
GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

LEONORA CARRINGTON (1917 – 2011)
Les Distractions de Dagobert, 1945
Tempera on Masonite
29 3/4 x 34 1/4 inches (75.6 x 87 cm)
Signed Carrington and dated 1945, September (lower right)

#8. Francis Bacon

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 30,000,000 – 50,000,000
USD 27,735,000

Portrait of George Dyer Crouching | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

FRANCIS BACON (1909 – 1992)
Portrait of George Dyer Crouching, 1966
Oil on canvas
78 x 57 7/8 inches (198×147 cm)
Titled and dated 1966 (on the reverse)

#9. Lucio Fontana

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 20,000,000 – 30,000,000
USD 22,969,800

Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCIO FONTANA (1899 – 1968)
Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio, 1964
Oil on canvas
177.8 x 123 cm (70 x 48 1/2 inches)
Signed (upper left); signed (on the reverse)

#10. Joan Mitchell

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 15,000,000 – 20,000,000
USD 22,615,400

Noon | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)
GUARANTEED

JOAN MITCHELL (1925 – 1992)
Noon, circa 1969
Oil on canvas
102×79 inches (259.1 x 200.7 cm)
Signed (lower left); signed and titled (on the reverse)

Top 10 Artists

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Notable Artist’s Records and Top Performers

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Leonora Carrington

Sotheby’s New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 12,000,000 – 18,000,000
USD 28,485,000
NEW WORLD RECORD FOR THE ARTIST
TOP PERFORMER

Les Distractions de Dagobert | Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)
GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

LEONORA CARRINGTON (1917 – 2011)
Les Distractions de Dagobert, 1945
Tempera on Masonite
29 3/4 x 34 1/4 inches (75.6 x 87 cm)
Signed Carrington and dated 1945, September (lower right)

 

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PART II: AUCTION RESULTS

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Sotheby’s: The Now Evening Auction

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Total: USD 32,673,750
16 sold Lots
Sell-Through rate: 94.1%

The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

With 16 lots sold, The Now Evening Auction totaled USD 32,673,750.

This compares to a total low estimate of USD 30,150,000, and high estimate of USD 42,600,000. With one lot failing to sail, and one withdrawn lot, the sell-through rate is 94.1%. The highest price of the sale was achieved by Vignette #6, a painting by Kerry James Marshall dated 2005 that sold for USD 7,482,500. A new auction record has been reached for Lucy Bull, with 16:10, a painting dated 2020, that sold for USD 1,814,500.

The Now Evening Sale Top 3 Lots

9 lots sold for more than USD 1 million, generating a cumulative turnover of USD 27,308,000, representing 83.6% of the total sale. 6 lots sold above estimates (35% of the total number of lots), 9 lots sold within estimates (53%).

#1. Kerry James Marshall

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 7,000,000 -10,000,000
USD 7,482,800

Vignette #6 | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

#3. Avery Singer

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,500,000 – 3,500,000
USD 3,206,000

Happening | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

AVERY SINGER (b. 1987)
Happening, 2014
Acrylic on canvas
100×120 inches (254 x 304.8 cm)
Signed and incorrectly dated 2013 (on the stretcher)

#4. George Condo

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,500,000 – 3,500,000
USD 3,144,500

Conversations | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GEORGE CONDO (b. 1957)
Conversations, 2012
Acrylic, charcoal and pastel on canvas
70×90 inches (177.8 x 228.6 cm)
Signed and dated 2012 (upper left)

#5. Adrian Ghenie

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
USD 3,006,000

The Uncle | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ADRIAN GHENIE (b. 1977)
The Uncle, 2019
Oil on canvas
260.1 x 253.3 cm (102 3/8 x 99 3/4 inches)
Signed and dated 2019 (on the reverse)

#6. Njideka Akunyili Crosby

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
USD 1,996,000

Thread | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

NJIDEKA AKUNYILI CROSBY (b. 1983)
Thread, 2012
Acrylic, charcoal, pastel, color pencil and Xerox transfers on paper
52×52 inches (132.1 x 132.1 cm)
Signed and dated 2012 (on the reverse)

#7. Toyin Ojih Odutola

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,996,000

Representatives of State | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

TOYIN OJIH ODUTOLA (b. 1985)
Representatives of State, 2016-2017
Pastel, charcoal and graphite on paper
72 7/8 x 50 3/4 inches (185.1 x 128 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 2017 (on the reverse)

#8. Lucy Bull

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 1,814,500
NEW AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST
#2 Performer

16:10 | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
16:10, 2020
Oil on linen
93 1/8 x 53 7/8 inches (236.5 x 136.8 cm)
Signed and dated 2020 (on the reverse)

#9. Justin Caguiat

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 1,092,200
TOP PERFORMER

The saint is never busy | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

JUSTIN CAGUIAT (b. 1989)
The saint is never busy, 2019
Oil on canvas, in artist’s frame
Framed: 87 1/2 x 114 inches (222.3 x 289.6 cm)

#10. Tracey Emin

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 100,000 – 1,000,000
USD 914,400

But you never wanted me | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

TRACEY EMIN (b. 1963)
But you never wanted me, 2018
Acrylic on canvas
71 3/4 x 71 3/4 inches (182.2 x 182.2 cm)
Signed (lower left); titled and dated 2018 (lower right)

#13. Christina Quarles

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 762,000

Cut to Ribbons | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

CHRISTINA QUARLES (b. 1985)
Cut to Ribbons, 2019
Acrylic on canvas
95×55 inches (243.8 x 139.7 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 2019 (on the reverse)

#14. Jadé Fadojutimi

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 698,500

(Hip) like a kaleidoscope (po) | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

JADE FADOJUTIMI (b. 1993)
(Hip) like a kaleidoscope (po), 2021
Oil, oilstick and acrylic on canvas
170×200 cm (66 7/8 x 78 5/8 inches)
Signed, dated March ’21 and variously inscribed (on the reverse)

Lots Withdrawn

Cecily Brown

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 6,000,000 – 8,000,000
WITHDRAWN

Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)
GUARANTEED

CECILY BROWN (b. 1969)
Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band, 2016
Oil on canvas
97 1/8 x 150 3/4 inches (246.7 x 382.9 cm)
Signed and dated 2016 (on the reverse)

Sotheby’s: Contemporary Evening Auction

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Total: USD 234,578,050
32 Lots sold
Sell-Through Rate: 91.4%

Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

With 32 lots, the Contemporary Evening Sale totaled USD 234,578,050.

Just ahead of the total low estimate of USD 217,600,000 (the high estimate was USD 315,800,000). With 3 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 91.4%. The highest price was achieved by Francis Bacon’s Portrait of George Dyer Crouching, dated 1966, that sold for USD 27,735,000, well below its low estimate of USD 20 million.

The Contemporary Evening Auction Top 3 Lots

9 lots sold for more than USD 10 million, generating a cumulative turnover of USD 149,520,950, representing 63.7% of the total. All lots of the evening sold for more than USD 1 million. 8 lots sold above their estimates (23% of the total number of lots), 20 lots sold within their estimates (57%), and 4 lots sold below their estimates (11%).

#1. Francis Bacon

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 30,000,000 – 50,000,000
USD 27,735,000

Portrait of George Dyer Crouching | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

FRANCIS BACON (1909 – 1992)
Portrait of George Dyer Crouching, 1966
Oil on canvas
78 x 57 7/8 inches (198×147 cm)
Titled and dated 1966 (on the reverse)

#2. Lucio Fontana

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 20,000,000 – 30,000,000
USD 22,969,800

Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCIO FONTANA (1899 – 1968)
Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio, 1964
Oil on canvas
177.8 x 123 cm (70 x 48 1/2 inches)
Signed (upper left); signed (on the reverse)

#3. Joan Mitchell

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 15,000,000 – 20,000,000
USD 22,615,400

Noon | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)
GUARANTEED

JOAN MITCHELL (1925 – 1992)
Noon, circa 1969
Oil on canvas
102×79 inches (259.1 x 200.7 cm)
Signed (lower left); signed and titled (on the reverse)

#4. Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 15,000,000 – 20,000,000
USD 19,367,500

Untitled | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ANDY WARHOL and JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1928 – 1987 and 1960 – 1988)
Untitled, 1984
Acrylic, oilstick and graphite on canvas
116 x 165 1/4 inches (294.6 x 419.7 cm)

#5. Frank Stella

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 14,000,000 – 18,000,000
USD 15,280,250

Ifafa I | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

FRANK STELLA (b. 1936)
Ifafa I, 1964
Metallic powder in polymer emulsion on canvas
77 1/2 x 135 inches (196.9 x 342.9 cm)

#6. Andy Warhol

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 7,000,000 – 10,000,000
USD 11,250,000

Late Four-Foot Flowers | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ANDY WARHOL (1928 – 1987)
Late Four-Foot Flowers, 1967
Acrylic, silkscreen ink and graphite on canvas
48×48 inches (121.9 x 121.9 cm)

#7. Joan Mitchell

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 12,000,000 – 18,000,000
USD 10,101,000

Ground | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)
GUARANTEED

JOAN MITCHELL (1925 – 1992)
Ground, 1989
Oil on canvas, in two parts
Overall: 220×395 cm (86 5/8 x 155 1/2 inches)
Signed (lower right)

#8. Joan Mitchell

#9. Jean-Michel Basquiat

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
USD 8,000,000 – 12,000,000
USD 10,101,000

Campaign | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960 – 1988)
Campaign, 1984
Acrylic, oilstick and silkscreen on canvas
85 7/8 x 68 1/8 inches (218×173 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 1984 (on the reverse)

#10. Jean-Michel Basquiat

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 7,000,000 – 10,000,000
USD 8,492,400

Untitled | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960 – 1988)
Untitled, 1981
Acrylic, oilstick and paper collage on paper
59×56 inches (149.9 x 142.2 cm)

#11. David Hockney

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 7,000,000 – 10,000,000
USD 8,307,300

A Bigger Wave | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)
GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

DAVID HOCKNEY (b. 1937)
A Bigger Wave, 1989
Oil on canvas, on four joined panels
60 x 72 1/4 inches (152.4 x 183.5 cm)
Signed, titled and dated March 1989 (on the reverse)

#12. Cy Twombly

CY TWOMBLY (1928 – 2011)
Untitled, 1959
Oil, oil based house paint and graphite on canvas
38 x 55 7/8 inches (96.5 x 142 cm)

#13. Andy Warhol

#14. Andy Warhol

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 5,000,000 – 7,000,000
USD 5,505,000

Carat | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ANDY WARHOL (1928 – 1987)
Carat, 1961
Water-based paint on canvas
52 1/4 x 48 inches (132.7 x 121.9 cm)

#15. Lucio Fontana

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
USD 5,263,000

Concetto spaziale, Attese | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCIO FONTANA (1899 – 1968)
Concetto spaziale, Attese, 1965
Waterpaint on canvas
100×81 cm (39 3/8 x 31 7/8 inches)
Signed, titled and variously inscribed (on the reverse)

#16. Gerhard Richter

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
USD 4,658,000

Abstraktes Bild | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GERHARD RICHTER (b. 1932)
Abstraktes Bild, 1990
Oil on wood
120×120 cm (47 1/4 x 47 1/4 inches)
Signed, dated 1990 and numbered 730-1 (on the reverse)

#17. Yayoi Kusama

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 4,658,000
#1 PERFORMER

The Pacific Ocean | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (b. 1929)
The Pacific Ocean, 1958
Oil on canvas
122.9 x 175.9 cm (48 3/8 x 69 1/4 inches)
Signed, titled and dated 1958 (on the reverse)

#18. Keith Haring

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
USD 4,470,000

Untitled | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

REPEAT SALE

Sotheby’s New-York: 12 May 2021
Estimated: USD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
USD 5,779,200

Untitled | Contemporary Art Evening Auction | 2021 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KEITH HARING (1958 – 1990)
Untitled, 1986
Acrylic on canvas
60×60 inches (152.4 x 152.4 cm)
Signed and dated JAN. 22 1986 (on the overlap)

#19. Roy Lichtenstein

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 3,000,000 – 4,000,000
USD 3,690,000

Purple Range | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923 – 1997)
Purple Range, 1966
Acrylic, oil and graphite on canvas
36×48 inches (91.4 x 121.9 cm)
Signed and dated ’66 (on the reverse)

#25. Ed Ruscha

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,500,000 – 3,500,000
USD 2,200,000

Christ Candle | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GUARANTEED

ED RUSCHA (b. 1937)
Christ Candle, 1987
Acrylic on canvas
71 3/4 x 72 inches (182.2 x 182.9 cm)
Signed and dated 1987 (on the reverse)

Passed Lots

Roy Lichtenstein

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 5,000,000 – 7,000,000
PASSED

Woman Reading | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923 – 1997)
Woman Reading, 1980
Oil and acrylic on canvas
54×70 inches (137.2 x 177.8 cm)
Signed and dated ’80 (on the reverse)

#1. Antony Gormley

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,500,000 – 3,500,000
USD 3,266,500

Angel of the North | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ANTONY GORMLEY (b. 1950)
Angel of the North, 1997
Bronze
39 x 103 1/4 x 7 7/8 inches (99 x 262.3 x 20 cm)
Incised with the artist’s initials, date 1997 and number 10/12 (on the underside)
This work is number 10 from an edition of 12 plus 1 artist’s proof

#2. Gerhard Richter

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,800,000 – 2,500,000
USD 2,056,500

Abstraktes Bild | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GERHARD RICHTER (b. 1932)
Abstraktes Bild, 1983
Oil on canvas
100×70 cm (39 3/8 x 27 1/2 inches)
Signed, dated 1983 and numbered 522-3 (on the reverse)

#3. Roy Lichtenstein

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 700,000 – 1,000,000
USD 1,996,000

Cubist Still Life | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923 – 1997)
Cubist Still Life, 1974
Acrylic, oil, sand and graphite on canvas
20×24 inches (51 x 61.1 cm)
Signed and dated ’74 (on the reverse)

#4. Alex Katz

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 1,875,000
TOP PERFORMER

May | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ALEX KATZ (b. 1927)
May, 1996
Oil on linen
120×240 inches (304.8 x 609.6 cm)

#5. Morris Louis

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,200,000 – 1,800,000
USD 1,814,500

Split Spectrum | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

MORRIS LOUIS (1912 – 1962)
Split Spectrum, 1961
Magna on canvas
81 1/2 x 48 inches (207 x 121.9 cm)
Signed, titled twice and dated ’61 (on the reverse)

#6. Gerhard Richter

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,500,000 – 2,000,000
USD 1,754,000

Abstraktes Bild | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GERHARD RICHTER (b. 1932)
Abstraktes Bild, 1993
Oil on canvas
24×28 inches (61 x 71.1 cm)
Signed, dated 1993 and numbered 800-5 (on the reverse)

#7. Helen Frankenthaler

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,500,000 – 2,000,000
USD 1,754,000

Degas at 45 | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

HELEN FRANKENTHALER (1928 – 2011)
Degas at 45, 1974
Acrylic on canvas
66 x 95 1/2 inches (167.6 x 242.6 cm)
Titled and dated Nov-74 (on the overlap)
Titled and dated Nov-74 (on the stretcher)

#8. Yoshitomo Nara

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,500,000 – 2,000,000
USD 1,512,000

Ships in Girl | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

YOSHITOMO NARA (b. 1959)
Ships in Girl, 1992
Acrylic on canvas
55×55 inches (139.7 x 139.7 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ’92 (on the reverse)

#9. Cy Twombly

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 1,512,000
TOP PERFORMER

Klu | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

#10. Joan Mitchell

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,451,500

La Plage | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

JOAN MITCHELL (1925 – 1992)
La Plage, 1973
Oil on canvas, in 2 parts
Overall: 29 1/2 x 59 1/4 inches (74.9 x 150.5 cm)

Over 40 (How You Can), 1986

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 50,000 – 70,000
USD 114,300

Over 40 (How You Can) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ANDY WARHOL (1928 – 1987)
Over 40 (How You Can), 1986
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas
20×16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Stamped by the Estate of Andy Warhol and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
Numbered PA 10.096 on the overlap

 

George Condo

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 80,000
USD 139,700

Untitled | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GEORGE CONDO (b. 1957)
Untitled, 2017
Colored pencil on paper
30 1/4 x 22 3/4 inches (76.8 x 57.8 cm)
Signed and dated Sept 14, 2017 (upper left)

 

 

Sotheby’s: Modern Evening Auction

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Total: USD 235,053,650
48 Lots sold
Sell-Through Rate: 96%

Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

With 48 sold lots, the Modern Evening Auction totaled USD 235,053,650.

This is just ahead of the pre-sale high estimate of USD 226,200,000 (which did not include any estimate for the top price of the night). With 2 withdrawn lots and 2 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 96%. The highest price of the evening was achieved by Meules a Giverny, a painting by Claude Monet dated 1893, that sold for USD 34,804,500 (Estimates on Request).

The Modern Evening Sale Top 3 Lots

8 lots sold for more than USD 10 million, generating a cumulative turnover of USD 144,003,000, representing 61.3% of the total for the night. 38 lots sold for more than USD 1 million, generating a cumulative turnover of USD 227,363,800, representing 96.7% of the total for the night.

#1. Claude Monet

Sotheby’s New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimate on Request
USD 34,804,500

Meules à Giverny  | Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)
GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

CLAUDE MONET (1840 – 1926)
Meules à Giverny, 1893
Oil on canvas
65.5 x 100.2 cm (25 7/8 x 39 1/2 inches)
Signed Claude Monet and dated 93 (lower right)

#2. Leonora Carrington

Sotheby’s New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 12,000,000 – 18,000,000
USD 28,485,000
NEW WORLD RECORD FOR THE ARTIST
TOP PERFORMER

Les Distractions de Dagobert | Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)
GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

LEONORA CARRINGTON (1917 – 2011)
Les Distractions de Dagobert, 1945
Tempera on Masonite
29 3/4 x 34 1/4 inches (75.6 x 87 cm)
Signed Carrington and dated 1945, September (lower right)

#3. Rene Magritte

Sotheby’s New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 15,000,000 – 20,0oo,000
USD 18,144,000

Le Banquet | Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

RENE MAGRITTE  (1898 – 1967)
Le Banquet, circa 1955-57
Oil on canvas
29 3/4 x 47 5/8 inches (75.5 x 121 cm)
Signed Magritte (lower left); titled and dated 1955 (on the reverse)

#4. Alexander Calder

Sotheby’s New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 7,000,000 – 10,0oo,000
USD 14,352,300
GUARANTEED / IRREVOCABLE BIDS

Blue Moon | Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ALEXANDER CALDER (1898 – 1976)
Blue Moon, 1962
Sheet metal, rod, wire and paint
60×300 inches (152.4 x 762 cm)
Incised with the artist’s monogram and dated 62 (on the red circular element)
Registered in the archives of the Calder Foundation, New York, under application number A13196

#5. Antibes vue de la Salis, 1888

Sotheby’s New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 12,000,000 – 18,000,000
USD 14,122,500

Antibes vue de la Salis | Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

CLAUDE MONET (1840 – 1926)
Antibes vue de la Salis, 1888
Oil on canvas
65.5 x 91 cm (25 3/4 x 35 7/8 inches)
Signed Claude Monet and dated 88 (lower right)

#6. Pablo Picasso

Sotheby’s New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 8,000,000 – 12,000,000
USD 12,743,700

Buste d’homme | Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

PABLO PICASSO (1881 – 1973)
Buste d’homme, 1969
Oil and Ripolin on canvas
116.4 x 89.6 cm (45 7/8 x 35 1/4 inches)
Signed Picasso (lower left); dated 20.10.69. and numbered II (on the reverse)
Executed on 20 October 1969

#7. Mark Rothko

Sotheby’s New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 10,000,000 – 15,000,000
USD 11,250,000

Untitled | Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

MARK ROTHKO (1903 – 1970)
Untitled, 1969
Oil on paper mounted on canvas
58×40 inches (147.3 x 102.9 cm)

#8. Édouard Manet

Sotheby’s New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 7,000,000 – 10,000,000
USD 10,101,000
GUARANTEED LOT / IRREVOCABLE BIDS

Vase de fleurs, roses et lilas | Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

EDOUARD MANET (1832 – 1883)
Vase de fleurs, roses et lilas, 1882
Oil on canvas
56 x 35.3 cm (22 x 13 7/8 inches)
Signed Manet (lower right)

Passed Lots

Pablo Picasso

Sotheby’s New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 6,000,000 – 8,000,000
PASSED

Femme au chapeau | Modern Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

PABLO PICASSO (1881 – 1973)
Femme au chapeau, 1941
Oil on canvas
61×38 cm (24×15 inches)
Signed Picasso and dated 13 juin 41 (center left)
Executed on 13 June 1941

Sotheby’s: Modern Day Auction

---

Total: USD 52,297,280
209 Lots sold
Sell-Through Rate: 79.2%

Modern Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

NOTA BENE: This sale is not followed by intelART

#1. Henri Matisse

Sotheby’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
USD 4,355,500

Jeune fille au chapeau de crin blanc | Modern Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

HENRI MATISSE (1869 – 1954)
Jeune fille au chapeau de crin blanc, 1923
Oil on canvas
47 x 39.1 cm (18 1/2 x 15 3/8 inches)
Signed Henri. Matisse (lower right)

 

 

Christie’s: The Rosa de la Cruz Collection Evening Sale

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Whether it was her Key Biscayne home or her 30,000-square-foot namesake exhibition space in Miami’s Design District, Rosa de la Cruz’s doors were always open. With a disposition as generous as her eye was radical, the late collector and philanthropist was at the core of Miami’s cultural scene for decades. Her numerous contributions, from opening free and public forums for contemporary art to funding scholarship programs for local arts students, helped shape the city into the thriving art capital it is today.

Around 200 works from her singular collection are coming to Christie’s, beginning with 20th and 21st Century Sale Week in New York this May. The collection is a testament to Mrs. de la Cruz’s astounding foresight and fearlessness. As Head of Rosa de la Cruz Collection Sale, Julian Ehrlich, notes, ‘Rosa may have lived in Miami, but this is far from a strictly Miami collection. She was a truly global collector.’

Total: USD 34,401,100
25 Lots sold
Sell-Through Rate: 100%

The Rosa de la Cruz Collection Evening Sale (christies.com)

 

With 25 lots, the Rosa de la Cruz Collection Evening Sale totaled USD 34,401,100.

This was just below the pre-sale estimate of USD 37,920,000. All lots were guaranteed. 1 lot was withdrawn, with no lot failing to sell the sell-through rate is 100%. The highest price was achieved by Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ Untitled (America #3), dated 1992, that sold for USD 13,635,000.

The Rosa de la Cruz Collection Evening Sale Top 3 Lots

7 lots sold for more than USD 1 million generating a cumulative turnover of USD 24,900,700, representing 72.4% of the total for the night. 54% of the lots sold above their estimates (14 lots), 9 lots sold within their estimates (35%).

#1. Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 8,000,000 – 12,000,000
USD 13,635,000
NEW WORLD RECORD FOR THE ARTIST

FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES (1957-1996), “Untitled” (America #3) | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES (1957-1996)
“Untitled” (America #3), 1992
42 light bulbs, porcelain light sockets and electrical cord
Overall dimensions vary with installation
Length: 504 inches (12.8 m)

#2. Peter Doig

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 5,000,000 – 7,000,000
USD 4,043,000

PETER DOIG (b. 1959), Rainbow Wheel | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED

PETER DOIG (b. 1959)
Rainbow Wheel, 1999
Oil on canvas
78×73 inches (198.1 x 185.4 cm)
Signed twice, titled and dated ‘Peter Doig, ’98’-99′ “RAINBOW WHEEL”‘ (on the reverse)

#3. Mark Grotjahn

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
USD 2,107,000

MARK GROTJAHN (B. 1968), Untitled | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED

MARK GROTJAHN (B. 1968)
Untitled, 2005
Oil on canvas
58×48 inches (147.3 x 121.9 cm)

#4. Peter Doig

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 1,320,500

PETER DOIG (B. 1959), Ski Jacket | Christie’s (christies.com)

PETER DOIG (B. 1959)
Ski Jacket, 1993
Oil on canvas
18×20 inches (45.7 x 50.8 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ‘SKI JACKET 93 Peter Doig’ (on the reverse)

#5. Christopher Wool

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 1,222,200

CHRISTOPHER WOOL (B. 1955), Untitled | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED

CHRISTOPHER WOOL (B. 1955)
Untitled, 2011
Silkscreen on linen
129×96 inches (304.8 x 243.8 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Wool 2011’ (on the overlap)
Signed and dated again ‘Wool (2011)’ (on the stretcher)

#6. Wade Guyton

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 1,071,000

WADE GUYTON (B. 1972), Untitled | Christie’s (christies.com)

WADE GUYTON (B. 1972)
Untitled, 2005
Inkjet on linen
60×38 inches (152.4 x 96.5 cm)

#11. Christina Quarles

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 655,200

CHRISTINA QUARLES (B.1985), Don’t They Know? It’s the End of tha World | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED

CHRISTINA QUARLES (B.1985)
Don’t They Know? It’s the End of tha World, 2020
Acrylic on canvas
77×96 inches (195.6 x 243.8 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ‘Christina Quarles 2020 “Don’t They Know? It’s the End of tha World”‘ (on the reverse)

#13. Shara Hughes

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 567,000

SHARA HUGHES (B. 1981), No Way Out | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED

SHARA HUGHES (B. 1981)
No Way Out, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
68×60 inches (172.7 x 152.4 cm)
Signed, titled, and dated ‘SHARA HUGHES 2023 “NO WAY OUT”‘ (on the reverse)
Signed again ‘Shara’ (on the stretcher)

#21. Hernan Bas

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 70,000 – 100,000
USD 390,600

HERNAN BAS (B. 1978), Trying to fit in | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

HERNAN BAS (B. 1978)
Trying to fit in, 2004
Oil, acrylic and gouache on panel
31×24 inches (78.7 x 61 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials, titled and dated ‘HB 04 trying to fit in’ (on the reverse)

 

Lots Withdrawn

Martin Kippenberger

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
Withdrawn

MARTIN KIPPENBERGER (1953-1997), Untitled (from the series Hand Painted Pictures) | Christie’s (christies.com)

MARTIN KIPPENBERGER (1953-1997)
Untitled (from the series Hand Painted Pictures), 1992
Oil on canvas
71×59 inches (180×150 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials and dated ‘M. K. 92’ (on the reverse)

 

Christie’s: 21st Century Evening Sale

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Total: USD 80,258,980
30 Lots sold
Sell-Through Rate: 93.8%

21st Century Evening Sale (christies.com)

The 21st Evening Sale totaled USD 80,258,980 with 30 lots sold.

This is just above the pre-sale low estimate of USD 74,080,000. 3 lots were withdrawn, and with 2 lots unsold, the sell-through rate is 93.8%. The sale was led by Jean-Michel Basquiat’s The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet, dated 1982, that sold for USD 32,035,000.

21st Century Evening Sale Top 3 Lots

15 lots sold for more than USD 1 million, generating a cumulative turnover of USD 72,481,000, representing 90.3% of the total. Half of the lots sold above their estimates (17 lots or 49%), 10 lots sold within estimates (29%).

#1. Jean-Michel Basquiat

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimate on Request
USD 32,035,000

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988), The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet | Christie’s (christies.com)

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)
The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet, 1982
Acrylic, oilstick and paper collage on canvas mounted on tied wood supports
60×60 inches (152.4 x 152.4 cm)
Signed, titled and dated (on the reverse)

#2. Julie Mehretu

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 5,000,000 – 7,000,000
USD 5,858,000

JULIE MEHRETU (B. 1970)
Mumbaphilia (J.E.), 2018
Acrylic and ink on canvas
96×72 inches (243.8 x 182.9 cm)

#3. Julie Mehretu

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
USD 4,890,000

JULIE MEHRETU (B. 1970), Fever graph (algorithm for serendipity) | Christie’s (christies.com)

JULIE MEHRETU (B. 1970)
Fever graph (algorithm for serendipity), 2013
Acrylic, ink and graphite on canvas
96×120 inches (243.8 x 304.8 cm)

#4. Yayoi Kusama

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
USD 4,406,000

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929), Enlightenment Means Living a Life Unconcernedly | Christie’s (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Enlightenment Means Living a Life Unconcernedly, 2008
Acrylic on canvas
194 x 259.1 cm (76 3/8 x 102 inches)
Signed, titled in Japanese and English, and dated (on the reverse)

#5. Bruce Nauman

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
USD 4,043,000

BRUCE NAUMAN
Hanged Man, 1985
Neon tubing mounted on metal monolith
84 1/4 x 60 x 7 1/4 inches (214 x 152.4 x 18.4 cm)

#6. Vija Celmins

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,500,000 – 3,500,000
USD 3,075,000

VIJA CELMINS
Web #10, 2006
Graphite and charcoal on acrylic ground paper
18 1/4 x 21 3/8 inches (46.4 x 54.3 cm)
Signed ‘Vija Celmins’ (lower right)

#7. Lynette Yiadom-Boake

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 2,954,000

LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE
Black Allegiance to the Cunning, 2018
Oil on linen
79×59 inches (200.7 x 149.9 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials
Titled and dated on the reverse

#8. Elisabeth Peyton

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
USD 2,470,000

ELIZABETH PEYTON (B. 1965), Matthew | Christie’s (christies.com)

ELIZABETH PEYTON (B. 1965)
Matthew, 1997
Oil on canvas
39 x 27 3/4 inches (99×70 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ‘Matthew, May 1997, Elizabeth Peyton’ (on the overlap)

#9. Jean-Michel Basquiat

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
USD 2,409,500

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988), Chicken Wings Three | Christie’s (christies.com)

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)
Chicken Wings Three, 1983
Acrylic and Xerox collage on metal
35 1/2 x 35 1/2 inches (90.2 x 90.2 cm)

#10. Kerry James Marshall

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,200,000 – 1,800,000
USD 2,228,000

KERRY JAMES MARSHALL
Lost Boys – AKA Black Tony, 1993
Acrylic and canvas collage mounted to board
27 1/2 x 30 1/4 inches (69.9 x 76.8 cm)
Signed and dated lower right

#11. Keith Haring

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 2,046,500

Keith Haring (1958-1990), Untitled | Christie’s (christies.com)

KEITH HARING (1958-1990)
Untitled, 1982
Sumi ink on paper
72 x 115 1/2 inches (182.9 x 293.4 cm)

#12. Jonas Wood

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,200,000 – 2,800,000
USD 1,744,000

JONAS WOOD (B. 1977), Landscape Pot 1 | Christie’s (christies.com)

GUARANTEED

JONAS WOOD (B. 1977)
Landscape Pot 1, 2014
Oil on canvas
118×93 inches (299.7 x 236.2 cm)
Signed twice with the artist’s initials, titled and dated ‘LANDSCAPE POT 1 JBRW 2014’ (on the reverse)

 

Lots Withdrawn

Brice Marden

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 30,000,000 – 50,000,000
WITHDRAWN

BRICE MARDEN (1938-2023), Event | Christie’s (christies.com)

GUARANTEED

BRICE MARDEN (1938-2023)
Event, 2004-2007
Oil on linen, in two parts
Each: 72×48 inches (183×122 cm)
Overall: 72×96 inches (183×244 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ‘EVENT 2004-7 B. Marden’ (on the reverse of the left panel)
Titled and dated again ‘EVENT 2004-7’ (on the reverse of the right panel)

Nicolas Party

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
WITHDRAWN

NICOLAS PARTY (B. 1980), Grotto | Christie’s (christies.com)

NICOLAS PARTY (B. 1980)
Grotto, 2019
Soft pastel on linen
190.5 x 160.1 cm (75 1/8 x 65 inches)
Signed and dated ‘Nicolas Party 2019’ (on the reverse)

Christie’s: 20th Century Evening Sale

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Total: USD 413,324,500
58 Lots sold
Sell-Through Rate: 95.1%

20th Century Evening Sale (christies.com)

With 58 sold lots, the 20th Century Evening Sale totaled USD 413,324,500.

This is right in the middle of the pre-sale estimates range (USD 345-500 million). 2 lots were withdrawn (Andy Warhol’s Aretha Franklin and Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale). With 3 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 95.1%. The top lot of the evening was Andy Warhol’s magnificent large-scale Flowers dated 1964, that sold for USD 35,585,000, just ahead from Vincent van Gogh’s Coin de jardin avec papillons that sold for USD 35,000.

20th Century Evening Sale Top 3 Lots

#1. Andy Warhol

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 20,000,000 – 30,000,000
USD 35,585,000

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987), Flowers | Christie’s (christies.com)

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)
Flowers, 1964
Acrylic, fluorescent paint and silkscreen ink on linen
82×82 inches (208.3 x 208.3 cm)
Signed twice and dated later ‘Andy Warhol Andy Warhol 65’ (on the overlap)

#2. Vincent van Gogh

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 20,000,000 – 30,000,000
USD 33,185,000

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890), Coin de jardin avec papillons | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED / IRREVOCABLE BID

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890)
Coin de jardin avec papillons, 1887
Oil on canvas
50.4 x 61.4 cm (19 3/4 x 24 1/4 inches)
Painted in May-July 1887

#3. David Hockney

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 25,000,000 – 35,000,000
USD 28,585,000

DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937), A Lawn Being Sprinkled | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937)
A Lawn Being Sprinkled, 1967
Acrylic on canvas
60×60 inches (152.4 x 152.4 cm)
Signed, inscribed, titled and dated ‘”Lawn being sprinkled” David Hockney Los Angeles 1967’ (on the reverse)

#4. Alberto Giacometti

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 20,000,000 – 30,000,000
USD 22,260,000

ALBERTO GIACOMETTI (1901-1966)
Femme Leoni, 1947
Bronze with brown patina
Height: 152 cm (59 3/4 inches)
Signed, numbered and stamped with foundry mark
‘Alberto Giacometti Susse Fondeur Paris 3/6’ on the lower left side

#5. Claude Monet

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 18,000,000 – 25,000,000
USD 21,685,000

CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926), Moulin de Limetz | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926)
Moulin de Limetz, 1888
Oil on canvas
92.5 x 72.8 cm (36 3/8 x 28 5/8 inches)
Signed and dated ‘Claude Monet 88’ (lower left)

#6. Pablo Picasso

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 20,000,000 – 30,000,000
USD 19,960,000

PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973), Femme au chapeau assise | Christie’s (christies.com)

GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973)
Femme au chapeau assise, 1971
Oil and Ripolin on canvas
130 x 97.1 cm (51 1/8 x 38 1/4 inches)
Dated and numbered ‘28.7.71. II’ (on the reverse)
Painted in Mougins on 28 July 1971

#7. Giorgia O’Keeffe

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 10,000,000 – 15,000,000
USD 16,510,000

GIORGIA O’KEEFFE (1887-1986)
Red Poppy, 1928
Oil on canvas
36 1/4 x 30 inches (92.1 x 76.2 cm)
Signed and dated ‘G. O’Keeffe 1928’ on the stretcher

#8. Ed Ruscha

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 7,000,000 – 10,000,000
USD 14,785,000

ED RUSCHA (B. 1937), Truth | Christie’s (christies.com)

ED RUSCHA (B. 1937)
Truth, 1973
Oil on canvas
54×60 inches (137.2 x 152.4 cm)
Signed, dedicated, inscribed and dated ‘For Merle and Pearl Edward Ruscha 1973 IT RHYMES WITH TOOTH’ (on the reverse)

#10. Joan Mitchell

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 10,000,000 – 15,000,000
USD 13,060,000

JOAN MITCHELL (1925-1992), Chord X | Christie’s (christies.com)

GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

JOAN MITCHELL (1925-1992)
Chord X, 1987
Oil on canvas
102 ½ x 78 5/8 inches (260.4 x 199.7 cm)
Signed ‘Joan Mitchell’ (lower right)

#12. Wayne Thiebaud

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 10,000,000 – 15,000,000
USD 11,335,000
GUARANTEED LOT / IRREVOCABLE BID

WAYNE THIEBAUD (1920-2021)
Star Pinball, 1962
Oil on canvas
60 x 36 1/4 inches (152.4 x 92.1 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Thiebaud 62’ (lower right)

#13. Gerhard Richter

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 10,000,000 – 15,000,000
USD 11,335,000

GERHARD RICHTER (B. 1932), Abstraktes Bild | Christie’s (christies.com)

GERHARD RICHTER (B. 1932)
Abstraktes Bild, 1988
Oil on canvas
200×180 cm (78 3/4 x 70 7/8 inches)
Signed, inscribed and dated ‘680-2 Richter 1988’ (on the reverse)

#19. Roy Lichtenstein

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 6,000,000 – 8,000,000
USD 7,310,000

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997), Modern Painting with Ionic Column | Christie’s (christies.com)

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
Modern Painting with Ionic Column, 1967
Acrylic, oil and graphite on canvas
62 x 82 1/8 inches (157.5 x 208.6 cm)
Signed and dated ‘rf Lichtenstein ‘67’ (on the reverse)

#23. Andy Warhol

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
USD 5,616,000

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987), Double Mona Lisa | Christie’s (christies.com)

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)
Double Mona Lisa, 1963
Silkscreen ink on canvas
30 x 33 7/8 inches (76.2 x 86 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Andy Warhol 1963’ (on the overlap)

Roy Lichtenstein

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 2,349,000

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997), I Love Liberty (Study) | Christie’s (christies.com)

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
I Love Liberty (Study), 1981
Painted and printed paper collage and graphite on paperboard
Image: 25 3/4 x 17 inches (65.4 x 43.2 cm)
Sheet: 34×25 inches (86.4 x 63.5 cm)
Signed and dated ‘rf Lichtenstein ’81’ (lower right)
Signed again and dated again ‘rf Lichtenstein ’81’ (on the reverse)

Christie’s: Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale

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Total: USD 75,129,750
237 Lots sold
Sell-Through Rate: 83.2%

Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale (christies.com)

With 237 lots sold, the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale totaled USD 75,129,750.

Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale Top 6 Lots

11 lots sold for more than USD 1 million, generating a cumulative turnover of USD 14,759,200, representing 19.6% of the total turnover. 71 lots sold above their pre-sale estimates (25% of lots), 97 lots sold within their pre-sale estimates (34% of lots), and 69 lots sold below their pre-sale estimates (24% of lots).

1. Top 10 Lots

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#1. Andy Warhol

#2. Mark Tansey

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 1,889,200

MARK TANSEY (B. 1949)
Archive, 1981
Oil on canvas
77 x 54 1/2 inches (195.6 x 138.4 cm)
Titled ‘Archive’ (lower left)

#3. Willem de Kooning

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,200,000 – 1,800,000
USD 1,865,000

WILLEM DE KOONING (1904-1997)
Woman in a Rowboat, 1965
Oil and charcoal on paper mounted on Masonite
48 x 22 3/4 inches (122 x 56.6 cm)
Signed ‘de Kooning’ (lower left)

#4. Alma Thomas

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 1,623,000

ALMA THOMAS (1891-1978)
Tulips in Spring Sunshine, 1969
Acrylic on canvas
30×26 inches (76.2 x 66 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ‘Tulips in Spring Sunshine ’69 Alma W. Thomas’ (on the reverse)

#5. Yayoi Kusama

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 1,320,500

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929), Dots Obsession (TBAOQ) | Christie’s (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Dots Obsession (TBAOQ), 2007
Acrylic on canvas
130.5 x 162.1 cm (51 3/8 x 63 7/8 inches)
Signed, titled and dated ‘Yayoi Kusama 2007 Dots Obsession TBAOQ’ (on the reverse)

#6. Mark Grotjahn

The Rosa de la Cruz Collection
Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 1,320,500

MARK GROTJAHN (B. 1968)
Untitled (Blue Butterfly Light to Dark V 655), 2006
Oil on linen
77×51 inches (195.6 x 129.4 cm)

#7. George Condo

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,260,000

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957), Shimmering Forms | Christie’s (christies.com)

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957)
Shimmering Forms, 2010
Acrylic, pastel and graphite on canvas
70×70 inches (177.8 x 177.8 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Condo 2010’ (upper left)

#8. Bob Thompson

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 1,260,000

BOB THOMPSON (1936-1966)
Music Lesson, 1962
Oil on canvas
47 1/2 x 47 1/2 inches (120.6 x 120.6 cm)
Signed and inscribed ‘BT Marcellus from Bob T. this is my man Bob T winter and summer together love you till the end’
(on the reverse)

#9. Roy Lichtenstein

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,197,000

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997), Painting: Silver Frame | Christie’s (christies.com)

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
Painting: Silver Frame, 1984
Acrylic and graphite on canvas
54×60 inches (137.2 x 152.4 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Lichtenstein ’84’ (on the reverse)

#10. Robert Indiana

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,197,000

ROBERT INDIANA (1928-2018)
LOVE (Red Faces Blue Sides), 1966-1999
Polychrome aluminum
96x96x48 inches (243.8 x 243.8 x 121.9 cm)
Stamped with the artist’s name, number, date and fabricator mark ‘© 1966-1999
R INDIANA 3/5’ (on the interior edge of the ‘E’)
Conceived in 1966 and executed in 1999
This work is number three from an edition of five plus two artist’s proofs

 

2. Andy Warhol

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Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn), 1967

Clockwork Panda Drummer (Toy Painting), 1983

Moon Explorer (Toy Painting), 1983

Ladies and Gentlemen, 1975

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 793,800

NICOLAS PARTY (B. 1980)
Portrait, 2015
Soft pastel on linen
67×59 inches (170.2 x 149.9 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Nicolas Party 2015’ (on the reverse)

Joan Mitchell

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 680,400

JOAN MITCHELL (1925-1992), Composition | Christie’s (christies.com)

JOAN MITCHELL (1925-1992)
Composition, circa 1970
Oil on canvas
13 3/4 x 10 1/2 inches (34.9 x 26.7 cm)
Signed and dedicated ‘To Bellum with all my love & deep thanks love Joan’ (on the stretcher)

Rashid Jonhson

The Rosa de la Cruz Collection
Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 604,800

RASHID JOHNSON (B. 1977), Untitled Escape Collage | Christie’s (christies.com)

RASHID JOHNSON (B. 1977)
Untitled Escape Collage, 2018
Ceramic tile, mirror tile, vinyl, spray enamel, oilstick, black soap and wax
72 1/4 x 96 1/2 inches (183.6 x 245 cm)

Gerhard Richter

The Collection of Senator Herb Kohl
Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 604,800

GERHARD RICHTER (B. 1932)
Abstraktes Bild, 1977
Oil on canvas
100×70 cm (39 3/8 x 27 1/2 inches)
Signed, inscribed and dated ‘431/9 Richter 77’ (on the reverse)

David Hockney

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 554,400

DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937)
Flourish, 1989
Oil on canvas
12 x 24 1/8 inches (30.5 x 61.3 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ‘Flourish 1989 David Hockney’ (on the reverse)

KAWS

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 554,400

KAWS (B. 1974), UNTITLED | Christie’s (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
UNTITLED, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
84×120 inches (213.4 x 304.8 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..12’ (on the reverse)

KAWS

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 70,000 – 100,000
USD 94,500

KAWS (B. 1974), UNTITLED | Christie’s (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
UNTITLED, 2013
Acrylic on canvas
24×32 inches (61 x 81.3 cm)
Signed and dated ‘KAWS..13’ (on the reverse)

KAWS

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 80,000
USD 63,000

KAWS (B. 1974), BORN TO BEND | Christie’s (christies.com)

KAWS (B. 1974)
BORN TO BEND, 2013
Painted bronze and painted steel base
16 1/2 x 10 3/4 x 6 inches (41.9 x 27.3 x 15.2 cm)
Signed, numbered and dated ‘KAWS..13 6/10’ (on the underside)
This work is number six from an edition of ten plus two artist’s proofs

Jade Fadojutimi

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 529,200

JADÉ FADOJUTIMI (B. 1993), The Luxury of Single Cell Organisms | Christie’s (christies.com)

JADÉ FADOJUTIMI (B. 1993)
The Luxury of Single Cell Organisms, 2019
Oil on canvas
160×220 cm (63 x 86 5/8 inches)
Signed twice, titled and dated ‘Dec ’19 ‘The Luxury of Single Cell Organisms Jadé Fadojutimi JF’ (on the reverse)

Gerhard Richter

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 504,000

GERHARD RICHTER (B. 1932)
Grau (hinter Glas), 2002
Oil behind glass, in artist’s frame
120×90 cm (47 3/4 x 36 inches)
Signed, inscribed and dated ‘876-6 Richter 2002’ (on the reverse)
Signed again and dated again ‘Richter 2002’ (on a plastic label affixed to the upper side edge)

George Condo

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 504,000

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957), The Apparition | Christie’s (christies.com)

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957)
The Apparition, 2009
Oil on canvas
40×36 inches (101.6 x 91.4 cm)

Jonas Wood

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 300,000 – 500,000
USD 478,800

JONAS WOOD (B. 1977)
Untitled (Pollock with Night Bloom), 2012
Oil and acrylic on canvas
65×30 inches (165.1 x 76.2 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials, titled and dated ‘JBRW 2012 UNTITLED (POLLOCK WITH NIGHT BLOOM)’
(on the reverse)

Maria Berrio

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 350,000 – 450,000
USD 441,000

MARÍA BERRÍO (B. 1982)
La Cena, 2012
Wax crayon, graphite, fabric collage and Japanese rice paper collage on canvas
48×58 inches (121.9 x 147.3 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ‘”La Cena” Maria Berrio 2012’ (on the reverse)

Rashid Johnson

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 250,000 – 350,000
USD 403,200

RASHID JOHNSON (B. 1977)
Untitled Anxious Red Drawing, 2020
Oil on cotton rag
38 1/4 x 50 inches (97.2 x 127 cm)
Signed ‘Rashid Johnson’ (on the reverse)

George Condo

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 252,000

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957), The Maitre D | Christie’s (christies.com)

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957)
The Maitre D, 2007
Oil on canvas
24×18 inches (61 x 45.7 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Condo 07’ (on the reverse)

Kehinde Wiley

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 150,000 – 200,000
USD 239,400

KEHINDE WILEY (B. 1977)
Saint Jerome Hearing the Trumpet of Last Judgement, 2018
Oil on canvas, in artist’s frame
96×72 inches (243.8 x 182.9 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Kehinde Wiley 2018’ (on the reverse)

Hernan Bas

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 40,000 – 60,000
USD 107,100

HERNAN BAS (B. 1978), The Paper Crown Prince | Christie’s (christies.com)

HERNAN BAS (B. 1978)
The Paper Crown Prince, 2005
Water-based oil on panel
11 7/8 x 10 inches (30.2 x 25.4 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials and dated ‘HB 05’ (lower right)

George Condo

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 50,000 – 70,000
USD 94,500

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957)
Reclining Nude (II), 2010
Colored pencil on paper
22 1/4 x 30 inches (56.5 x 76.2 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Condo 2010’ (upper left)

 

 

 

 

Christie’s: Impressionist and Modern Art Works on Paper and Day Sales

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Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale

Total: USD 29,168,280
129 Lots sold
Sell-Through Rate: 83.8%

Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale (christies.com)

Nota Bene: This sale is not followed by intelART

 

#1. Claude Monet

Christie’s New-York: 18 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
USD 2,228,000

CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926), Prairie à Giverny | Christie’s (christies.com)

CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926)
Prairie à Giverny, 1886
Oil on canvas
92.7 x 81.3 cm (36 1/2 x 32 inches)
Signed and dated ‘Claude Monet 86’ (lower left)

#2. Pablo Picasso

Christie’s New-York: 18 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,071,000

PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973), Citrons et verre | Christie’s (christies.com)

PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973)
Citrons et verre, 1944
Oil on canvas
26.7 x 41.3 cm (10 5/8 x 16 1/4 inches)
Signed ‘Picasso’ (upper left)
Dated ‘14.1.44.’ (on the reverse)
Painted on 14 January 1944

#3. Marc Chagall

Christie’s New-York: 18 May 2024
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 982,800

MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985), Le Songe | Christie’s (christies.com)

MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985)
Le Songe, 1976
Oil and tempera on canvas
81 x 60.2 cm (31 7/8 x 23 3/4 inches)
Signed ‘Marc Chagall’ (lower right); signed again ‘Marc Chagall ‘ (on the reverse)

 

Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper Sale

Total: USD 13,488,000
86 Lots sold
Sell-Through Rate: 84.3%

Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper Sale (christies.com)

Nota Bene: This sale is not followed by intelART

 

#1. Salvador Dali

Christie’s New-York: 18 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 1,744,000

SALVADOR DALI (1904-1989), Rhinocéros (recto); Etude pour Rhinocéros (verso) | Christie’s (christies.com)

SALVADOR DALI (1904-1989)
Rhinocéros (recto); Etude pour Rhinocéros (verso), 1959
Gouache, brush and black and India inks and ink wash over pencil on card (recto); pencil on card (verso)
90.7 x 65 cm (35 3/4 x 25 5/8 inches)
Signed and dated twice ‘Dalí 1959’ (lower right; recto) and inscribed (lower left; recto)
Signed again and inscribed ‘SIEKYRA-DALI PRESENTEN RHINOCEROS’ (verso)

#2. Pablo Picasso

Christie’s New-York: 18 May 2024
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 1,184,400

PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973), La Suite Vollard | Christie’s (christies.com)

PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973)
La Suite Vollard, 1930-1937
The rare complete set of one hundred etchings, aquatints and drypoints on Montval laid paper
Of which fifty signed ‘Picasso’ (lower right), all watermarked Picasso or Vollard
Each Sheet circa: 34 x 44.5 cm (13 3/8 x 17 1/2 inches)
This set is from the edition of 260 published by Ambroise Vollard, Paris, 1939

#3. Marc Chagall

Christie’s New-York: 18 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 705,600

MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985), Les Amoureux sous les palmiers à Antibes | Christie’s (christies.com)

MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985)
Les Amoureux sous les palmiers à Antibes, 1969
Gouache, watercolor, pastel and pen and colored inks over pencil on paper
76.5 x 57 cm (30 1/8 x 22 1/2 inches)
Stamped with signature ‘Marc Chagall’ (lower left)

With 24 lots sold, the Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sale totaled USD 86,022,800.

This is just below the USD 88,950,000 pre-sale estimate. 2 lots were withdrawn, including Picasso’s Buste de femme au chapeau that carried estimates of USD 12-18 million. With 4 lots failing to sell, the sell-through rate is 85.7%. The sale was led by Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (ELMAR), a painting dated 1982, that sold for USD 46,479,000.

Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sale Top 3 Lots

12 lots sold for more than USD 1 million, generating a cumulative turnover of USD 78,733,000 (91.5% of the total sale). 7 lots sold over their estimates (25%), 16 lots within their estimates (57%), only 1 lot sold below estimates.

#1. Jean-Michel Basquiat

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 40,000,000 – 60,000,000
USD 46,479,000

Jean-Michel Basquiat – Modern & Contempor… Lot 5 May 2024 | Phillips

GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

#3. Donald Judd

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 5,500,000 – 7,500,000
USD 5,989,000

Donald Judd – Modern & Contemporary Art … Lot 12 May 2024 | Phillips

#4. Helen Frankenthaler

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,800,000 – 2,500,000
USD 3,690,000

Helen Frankenthaler – Modern & Contempora… Lot 7 May 2024 | Phillips

#5. Barkley L. Hendricks

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,500,000 – 3,500,000
USD 3,206,000

Barkley L. Hendricks – Modern & Contempor… Lot 4 May 2024 | Phillips

#6. Donald Judd

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
USD 2,722,000

Donald Judd – Modern & Contemporary Art E… Lot 9 May 2024 | Phillips

#7. Jean-Michel Basquiat

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,996,000

Jean-Michel Basquiat – Modern & Contempo… Lot 13 May 2024 | Phillips

#8. Yayoi Kusama

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,500,000 – 2,000,000
USD 1,875,000

Yayoi Kusama – Modern & Contemporary Art… Lot 11 May 2024 | Phillips

GUARANTEED | IRREVOCABLE BID

#9. Rashid Johnson

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,391,000

Rashid Johnson – Modern & Contemporary A… Lot 14 May 2024 | Phillips

#10. George Condo

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,270,000

George Condo – Modern & Contemporary Art… Lot 15 May 2024 | Phillips

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 1,143,000

Andy Warhol – Modern & Contemporary Art … Lot 16 May 2024 | Phillips

#12. Jade Fadojutimi

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 1,079,500

Jadé Fadojutimi – Modern & Contemporary A… Lot 8 May 2024 | Phillips

#13. Grace Hartigan

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 700,000 – 1,000,000
USD 927,100

Grace Hartigan – Modern & Contemporary A… Lot 20 May 2024 | Phillips

#14. Derek Fordjour

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 889,000

Derek Fordjour – Modern & Contemporary Ar… Lot 2 May 2024 | Phillips

#15. Marc Chagall

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 863,600

Marc Chagall – Modern & Contemporary Art… Lot 23 May 2024 | Phillips

#17. George Condo

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 660,400

George Condo – Modern & Contemporary Art… Lot 26 May 2024 | Phillips

#22. Alex Katz

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 350,000 – 500,000
USD 381,000

Alex Katz – Modern & Contemporary Art Ev… Lot 22 May 2024 | Phillips

Passed Lots

Maria Berrio

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 250,000 – 350,000
PASSED

María Berrío – Modern & Contemporary Art… Lot 24 May 2024 | Phillips

Lots Withdrawn

Pablo Picasso

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 12,000,000 – 18,000,000
WITHDRAWN

Pablo Picasso – Modern & Contemporary Ar… Lot 17 May 2024 | Phillips

Phillips: Modern and Contemporary Art Day Sale

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Total: USD 23,642,811
215 Lots sold
Sell-Through Rate: 80.5%

Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session: New York May 2024 (phillips.com)

Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Se… New York May 2024 (phillips.com)

 

1. Top 10 Lots

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#1. Helen Frankenthaler

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,200,000 – 1,800,000
USD 1,168,400

Helen Frankenthaler – Modern & Contempo… Lot 133 May 2024 | Phillips

#2. Robert Motherwell

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 698,500

Robert Motherwell – Modern & Contempora… Lot 134 May 2024 | Phillips

#3. Anish Kapoor

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 673,100

Anish Kapoor – Modern & Contemporary Ar… Lot 343 May 2024 | Phillips

#4. Aristide Maillol

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 635,000

Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session: New York May 2024 (phillips.com)

#5. Joan Mitchell

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 350,000 – 550,000
USD 584,200

Joan Mitchell – Modern & Contemporary A… Lot 138 May 2024 | Phillips

 

2. Other Highlights

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Salvo

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 100,000 – 150,000
USD 254,000

Salvo – Modern & Contemporary Art Day S… Lot 306 May 2024 | Phillips

Keith Haring

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 150,000 – 200,000
USD 152,400

Keith Haring – Modern & Contemporary Ar… Lot 147 May 2024 | Phillips

George Condo

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 50,000
USD 76,200

George Condo – Modern & Contemporary Ar… Lot 418 May 2024 | Phillips

Hernan Bas

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 90,000
USD 76,200

Hernan Bas – Modern & Contemporary Art … Lot 318 May 2024 | Phillips

 

 

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PART III: FOCUS

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Focus: Ultra-Contemporary

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1. Lucy Bull

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16:10, 2020

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 1,814,500
NEW AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST

16:10 | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
16:10, 2020
Oil on linen
93 1/8 x 53 7/8 inches (236.5 x 136.8 cm)
Signed and dated 2020 (on the reverse)

 

Crackling with dynamic energy, Lucy Bull’s 16:10 from 2020 fluctuates between a surrealist dreamscape, a synesthetic painterly composition, and a psychedelic experience. Rippling tessellations of brilliant vermillion, neon yellow, and fluorescent orange induce the viewer into a trance-like state, coalescing into a disorientating and meditative plane of experience. At nearly eight feet tall, the verticality of 16:10 engulfs the viewer, transporting one to a prismatic, otherworldly plane. In recent years, the young LA-based artist who is represented by David Kordansky Gallery has distinguished herself as a contemporary paragon of abstract art.

JASPER JOHNS, USUYUKI, 1979-1995. SOLD AT SOTHEBY’S, NEW YORK FOR $3.3 MILLION IN OCTOBER 2020. PRIVATE COLLECTION. ART © 2024 JASPER JOHNS / LICENSED BY VAGA AT ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NY

Bull’s approach to painting results from a careful mediation between precision and impulse. The artist builds on initial washes of loose brushwork in negotiation between association and abstraction: taking up to twenty layers of paint to create a work’s final surface, Bull meticulously builds up the layers and textures of a composition, then employs reductive techniques like scratching away to tease out fragments of forms. Bull’s painterly gravitas lies in her capacity to generate meaning via the mechanisms of shape, color, and texture alone. Speaking about her revelatory process, the artist has said, “Ultimately what I’m trying to do is get to the point where there is potential for new avenues of discovery. The scratching feels like excavation; older marks in the beginning layers get pulled to the foreground. It’s similar to Max Ernst’s technique of frottage. I relate to how he talks about being a spectator to the making of his own work. When things finally open up and click, it feels like magic.” (Lucy Bull, quoted in: “Getting Lost in the Brushstrokes: Lucy Bull Interviewed by John Garcia,” Bomb, 26 April 2021, online)

In the present work, bursts of electric yellow erupt from the center of the canvas, morphing into gauzy veils of scarlet, fuschia, and vermillion. The high-keyed palette is offset by wisps of cooler hues, producing a chemical transmutation of compelling psychological complexity. Bull’s gestural swaths of pigment are characterized by their delicate and scale-like textures, which stretch and contract against the bounds of the picture plane. These primordial contours inject 16:10 with a kinetic ebullience, drawing the eye to each swell and ripple. Within this nebulous interplay of form and color, Bull ignites associations with the organic and the cosmic, with fusion and rupture, as the painting unfurls before the viewer in all its impossible vitality.

Embodying the fundamental Surrealist interest in unlocking new subconscious potentialities, Lucy Buill’s ethereal works stimulate a delicate wavering between conscious and unconscious thought in the viewer. A kaleidoscopic maelstrom of chroma and texture, 16:10 exemplifies the mysticism of Lucy Bull’s enigmatic practice, engaging with the medium of painting as an experimentation with the ineffable possibilities of synesthetic perception.

Loving Tongue, 2019

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 350,000 – 450,000
USD 762,000

Loving Tongue | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

LUCY BULL (b. 1990)
Loving Tongue, 2019
Oil on linen
50×30 inches (127 x 76.2 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ’19 (on the reverse)

“I want to titillate the senses. I want to draw people closer. I think people aren’t used to paying much prolonged attention to paintings on walls, and I want to allow people to have more of a sensory experience. I want to draw them in so that there is the opportunity for things to open up and for them to wander.”

MAX ERNST, THE EYE OF SILENCE, 1944. COLLECTION OF THE MILDRED LANE KEMPER ART MUSEUM, ST. LOUIS © 2022 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK / ADAGP, PARIS

2. Jadé Fadojutimi

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The Pour, 2022

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 1,079,500

Jadé Fadojutimi – Modern & Contemporary A… Lot 8 May 2024 | Phillips

Jadé Fadojutimi’s The Pour, painted in 2022, is a glistening mosaic of gem-like hues: vivid magentas, coral reds, royal purples, and hints of turquoise that traverse the canvas in a richly choreographed dance. A central semicircle motif seems to evoke the “pouring” action that the title alludes to, while patterns reminiscent of leaves and greenery erupt in growth along the margins. Somewhere between figuration and abstraction, one can almost make out faces peeking through the frenetic brushstrokes and sunset-hued washes. Brimming with Fadojutimi’s characteristic vibrancy, The Pour envelopes its viewer into the artist’s exuberant and precious world. As the artist elucidates, through “form, color, or texture or pattern […] they become spaces for me to exist.”

Gustav Klimt, Bauerngarten, 1907. Private Collection.

The dynamism and sense of quick movement in The Pour is a result of Fadojutimi’s unique painting technique. The artist thins her paint with the quick drying agent Liquin, which dries fast and to a high gloss, giving the effect of a reflection on glass or water. In her more recent paintings, and in this work in particular, she draws directly onto the canvas with oil bar, a medium that accommodates both the speed and spontaneity of her painting process. The introduction of the oilstick to her practice represented a new relationship with drawing for the artist. While she previously described drawing as “an appetizer for painting,” the oilstick represents for her a hybrid between the two and is a testament to her dedication to fading the boundaries between painting and drawing. For Fadojutimi, it is important that her medium keep up with her fast-paced artistic process; having stated that she is most productive in the evening, Fadojutimi often completes her works in late-night bursts of creativity. Dancing and running about her studio, the artist will even pause to write in her diary; writing, for her, is as intrinsic to her practice as mark-making, which is reflected in her poetic and narrative titles. The Pour – both vague enough to be generative, and specific enough to find resonance in the visuals of the work – emblematizes her mastery of titling.

Lee Krasner, Desert Moon, 1955. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Image: © 2024 Museum Associates / LACMA. Licensed by Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2024 Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Fadojutimi’s rich canvases draw inspiration from myriad sources, the country of Japan being paramount: Japanese artists such as Makiko Kudo and Yoshitomo Nara serve as great influences to her, as well as Japanese animation; she even completed a residency in Japan in 2016. As a reminder of her childhood, she will often put on anime or video game soundtracks as she works. In the Western art historical canon, Fadojutimi’s work has been compared to abstract expressionists such as Joan Mitchell and Lee Krasner, whose energized, rhythmic marks and high impact color schemes seem to find a modern-day equivalent in the British artist’s practice. In response to Krasner’s 2019 exhibition Living Colour, the Fadojutimi admitted her envy of Krasner’s use of color, adding that, for herself, “Color is an invitation to someone’s eyes, and how they see life and pleasure or even the opposite of that.” For Fadojutimi, color always comes first. 2022, the year that The Pour was painted, was a notable year for the artist; new paintings by Fadojutimi were on display in the Central Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, which followed her first US solo museum exhibition at ICA Miami, Yet, Another Pathetic Fallacy. The Hepworth Wakefield also displayed a solo exhibition by the artist that year, titled Can We See the Colour Green Because We Have a Name for It? At age twenty-eight in 2018, Fadojutimi was the youngest artist to have her work collected by the Tate Modern, and since then her trajectory has been one to watch as she establishes herself as one of the most compelling new voices in abstract painting. Created at a high point of her continually ascending career, The Pour is a striking meditation on color, life and growth. Thrumming with energy, Fadojutimi pours herself into this work; as she has said, “a self-portrait is not always the depiction of a face.”

(Hip) like a kaleidoscope (po), 2021

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 698,500

(Hip) like a kaleidoscope (po) | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

JADE FADOJUTIMI (b. 1993)
(Hip) like a kaleidoscope (po), 2021
Oil, oilstick and acrylic on canvas
170×200 cm (66 7/8 x 78 5/8 inches)
Signed, dated March ’21 and variously inscribed (on the reverse)

Brimming with frenetic, lyrical energy and prismatic color, Jadé Fadojutimi’s (Hip) like a kaleidoscope (po) from 2021 evokes a powerful send of joy, situating itself prominently within the artist’s commanding oeuvre. Atop a base of thinly applied tangerine brush strokes, Fadojutimi engulfs her canvas with a plethora of abstract figures, incorporating undulating stripes, multicolored splotches, and piquantly scraped dots of different blues. Rounded forms of pink, yellow, and green confidently announce themselves within the unrestrained color field, recalling naturalistic tulip bulbs or plump summer fruit. With the dynamic energy of Action Painting, the present work presents a dynamic medley of oil, oil stick, and acrylic, recalling the renowned mark-making practices of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Joan Mitchell as well as their propensity for working with large-scale canvases that defined their Abstract Expressionist vigor. Represented globally by Gagosian, Fadojutimi’s paintings were a highlight of The Milk of Dreams exhibition at the Central Pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2022. Most recently, Fadojutumi was the subject of an acclaimed solo exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield which closed in March 2023, while her paintings reside in several prestigious museum collections, including The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Tate, London.

DAVID HOCKNEY, MULHOLLAND DRIVE: THE ROAD TO THE STUDIO, 1980. IMAGE © LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART. ART © 2024 DAVID HOCKNEY

While (Hip) like a kaleidoscope (po) has only shocks of green within its multichromatic make-up, it undeniably recalls a fluttering, effervescent garden. Flower petals appear to dance in the wind, leaves and blossoms interconnect, butterflies bring movement, and the enrapturing buzz of hummingbirds provides an ambiance of pristine, unchangeable serenity. The previous Edenic description is, of course, painted masterfully in complete abstraction – in (Hip) like a kaleidoscope (po) Fadojutimi quietly brings us into her world, then stupefies us with a sanguine intensity. As the artist describes, “Though they’re purely abstract landscapes, there’s a dialogue with figuration within that too. I like to think of them as being on the spectrum between abstraction and figuration. I’d like them to remain open for both myself and the viewers, who will have their own dialogue with them visually. This is when my title starts to play a role too.” (Jadé Fadojutimi quoted in: Nicholas Trembley, ‘Who is Jadé Fadojutimi, young painter already represented by mega-gallery Gagosian?’, Numéro, 2023, (online)) With the title as context for the present work, one can easily imagine this Arcadian garden as viewed through the lens of a variegated kaleidoscope.

The act of layering paint is a hallmark of Fadojutimi’s process: through poetic mark-making, the artist builds up coats of pigment with rhythmic caresses, before intuitively scraping and scratching the canvas’s exacting surface to reveal a myriad of undulating grooves and sweeping strokes. This process well encapsulates her lovingly befitting moniker for these paintings – “emotional landscapes.” As Fadjotumi explains, her paintings “question the existence of feelings and reactions to daily experiences. They question our perceptions and perspectives whilst manifesting struggles. They recognize a lack of self caused by automatically thinking that my identity is already defined, and also a frustration that paint can accept these characteristics better than myself.” (the artist quoted in: Exh. Cat., London, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, Jadé Fadojutimi: Jesture, 2020 (online)) Fadojutimi takes inspiration from both internal and external sources, melding her experiences together to create her strident, intrepid canvases.

“What I love about painting is that it’s a discussion with ourselves. When you see a work you’re drawn to, there’s always a moment where you want to leave but you can’t…I want my canvases to be spaces where people maybe recognize themselves and think, ‘I see this, and that’s okay, but why do I see this? And what does that mean to me?’” 

Much like her layered paintings, she builds upon her own past, as she draws from her upbringing in suburban London, her Nigerian family, her interest in Japanese culture and video games. The result is powerful works of art that reflect a precise moment in time, full of unique – but ultimately universal – emotions.  Fadojutimi exceeds her painterly goals – the vibrant work commands our attention, immersing us in a wholly abstract realm that speaks to the artist’s inimitable painterly process.

The Luxury of Single Cell Organisms, 2019

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 529,200

JADÉ FADOJUTIMI (B. 1993), The Luxury of Single Cell Organisms | Christie’s (christies.com)

JADÉ FADOJUTIMI (B. 1993)
The Luxury of Single Cell Organisms, 2019
Oil on canvas
160×220 cm (63 x 86 5/8 inches)
Signed twice, titled and dated ‘Dec ’19 ‘The Luxury of Single Cell Organisms Jadé Fadojutimi JF’ (on the reverse)

For Fadojutimi, painting is intense, both physically and emotionally. Her studio environment – which sometimes includes her childhood soft toys – is arranged so that she can get into the deep state of introspection she needs to paint, thinking about her school and early life, history, or how she feels about what’s happening in the world. Then she dances and runs at the canvas, scales ladders, cries, and sometimes breaks off to write in her diary. The title of the work will often come to her halfway through. She works on her own, through the night, with her favourite soundtracks blasting out, and sometimes she can finish a painting in a single night if she feels gripped. “It becomes a force that just takes over,” she says. “I always want to call it witchcraft.” Then, in the morning, she goes home to bed and her assistants come to get the studio ready so she can start again.

Joan Mitchell, City Landscape, 1955. Art Institute of Chicago. © Estate of Joan Mitchell.

 

3. Christina Quarles

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Cut to Ribbons, 2019

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 762,000

Cut to Ribbons | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

CHRISTINA QUARLES (b. 1985)
Cut to Ribbons, 2019
Acrylic on canvas
95×55 inches (243.8 x 139.7 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 2019 (on the reverse)

Entrancing in vivid color and visceral form, Cut to Ribbons from 2019 is a stunning example of Christina Quarles’ unparalleled exploration of figurative abstraction. Fragmented and intertwined, the corporeal figures in Cut to Ribbons navigate between virtual and physical realms, denying rigid classifications of gender, race, and sexuality and imparting profound insight into the complexities of inhabiting a human body in the twenty-first century. Cut to Ribbons was notably executed for the exhibition Christina Quarles: In Likeness at The Hepworth Wakefield in 2019-2020, the first solo exhibition by the artist in a European museum. The present work reflects the profound influence that David Hockney’s early paintings have had on artist, a selection of which were on view in the adjoining gallery at The Hepworth Wakefield during her exhibition. Indeed, Quarles’ illustration of water in the lower register, use of unprimed canvas, and abrupt shift of perspectives draw directly from Hockney’s iconic 1960s swimming pool paintings. As in the best of her paintings, the present work exemplifies Quarles’ experimental and expressive brushwork, which captures both a sense of motion and the beauty of ambiguity. Quarles’s gestural lines and technique allow the painting’s forms to flow, contort, and evolve with the viewer. Alluringly depicting a disorganized body in a state of excess, Cut to Ribbons confronts the viewer with a disjunct experience of human embodiment, revealing the triumphant apogee of Quarles’ painterly dexterity and innovation.

In Cut to Ribbons, brilliant hues give shape to two entwined figures contoured by sharp markings and washy, diaphanous brushstrokes. The two figures twist together and overlap across the expanse of the canvas, unraveling into intersecting layers of harlequin checkerboard patterns in yellows, and greens, and pinks. Gestural lines allow the forms to flow, contort, and evolve with the viewer. The bodies are simultaneously weighty and buoyant, bobbing against the serene picture planes while simultaneously stretched and pulled by the downward momentum of attenuated limbs. Entangled feet rest on a bar of brilliant azure and appendages cascade downwards to the bottom of the canvas.

LEFT: SALVADOR DALÍ, THE ROTTING DONKEY, 1928. CENTRE POMPIDOU, PARIS. ART © 2024 SALVADOR DALÍ, FUNDACIÓ GALA-SALVADOR DALÍ, ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY. RIGHT: LOUISE BOURGEOIS, THE ARCH OF HYSTERIA, 1993. PRIVATE COLLECTION, SOLD FOR $5.6 MILLION AT SOTHEBY’S NEW YORK, 2019. ART © 2024 THE EASTON FOUNDATION / LICENSED BY VAGA AT ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NY

In line with the most consummate examples of the artist’s abstract figuration, Cut to Ribbons stratifies the material terrain of the canvas into digitally drafted planes of patterned wallpaper and soft brush strokes which are then displaced by bodily contours. The tripartite division of the canvas blurs the line between medium and picture plane, echoing the floating registers of Mark Rothko’s meditative Color Field paintings, while the patterned swirls of blue and white at the bottom of the canvas superbly evoke David Hockney’s luscious swimming pools, whose expressive use of color and form was a profound influence on Quarles as a child growing up in Los Angeles. The resulting intersection of high-key color, texture, and form in Cut to Ribbons deftly hybridizes physical and digital space, providing a compelling arena for the anonymous figures who are abstracted to almost bare parts to expose the nuances of bodies.

THE PRESENT WORK INSTALLED IN THE ARTIST’S STUDIO. ART © 2024 CHRISTINA QUARLES

Experimental and expressive brushwork radically fragments corporeal form, expressing the inner complexities of identity and countering fixed identifications of race, gender, and sexuality. “I often say that my paintings are portraits of living within a body, rather than portraits of looking onto a body” says the artist. (Christina Quarles in conversation with David Getsy, in Exh. Cat. The Hepworth Wakefield, Christina Quarles: In Likeness, 2019) “What interests me are themes of the sort of fragmentation that happens of yourself when you are in your body and really at a disadvantage in the way of knowing yourself because you know all [your] contradictions, all the ways you exceed or don’t quite fit into these certain categories of identity that we’re placed in.” (Christina Quarles quoted in: Claire Selvin “Christina Quarles on the Intricacies of Figuration and Selfhood” ARTNews, 15 April 2021 (online)) Cut to Ribbons alluringly explores the dichotomies of the self to illuminate the intersection of gender, sexuality and race while underscoring the diversity and complexity of the universal experience.

Don’t They Know? It’s the End of tha World, 2020

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 655,200

CHRISTINA QUARLES (B.1985), Don’t They Know? It’s the End of tha World | Christie’s (christies.com)

CHRISTINA QUARLES (B.1985)
Don’t They Know? It’s the End of tha World, 2020
Acrylic on canvas
77×96 inches (195.6 x 243.8 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ‘Christina Quarles 2020 “Don’t They Know? It’s the End of tha World”‘ (on the reverse)

Nude bodies grasp and tangle with one another in Christina Quarles’ Don’t They Know? It’s the End of tha World, a vibrant, animated canvas from 2020. Drawing on her own experience as a queer, multi-racial woman, Quarles paints the ways in which identity is always shifting and evolving. In the present work, limbs beget limbs, bodies beget bodies. The figures are composed primarily of delicate washes of prismatic pigment, and streaks of purple, pink, and bright yellow suggest muscle and blood. This cacophony of movement is framed by two ornate windows, each outfitted with crisp, curlicue tracery that Quarles has rendered using vinyl stencils. Although ostensibly decipherable, paintings such as Don’t They Know? It’s the End of tha World refuse clear conclusions and instead open themselves up to manifold, layered readings.

Although their surface may be two-dimensional, Quarles’ paintings are haptic experiences; they demand to be touched and propose an almost tangible sense of physicality. As the artist has noted, “I use the figure as a way of describing an experience of embodiment” (C. Quarles, quoted in E. McDermott, “All eyes on Christina Quarles, the painter inventing a new figurative language”, Wallpaper, 6 May 2023, online). Under Quarles’ handling, the body is fragmented and ever metamorphosizing; such an approach to representations of existence has its foundations in her undergraduate studies in philosophy. The figures in her paintings are meant to evoke the experience of living inside of a body rather than how it feels to be looked at or to look. “Bodies are occupied by space and patterns in my paintings,” she has said, “collapsing and expanding as they run into shifting contexts” (C. Quarles, quoted in P. Bradford, “Christina Quarles’ Shape-Shifting Figures at Pilar Corrias”, Ocula, 12 October 2023, online).

Salvador Dali, The Great Masturbator, 1929. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. © 2024 Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí  / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © Alinari Archives / Art Resource, NY. 

Indeed, by through the use of mutation and transformation, Quarles’ paintings suggest that the body can be a site of radical change. Far from fixed or even discernible, these figures are muscular; they swell, warp, and revel in physical and fleshy pleasures. Accordingly, they cannot be contained, and instead are able to rebel against expectation and tradition. This revolt is underscored by the painting’s own materialist, which contains both passages of high finish alongside drips and splatters, clarity and chaos. The doubling and repetition—evidenced in both the image and the title of the present work—is a reminder that art is as vast and undefinable as the lived experienced. Don’t They Know? It’s the End of tha World encourages new visions and new frameworks; it courts unruliness and defiance. It is, unto itself, a defiant image.

4. Adrian Ghenie

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The Uncle, 2019

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
USD 3,006,000

The Uncle | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ADRIAN GHENIE (b. 1977)
The Uncle, 2019
Oil on canvas
260.1 x 253.3 cm (102 3/8 x 99 3/4 inches)
Signed and dated 2019 (on the reverse)

Phantasmagoric smears of ultramarine, crimson, and white obliterate the visage of a fugitive Nazi officer in Adrian Ghenie’s The Uncle of 2019, which sees Ghenie’s deft facture and psychological intensity at their very best. At once melding the squeegee scrape of Gerhard Richter’s post-photographic abstraction with the corporeal deformity of a Francis Bacon portrait, The Uncle extends Ghenie’s career-long interrogation of the twentieth century’s most deplorable characters, many of whom were the focus of the artist’s lauded exhibition at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. As figure and environment implode into one another, this nightmarish vignette of European dictatorship and its atrocities uncovers palimpsestic allusions to an artistic and historical past in Ghenie’s decisive synthesis of personal and collective memory.

Here, Ghenie surrounds the officer with the detritus of a fallen world: a plastic chair and waste caked in dirt litter the ground, the sky simmers behind him with apocalyptic potency, and behind him lies a fallen structure, perhaps a monument or commemorative statue. Ghenie casts the scene in cold, cruel light, and magmic drags of paint, fashioned at the command of his palette knife, close in on the canvas as if suffocating its subject. The Uncle showcases Ghenie’s technical virtuosity and compositional ingenuity at their irrefutable height, bearing striking chromatic and narrative resemblances to his operatic The Alpine Retreat at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Depicting Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler’s wife, at their residence in the Bavarian mountains, The Alpine Retreat similarly mars Braun’s face and body with decadent brushwork, blinding them in glaring, accusatory light. Ghenie’s marriage of gesture and journalistic material create a composite of remarkable pictorial cogency: toggling between the representational and the abstract, the tempest of gesture and figuration evince Ghenie’s compositional process, in which he collages sources from photography to silent comedy films before obscuring any immediate legibility of the contents with his pastose brushwork.

SALVADOR DALÍ, SWANS REFLECTING ELEPHANTS, 1937. PRIVATE COLLECTION. PHOTO © BRIDGEMAN IMAGES. ART © 2024 SALVADOR DALÍ, GALA-SALVADOR DALÍ FOUNDATION / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK

Reflecting Ghenie’s technical virtuosity, aesthetic complexity, and the historic gravity of his subject matter, The Uncle conjures the achievements of his vanguard predecessors and poses a fundamental threat to the kind of dictatorships under which the artist was raised. There is a poignant, powerful catharsis achieved in his brand of hallucinatory portraiture, and from Ghenie’s deconstruction of the image emerges a rebuilt understanding: his paintings narrate his personal grapplings with tyrannical horror, and today stand as historiographic interventions.

Untitled, 2009

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 300,000 – 400,000
USD 558,800

Untitled | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ADRIAN GHENIE (b. 1977)
Untitled, 2009
Acrylic on canvas
50 x 59.9 cm (19 5/8 x 23 5/8 inches)
Signed and dated 2009 (on the reverse)

Thick swaths of pink, mauve and burgundy coalesce with accents of yellow and orange to form an enigmatic protagonist in Adrian Ghenie’s Untitled. Executed in 2009, the work embodies the balance between abstraction and representation, history and myth, atrocity and humor that characterizes Ghenie’s Pie Fight painting series. From 2008 to 2009, he sought to convey the “darker currents of modern history,” while exploring the psychology of the immediate postwar era – “the trauma and the complexity of select sensitive moments” – and the nature of image-construction in a media-saturated society, (Exh. Cat., Adrian Ghenie: New Paintings, Pace, 2013, p. 5). Ghenie loosely depicts infamous figures of twentieth-century history, but obfuscates their faces in the remnants of a custard pie that call to mind the slapstick comedy of Charlie Chaplin, the Three Stooges and Laurel & Hardy from that same era. The cinematographic quality of these paintings, however, is heavily influenced by filmmaker David Lynch; Ghenie seeks to “consciously and unconsciously […] master in painting what Lynch has done in cinema,” (Adrian Ghenie, quoted in Andy Battaglia, ‘“Every Painting is Abstract”: Adrian Ghenie on His Recent Work and Evolving Sense of Self’, Artnews, 17 February, 2017, online). It is this conflation of codes that marks the Pie Fight series as one of Ghenie’s most important bodies of painting. Untitled from the series showcases Ghenie’s technical prowess as he manipulates the rich impasto with a dynamic sense of energy to a subject that is at once comical and oddly disquieting.

Ghenie mined archival materials for source materials, and by using historical figures omnipresent in the media and heavily associated with a time of war, Ghenie uses images that “go straight to your brain, which you can’t help but submit to,”(Adrian Ghenie in conversation with Stephen Riolo, ‘Adrian Ghenie, Pie Eater,’ Art in America Magazine, October 2010, online). He then complicates the reading and adds psychological complexity by rendering the subject anonymous under congealed peaks of whipped cream impasto. Ghenie looks to his artistic forefathers to imitate this technique, “in the 20th century, the people who did really radically were Picasso and Bacon. They took elements of the face and rearranged it,” in order to access a deeper, more complex emotional portrait. In emulating this technique of identity erasure, Untitled and other works from the series capture a sense of physiological Cubism, conveying a multitude of layered emotions in one frame, some of which are the artist’s own projection. In conversation with Stephen Riolo from Art In America Magazine, Ghenie explains “if you try to recreate an object from memory you wind up projecting yourself into the work; it becomes very personal, a self-portrait based on your subjectivity (Ibid.)

PABLO PICASSO, WEEPING WOMAN, 1937 / TATE MUSEUM, LONDON © SUCCESSION PICASSO/DACS 2024
FRANCIS BACON, SELF‐PORTRAIT, 1969 / PRIVATE COLLECTION © 2022 ESTATE OF FRANCIS BACON/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK/DACS, LONDON

Ghenie’s association with dictatorship spans beyond the historic facts of the Second World War and to the personal horrors of his own country’s totalitarian regime under Nicolae Ceausescu from 1967 to 1989. Born in 1977, Ghenie experienced first hand the debasement of a population under repression. He projects his own feelings in Untitled and in doing so, masterfully captures the nature of collective memory. Like Gerhard Richter whose formative years were spent under the Nazi regime, Ghenie smears, scrapes, and blurs the photographic evidence to create paintings that conceptually and physically confront the “texture” of history. Through erasure, effacing and overpainting, Ghenie’s work indicates subtle slippages between comedy and tragedy, reminding us that the profound trauma and humiliation of recent history lingers in the space between reality and personal memory, fact and fiction.

5. Avery Singer

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Happening, 2014

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,500,000 – 3,500,000
USD 3,206,000

Happening | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

AVERY SINGER (b. 1987)
Happening, 2014
Acrylic on canvas
100×120 inches (254 x 304.8 cm)
Signed and incorrectly dated 2013 (on the stretcher)

Suffused with fabricated romanticism, the heightened tableau of Happening by Avery Singer is an exemplary testament to the artist’s tongue-in-cheek digital idiom, which takes cues from both past and future to achieve a sense of monumentality and an acute psychological presence. Executed in 2014, the present work belongs to a seminal series of grisaille paintings that introduced Singer’s radically inventive visual vernacular, featuring prominently in Avery Singer: Pictures Punish Words, the artist’s 2014-2015 solo exhibition held at Kunsthalle Zürich. Singer combines computer technologies with modernist legacies to generate ersatz compositions of half-cyborg, half-human figures enacting enduring art world clichés. Standing at an immense scale, Happening echoes the larger-than-life bravado of the art historical tropes that it quotes, hinting at the unrealized narratives that lie just beyond the canvas’s frame and inviting the viewer to step into the surreal worlds Singer creates. With humorous vitality and technical virtuosity, Happening articulates Avery Singer’s highly original, avant-garde mode – a zeitgeist-defining contemporary sensibility that blurs the boundaries between painting and technology; digital and analog; reality and perception.

PABLO PICASSO, LAS MENINAS, NO.1, 1957. MUSEO PICASSO, BARCELONA. IMAGE © SUCCESSION PICASSO/DACS, LONDON 2024 / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES. ART © 2024 ESTATE OF PABLO PICASSO / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK

Produced following her training at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, Singer’s Happening in part mocks the process of critiquing and creating art in all its earnestness. In Happening, four nude women – wearing only high heels and rendered in a blocky, simplistic style – peer at an empty easel, while a fifth lies on the studio floor beneath them. Satirizing the esoteric pomp and circumstance of creative expression, Happening exists in the same fictional realm as art historical mythologies of the Old Master’s studio or the Renaissance workshop. This impulse of Singer’s is not without art historical context of its own, as the title Happening itself shares a name with the antinarrative performance pieces staged by the avant-garde artists of the Fluxus movement, such as Jim Dine, Allan Kaprow, and Yoko Ono. These Happenings, which took cues from Surrealism and Dada, explored the objectification of mundane movements and play-related activities, and the depersonalization of their participants. Here, the dynamic and gestural nature of the figures’ posturing injects an absurdly theatrical playfulness into the atemporal mise-en-scène, belying Singer’s sophisticated conceptual considerations. As curator Beatriz Ruf notes, “The insignias of ‘fine arts’ collide with avant-garde tropes, and parodic autobiographical motifs constantly allude to cliches of the art world. Adopting a humorous tone, Avery Singer demonstrates rituals and social patterns and presents stereotypes of the artist, collector, and writer. In this context, she adopts the historical loci of artistic production…where the myth of the artist and cult of genius are fostered. How are artists made?” (Beatriz Ruf cited in: Exh. Cat., Kunsthalle Zürich (and travelling), Avery Singer: Pictures Punish Words, 2015, p. 5)

AVERY SINGER PHOTOGRAPHED IN HER NEW YORK STUDIO, 2021.  IMAGE © SUSAN MEISELAS/MAGNUM PHOTOS

Invoking the geometric forms of Constructivism, Futurism, and Cubism, Happening extends Avery Singer’s abstract and figurative sensibilities with its painterly mimicry of Internet-based aesthetics and digital imaging processes. Initial drafts of Singer’s scenes are conceived using SketchUp, a 3D modeling program, then projected onto a canvas and painstakingly rendered using masking tape and an airbrush in a meticulous process that serves to remove all traces of the artist’s hand. The fantastical composition of Happening is rendered in grisaille, and is further abstracted by the projected shadows that rake over every plane in order to emphasize the staged layers of illusion and reality that Singer constructs in her self-conscious parody of artistic production. Through this dimensional tension, paintings such as Happening open fictional realms that exist at the surreal interstice between the digital and material worlds, offering both an uncanny escape from contemporary quotidian reality and a humorous parody of it. Within the illusionistic precariousness of her paintings, Singer suggests the fallibility of not only the assumed and glorified power that art holds, but also the nature of metaphysical reality itself. Her prescient exploration of computer-generated realities collapses analog understandings of figuration, while expanding on modernist and surrealist notions of spatial logic. In artist Sven Loven’s exegesis on Singer’s beguiling visual vocabulary, he observes, “Through the lies of illusionism, the deceit of simulacra (depth of field, picture-in-picture, soft focus), [Singer’s images] seek to assure us of the validity of our own confusion in the face of cacophony. It is in this assurance that we can find comfort and peace, ground to stand on.” (Sven Loven, “The Cold Standard of Drifting Worlds” in: Exh. Cat., Zurich, Kunstalle Zurich (and travelling), Avery Singer: Pictures Punish Words, 2015, p. 5)

LEFT: FRANCIS PICABIA, PARADE AMOUREUSE, 1917. PRIVATE COLLECTION. IMAGE © BRIDGEMAN IMAGES. ART © 2024 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK / ADAGP, PARIS. RIGHT: FERNAND LÉGER, THE BUILDERS, 1920. METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NY. ART © 2024 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK / ADAGP, PARIS

The earnest grandeur of artistic parade performed by Singer’s computer-age figures is undercut by the blatant surrealism of Singer’s abstract visual language, which conjures mimetic falsities while cutting to a cynical societal truth. By seamlessly synthesizing automated technologies and traditional painting techniques, Happening extends Singer’s singular aesthetic lexicon and subverts visual affectations to reinvent the enshrined genre of the painter’s studio scene. The fantastical atmosphere in Happening captures this absurdism within Avery Singer’s oeuvre and evinces the very best of her conceptual painterly practice, which posits a new place for the traditional medium with a technological dexterity and satirical wit, tailored for the Internet age.

Untitled, 2016

“Singer’s large paintings are densely crowded with quotations from avant-garde art history: Naum Gabo’s ‘Heads’ (1915–67), Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (No.2) (1912), various constructivist works. Singer combines references with the frivolity of a dada collagist. There are cubo-futurist echoes in her attempts to represent multiple per­spectives, while a cold, elegant art deco aesthetic lends her paintings a seductive charm.”

6. Rashid Johnson

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Anxious Red Painting September 24th, 2020

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,391,000

Rashid Johnson – Modern & Contemporary A… Lot 14 May 2024 | Phillips

Executed in 2020, Rashid Johnson’s Anxious Red Painting September 24th emanates a raw, visceral intensity that offers a poignant reflection of our uncertain era. Distressed and agitated, the artist’s scrawled faces emerge from a thick web of brilliant red impasto. The present work is from a discrete body of work that served as Johnson’s visual exploration of communal apprehension, reflecting the shared experiences of individuals amidst the upheaval of 2020. While these deeply personal images originate from the artist’s experience during the turmoil of the year, the array of faces give tangible form to the collective sentiments that are felt concurrently among humanity. The profound resonance of Anxious Red Painting September 24th is underscored by the inclusion of a similar work in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, speaking to this series’ significance within Johnson’s oeuvre. Working in the midst of great social instability, Johnson has imbued this painting with a negotiation of the complex interplays between subjectivity and universality, figuration and abstraction.

Jean Dubuffet, Dhôtel shaded with apricot (Dhôtel nuancé d’abricot), July-August, 1947. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Image: © CNAC/MNAM, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY
Artwork: © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

A strikingly poignant relic from a period of global disquiet, Anxious Red Painting September 24th encapsulates the isolation, fear, and frustration the world collectively experienced during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. Employing one of Johnson’s most enduring pictorial tropes—wincing, nervous faces—the present work represents a progression from Johnson’s acclaimed Anxious Men series (2015–2017) intensified by a new medium: a singular shade of red paint (aptly titled “Anxious Red”). This bespoke hue, custom-produced to match the emotional distress caused by a global pandemic, replaced his previous black and white palette with a visceral crimson. “These new works are pared down, and I like the spartan quality of them…,” Johnson recalled. I associate [the vivid red] with urgency, blood, and alarm. I spent time quickly conjuring images that had a relationship to earlier works but are fresh and new because of the circumstances in which they were made. I needed a cathartic release, a way to describe my emotional state… This was something that I felt needed to happen quickly.” This body of work captured the tumultuous emotions of a world in turmoil, executed with an amplified urgency reflecting the severity of contemporary events.

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 2005. Private Collection. Sold for $41,640,000 USD through Phillips, New York, November 2022. Artwork: © Cy Twombly Foundation.

Arranged in a gridded structure, twenty-eight abstracted visages meet the eyes of the viewer. Rendered with dynamic red gestures against a white background, Johnson’s ensemble of characters coalesces the cartoon-esque whimsy of Keith Haring with the expressive fervor of Cy Twombly’s approach. Each blocked head is comprised of a pair of protruding eyes and a series of energetic lines forming clenched teeth or tightly pressed lips, depending on the application of the strokes. Enclosed within squares, the heads appear agitated, as though striving to escape their boundaries and enter physical reality.  Despite the sinuous smoothness of the strokes, they adhere to a consistent thickness, furthering the claustrophobic nature of the composition. Resisting a singular interpretation, Anxious Red Painting September 24th embodies the collective tumultuous energy that was catalyzed by the pandemic’s profound disruption to our daily existence. Reflecting on this body of work, Johnson said, “I think that they’ve always had so much opportunity to explore themes that were related to the times which they were made.” Viewing his work as a point of reference for the current moment, the artist perceives the whole of society in these contorted faces. “[T]he characters have more or less graduated into really being deconstructed in a way where they’re just losing their minds, more or less. I think with what we’ve been facing around quarantine, in particular, the absurdity of being removed from our society and the complexity of that has definitely evolved how the characters are able to speak.”

Untitled Anxious Red Drawing, 2020

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 250,000 – 350,000
USD 403,200

RASHID JOHNSON (B. 1977)
Untitled Anxious Red Drawing, 2020
Oil on cotton rag
38 1/4 x 50 inches (97.2 x 127 cm)
Signed ‘Rashid Johnson’ (on the reverse)

“Anxiety is part of my life. It’s something that people of color don’t really discuss as often as we should. It’s part of my being and how I relate to the world, and being honest with that struggle has been rewarding for me. It has led to the kind of self-exploration that produces fertile ground for my output as an artist.”

Untitled Escape Collage, 2018

The Rosa de la Cruz Collection
Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 604,800

RASHID JOHNSON (B. 1977), Untitled Escape Collage | Christie’s (christies.com)

RASHID JOHNSON (B. 1977)
Untitled Escape Collage, 2018
Ceramic tile, mirror tile, vinyl, spray enamel, oilstick, black soap and wax
72 1/4 x 96 1/2 inches (183.6 x 245 cm)

7. Jonas Wood

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Landscape Pot 1, 2014

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,200,000 – 2,800,000
USD 1,744,000

JONAS WOOD (B. 1977), Landscape Pot 1 | Christie’s (christies.com)

JONAS WOOD (B. 1977)
Landscape Pot 1, 2014
Oil on canvas
118×93 inches (299.7 x 236.2 cm)
Signed twice with the artist’s initials, titled and dated ‘LANDSCAPE POT 1 JBRW 2014’ (on the reverse)

Jonas Wood’s monumental Landscape Pot 1 is an extraordinary painting within a painting, an example of the artist’s unparalleled, signature ability to deftly merge the two traditional genres of still life and landscape within his own renowned contemporary style. Standing nearly ten feet tall it is larger than life, and yet it is also an intimate canvas that offers up a personal reflection on the modern human condition. A meticulously rendered sculptural houseplant emerges from a pot emblazoned with a quotidian scene: a hill populated by cell phone or electrical towers, the kinds one might see during a hike in Los Angeles, or indeed, in Tokyo. It is an unexpected subject, one that emits an alluring beauty as we wonder where this place could be, and why it is important. Blueish-gray clouds preside over the scene while taking shape across the circumference of the vessel. As Wood often isolates his pots and their landscapes against a uniform background, we can linger on and appreciate the details that he includes. Delicate features emerge, like the bands of green and brown on the plant’s stem that, like the rings of a tree, mark the passage of time. Notably in this particular composition, the pot sits off center, expanding our perception of the space and allowing for the possibility of growth. In a similar vein, the direction of the plant mirrors the slope of the landscape, both inviting us in.

Wood is known for including everyday objects from his studio in his paintings and making them monumental objects of desire. Landscape Pot 1 is the outcome of a longstanding dialogue between the artist, and his wife, the ceramic artist Shio Kusaka. Wood says, “When I met [her], I started looking at vessels. I became interested in the Greek pots. Like basketball cards, they have a shape and a form, and they have images that are very flat, graphic, and simple. Basically, there are cartoons on the sides of the pots that tell stories” (J. Wood, quoted in J. Samet, “Beer with a Painter, LA Edition: Jonas Wood,” Hyperallergic, September 12, 2015). In Wood’s and Kusaka’s respective practices, their individual forms, subjects, and motifs make their way back and forth organically. They have been compared to some of art history’s most famous artist couples, like  “Surrealists Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning, modern masters Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe and abstract expressionists Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner” (K. Crow, “Jonas Wood and Shio Kusaka: Each Other’s Artistic Muses,” Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2015).

Jonas Wood and Shio Kusaka at Gagosian Gallery, Central, 2015 (present lot illustrated). Photo: Dickson Lee / South China Morning Post via Getty Images. Artwork: © Jonas Wood; © Shio Kusaka.

In addition to Kusaka, Wood cites David Hockney, Alex Katz, Pierre Bonnard, and Henri Matisse as inspirations. Matisse even makes his way as a direct appropriation in Wood’s work in paintings like Matisse Pot 7 (2016). In a review of Jonas Wood & Shio Kusaka: Blackwelder exhibition where Landscape Pot 1 was first exhibited, Artforum observed, “More than the sum of their parts, Wood’s paintings of sunny interiors with plants in turn echo his wife’s ceramics while serving as an homage to Matisse’s Moorish interiors or David Hockney’s leafy palettes” (C. Sanchez-Kozyreva, “Critics’ Picks: Shio Kusaka and Jonas Wood,” Artforum, 2015). Like the great modernists, Wood’s oeuvre is self-referential as he constantly reuses imagery to new ends. He says, “I wanted to paint the landscape pots so they were intentionally unrealistic. They were all filtered into an even looser organization of information that would represent this landscape pot as opposed to trying to paint the perfect landscape on a pot. Because I was recycling the imagery from previous works, it was like painting a painting in a painting” (J. Wood, quoted in B. Sharp, Jonas Wood: Paintings and Drawings, exh. cat., David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, 2015, p. 8).

Shio Kusaka, (dinosaur 24), 2014. © Shio Kusaka

One of the artist’s most striking paintings from his ongoing examination of potted plants, Landscape Pot 1 epitomizes Wood’s unmistakable style while continuing to push his work in novel directions. It towers above us, and yet is not removed from us, since we might imagine what daily memories we too would memorialize in paint. As critic Helen Molesworth writes, “A ‘classic’ Jonas Wood painting invariably contains pots… Sometimes it’s lots of pots, casually arranged on shelves, some empty and others housing a variety of succulents; or there are individual pots where the scale of the vessel is enlarged to such a degree that their surfaces can display the enormity of a landscape or the reproduction of another artwork. Wood’s fondness – we might even say his tender love – for pots is part and parcel of his work’s magic” (H. Molesworth, quoted in Phaidon Editors, “Picturing Jonas Wood—Ceramics,” Phaidon, December 11, 2019). We can feel that love in Landscape Pot 1 with Wood’s tender application of paint, as well as his evocation of a memory all his own.

Untitled (Pollock with Night Bloom), 2012

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 300,000 – 500,000
USD 478,800

JONAS WOOD (B. 1977)
Untitled (Pollock with Night Bloom), 2012
Oil and acrylic on canvas
65×30 inches (165.1 x 76.2 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials, titled and dated ‘JBRW 2012 UNTITLED (POLLOCK WITH NIGHT BLOOM)’
(on the reverse)

8. Other Artists

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Hernan Bas

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 70,000 – 100,000
USD 390,600

HERNAN BAS (B. 1978), Trying to fit in | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED

HERNAN BAS (B. 1978)
Trying to fit in, 2004
Oil, acrylic and gouache on panel
31×24 inches (78.7 x 61 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials, titled and dated ‘HB 04 trying to fit in’ (on the reverse)

Painted in 2004, contemporaneous to the artist’s inclusion in the Whitney Biennial, trying to fit in is a masterful example of Hernan Bas’ painterly vision of a queer sublime. Rendered in evocative brushstrokes, the painting depicts a flock of vivid flamingos and a single, elegant boy who apes their pose. All appear relaxed despite a darkening sky whose blue-slate tones are mirrored in the water beneath. Drawing on photographic fashion campaigns by the likes of Bruce Weber as well as the Floridian landscape of his youth, Bas’s paintings of this period are at once serene yet charged; they seem to exist on a precipice of sorts. In trying to fit in, his languid, handsome protagonist occupies an evanescent world outside reality, where man and nature commune in tranquility even as storms crackle overhead.

Born in Miami where he still lives, Bas has long been influenced by the excess and nihilism of the late eighteenth century’s Romantic period. In pellucid washes, he paints candy-colored pinks, tropical greens, aching blues, and formally, his canvases call to mind those of Elizabeth Peyton. Like Peyton, his figures, too, are willowy, waif-like, and introspective. Whereas Peyton’s visual iconography is tied to an urban milieu, Bas, however, locates his men within a sublime nature.

Claude Monet, Water Lillies, 1916. National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

To create his paintings, Bas pulls from a variety of reference points, from nineteenth-century caricatures and classic films to Andy Warhol, Andy Goldsworthy, and the artist’s own memories. In his earliest days, he looked to the decorative paintings of the French Impressionists, particularly those of Édouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard, whose flat, rich colors echo those in the present work.

Hernan Bas

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 40,000 – 60,000
USD 107,100

HERNAN BAS (B. 1978), The Paper Crown Prince | Christie’s (christies.com)

HERNAN BAS (B. 1978)
The Paper Crown Prince, 2005
Water-based oil on panel
11 7/8 x 10 inches (30.2 x 25.4 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials and dated ‘HB 05’ (lower right)

Hernan Bas

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 90,000
USD 76,200

Hernan Bas – Modern & Contemporary Art … Lot 318 May 2024 | Phillips

Maria Berrio

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 350,000 – 450,000
USD 441,000

MARÍA BERRÍO (B. 1982)
La Cena, 2012
Wax crayon, graphite, fabric collage and Japanese rice paper collage on canvas
48×58 inches (121.9 x 147.3 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ‘”La Cena” Maria Berrio 2012’ (on the reverse)

Executed in 2012, La Cena emerges as one of the most successful examples of María Berrío’s surrealist visions, epitomizing her distinct and widely celebrated artistic style. Inspired by the infamous Italian Renaissance narrative of Leonardo’s The Last Supper, this work reflects the artist’s meticulous craftsmanship and unwavering dedication to her practice. With painstaking precision, Berrío intricately layers ethereal Japanese rice paper and fabric in a multitude of equally dynamic patterns and vibrant colors. Through this alchemical process, she produces a mesmerizing canvas, in which the sublime forms of femininity converge with allegorical themes. La Cena transcends mere representation, offering a sanctuary where the feminine spirit finds solace amidst the tumult of existence.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1452-1519. Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.

The present lot encapsulates Berrío’s career-defining capability to reimagine the boundaries of contemporary art. Inspired by surrealism, folklore, and classical painting, her dreamlike compositions synthesize exacting history and mythological imagination. Raised on a farm in Colombia, the artist’s earliest inspirations were animals and plant life, a theme which still characterizes her work today. In the present lot, birds, elephants, owls, and fish dance across the canvas, conjuring the magical realism which defines many of the most celebrated Latin American literary works. The harmonization of humanity and nature pays homage to the surrealist compositions of Leonora Carrington, which depict women in dialogue with animals and mythological creatures. Berrío is particularly interested in the interconnectedness of the universe, especially the relationship between women and animals. In La Cena, one of the central figures clutches a bird, a motif used in her work to suggest the promise of redemption.

Leonora Carrington, And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur, 1953. Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2024 Leonora Carrington / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

The multilayered and tactile nature of the composition alludes to Byzantine mosaics, while the intense amalgamation of patterns allude to Gustav Klimt’s ornamental paintings. Regarding the blend of many different inspirations in her work, the artist remarked, “Myths, folklore and legends, historical events, poetry, contemporary events: I see no reason to separate these if I’m making a painting. All of these things influence me, so why box them into separate categories? Why not include them all? They may confuse or cancel or contradict each other, but what of it?” (María Berrío quoted in “María Berrío Infuses the Ordinary with the Mythic, A. Huff, Whitewall, September 2023)

Left: Byzantine mosaic of the Court of Empress Theodora, 547 CE (detail). S. Vitale, Ravenna. Photo: Alfredo Dagli Orti / Art Resource, NY.
Right: Gustav Klimt, Lady with a Fan, 1917.

A blend of biographical memory and contemporary influences, La Cena captures the overwhelming sense of femininity and womanhood that has captivated Berrío since she first moved to New York at the age of eighteen. The artist once described the ethereal women that populate her compositions as “the embodied ideals of femininity.” In La Cena, the pale and fragile skin of the women are placed into the charged biblical theme of  The Last Supper, suggesting that the delicacy of femininity does not bar women from assuming positions of power and strength. Speaking on the strong women in her work, Berrío remarked, “They combine the elements of women who are typically thought of as powerful—the captains of industry, resolute politicians, fiery activists—with the traits of those who are not usually thought of as such, thereby underlining the common force found in all women. The female soldier fighting on the front lines is of interest, but so too is the mother who finds a way to feed her children and sing them to sleep amid bombing campaigns and in the ruins of cities. To truly ennoble womanhood, we must discover and appreciate the beauty in every action, big or small.” (María Berrío quoted in “As Complicated and Elusive as Reality: María Berrio’s Many-Layered Collages (with an interview by C. J. Bartunek),” The Georgia Review, Spring 2019.

In a harmonious fusion of mythology, masterful artistry, and cultural richness, La Cena serves as a testament to Berrío’s pioneering methodology. Within its loaded composition, the artist unveils an imaginative realm where charged themes and subjects are colored by heavenly interpretations. Regarded as one of the most promising and innovative artists of today, she has been the subject of major solo exhibitions across the country, including her most recent 2023 show at the ICA Boston entitled Maria Berrío: The Children’s Crusade. Berrío’s work is also held in highly regarded permanent collections, including that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Hirshhorn Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Nicolas Party

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 793,800

NICOLAS PARTY (B. 1980)
Portrait, 2015
Soft pastel on linen
67×59 inches (170.2 x 149.9 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Nicolas Party 2015’ (on the reverse)

“The portrait is probably the most produced image on earth. People take pictures of themselves or other people’s faces because at the end of the day, thank God, we still have an interest in other people. The face is a fascinating thing to look at.”

Frida Kahlo, Me and My Parrots, 1941. © 2024 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © Fine Art Images / Bridgeman Images.

Shara Hughes

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 567,000

SHARA HUGHES (B. 1981), No Way Out | Christie’s (christies.com)

SHARA HUGHES (B. 1981)
No Way Out, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
68×60 inches (172.7 x 152.4 cm)
Signed, titled, and dated ‘SHARA HUGHES 2023 “NO WAY OUT”‘ (on the reverse)
Signed again ‘Shara’ (on the stretcher)

A leading figure among a new generation of figurative painters, Shara Hughes’ depicts the world even as her landscapes border on abstraction. In warm tones, the artist has captured a rocky expanse that fills the life-sized No Way Out. In the foreground bloom verdant trees, each leaf a glossy green. The day is warm, the light heavy with summer’s heat. Above, the sky shimmers. Thick, expressive brushwork combines with staccato, confetti stippling, and the whole painting is tactile, sensual.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Hughes received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, before studying at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She rose to acclaim for a series of contemplative domestic scenes – moody, charged rooms that underscored her interests in art history. Eventually, seeking to eliminate the symbolism and narrative that infused her work, however, Hughes turned to the landscape, a genre she initially believed to be more “open-ended” and “so seemingly simple.” That the genre was weighted with an entire history of associations also appealed to the artist, and Huges hoped that she would be able to take in the traditions while simultaneously making the landscape her own. Accordingly, Hughes shifted her gaze towards the external world, producing vivid vistas of rocky outcroppings and lush greenery that recall post-Impressionist canvases. Indeed, these paintings have been likened to Gustav Klimt’s plein air decorative depictions—an apt comparison particularly in the patterning of the sky in the present work—and Henri Matisse’s Fauvist landscapes. Certainly, the geometry of No Way Out recalls that of Paul Cezanne’s lengthy meditations on the environment surrounding Aix-en-Provence. Like Cezanne, Hughes, too, has employed flat blocks of color to build up the mountainous terrain. Unlike her modernist predecessor, however, Hughes does not set up her easel outside, and she has no interest in capturing a specific site. “No, I don’t paint from life at all, ever,” she has said. “My works are more about painting than about nature or something in the real world. They always start from playing around with color and shape and texture. The landscape becomes an access point for the viewer, a lot of times” (quoted in I. Alteveer, “Shara Hughes in Conversation”, in Shara Hughes/Landscapes, exh. cat., Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, 2019, p. 15).

Georgia O’Keeffe, Red Hills and Bones, 1941. Philadelphia Museum of Art. © 2024 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Philadelphia Museum of Art / The Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949 / Bridgeman Images.

Although of the colors of No Way Out may be Matisse-esque, they have been refracted through the postwar era, channeling the canvases of David Hockney and Helen Frankenthaler alike. Indeed, Hughes purposefully and adeptly draws attention to chromatic relationships. Balance, tone, and hue are all key considerations for the artist in conjuring an atmosphere, a temperament. This is further emphasized by the title of the present work, and No Way Out seems to suggest a hermetically sealed experience. Yet far from airless, this is Edenic land, and in rich brushwork, Hughes has captured the bliss and beauty of the natural world.

Kehinde Wiley

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 150,000 – 200,000
USD 239,400

KEHINDE WILEY (B. 1977), Saint Jerome Hearing the Trumpet of Last Judgement | Christie’s (christies.com)

KEHINDE WILEY (B. 1977)
Saint Jerome Hearing the Trumpet of Last Judgement, 2018
Oil on canvas, in artist’s frame
96×72 inches (243.8 x 182.9 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Kehinde Wiley 2018’ (on the reverse)

Jusepe de Ribera, Saint Jerome Hearing the Trumpet of the Last Judgment, 1921. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Kehinde Wiley

Phillips New-York: 15 May 2024
Estimated: USD 80,000 – 120,000
USD 152,400

Kehinde Wiley – Modern & Contemporary A… Lot 307 May 2024 | Phillips

A rare example by Kehinde Wiley to come to auction, After Memling’s Portrait of Jacob Obrecht is one of only eight intimately-scaled wood panel portraits comprising the artist’s acclaimed Memling series. Executed in 2013, it was among the works unveiled at the Phoenix Art Museum that same year and has since been exhibited across the globe, notably at The National Gallery in London in 2021-22. Wiley’s meticulously painted portraits draw inspiration from the 15^th century Flemish painter Hans Memling, who was among the first to paint portraits of the merchant class and not of royalty or clergy. Subverting the Northern Renaissance triptych structure, Wiley replaces the historic sitters with young men of color dressed in contemporary attire–here paying homage to Jacob Obrecht, the most famous musician of his day. The series takes a key place within Wiley’s oeuvre, representing a distinct departure from the characteristically monumental scale of his paintings. It also importantly marks the first time Wiley included his sitters’ names within the paintings (here, subtly inscribed in the dark wood doors). Taking Memling’s formal structure as a point of departure, Wiley imparts his subjects with a sense of agency absent from his art historical forebears’ portraits: as evidenced in After Memling’s Portrait of Jacob Obrecht, the young man returns the viewer’s gaze.

Withdrawn and Passed Lots

Nicolas Party

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
WITHDRAWN

NICOLAS PARTY (B. 1980), Grotto | Christie’s (christies.com)

NICOLAS PARTY (B. 1980)
Grotto, 2019
Soft pastel on linen
190.5 x 160.1 cm (75 1/8 x 65 inches)
Signed and dated ‘Nicolas Party 2019’ (on the reverse)

Nicolas Party’s Grotto is a monumental, virtuosic work in pastel with deep art historical roots. Evoking the sublime blue of Giotto’s fresco for the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Grotto is an engrossing canvas that appears to exist outside of time. Millennia old stalagmites and stalactites connect to form a mysterious space, rich in detail but also containing a dark foreboding core. Rendered in the artist’s signature pastel, the surface becomes a textured, luxurious surface, at once inviting, yet at the same time precious and off limits. Grotto is part of a series of just three works executed in red, green, and blue, colors which come together to form the RGB color model, the basis for the display of digital images. In this way, Party considers the contemporary as much as he is honoring the past.

Always thinking about art history, Party had specific references for Grotto. Firstly, he calls back to Renaissance and early modern paintings of hermits, such as Hieronymus Bosch’s The Hermit Saints (c. 1493), Gerrit Dou’s The Hermit (1670), and Willem van Mieris’s Hermit Praying in the Wilderness (1707). Such paintings often contained a memento mori, which reminded viewers of the inevitability of death, and insisted that lonely reflection was a sure path to salvation. As Party muses, “Nature always reminds us that our body will disappear soon; that life is a very brief moment” (N. Party, quoted in R. Vitorelli, “Interview Nicolas Party,” Spike Art Magazine, Summer 2015).

Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin of the Rocks, circa 1495-1508. National Gallery, London

Party also cites Gustave Courbet’s The Source of the Loue (1864), which depicts a river that runs through his hometown of Ornans, France. In both Courbet’s work and Party’s, beauty emerges from darkness, and the skilled touch of the artist engenders a scene that we feel we might be able to step into ourselves. Finally, Party refers most directly to the Belgian artist William Degouve de Nuncques’s The Grotto of Manacor, Mallorca (c. 1901). Party explains, “He is quite renowned [in Belgium], but not very well known internationally…He painted the coves of Marseille. It’s quite magnificent” (N. Party, quoted in E. Troncu, “Nicolas Party in Conversation with Eric Troncu,” Artsy, December 10, 2019). The Grotto of Manacor, Mallorca is also a blue monochrome, elements of which Party translates into his signature style. Grotto is an opportunity to deepen our understanding of Party’s love for art history and pastel. Though his references are varied, the resulting work is unmistakably his. It is like a fairy tale, both inviting and foreboding, with its fantastical shapes and promise of adventure. What lies in the darkness, just beyond these mysterious forms? It is as if we are looking at the Lascaux caves, where animal drawings from 17,000 years ago cover the walls.

Maria Berrio

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 250,000 – 350,000
PASSED

María Berrío – Modern & Contemporary Art… Lot 24 May 2024 | Phillips

Colombian artist María Berrío is a storyteller whose intricate and large-scale collage paintings unfold layers of narrative through lush, fantastical landscapes populated by enigmatic female figures. Executed in 2015, The Lovers 2 encapsulates this distinctive style, melding influences from magical realism and her own lived experience into a deeply introspective artwork that engages on multiple sensory and emotional levels. A patchwork of diversely sourced decorative papers, rhinestone elements and a delicate veneer of watercolor, The Lovers 2 interprets a Surrealist dreamscape that blurs Berrío’s biographical memory with South American mythology. Here, she explores themes spanning from beauty and the divine feminine, to intercultural connectivity and humankind’s relationship to nature. Berrío, originally from Colombia and now based in New York, crafts a vibrant and tactile tapestry of cross-cultural history in her work, offering a personal perspective. Berrío utilizes a variety of materials, primarily Japanese print paper, which she collages across the surface of the canvas, forming textured, dimensional portraits that confuse and delight the eye. This technique not only encourages close looking but also enriches the narrative, imbuing each constructed image with a tangible sense of time and place. The works become self-contained vessels that reflect not only the stories they tell, but the stories of their creation.

Anne Boleyn, by Unknown English artist, late 16^th century, based on a work of circa 1533-1536. National Portrait Gallery, London.
Image: Shawshots / Alamy Stock Photo

In The Lovers 2, this synthesis is evident in the intricate materiality of the expansive canvas. Berrío initiates each collage with a sketch, a blueprint that she says “inevitably changes” while making the piece. This fluidity allows her to weave together a narrative that transcends borders and cultures, echoing the diverse origins of materials sourced from a wide range of craft traditions.

“I use handmade and machine-made paper produced almost exclusively in countries of the global south: Nepal, India, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Mexico, and Brazil. I gravitate toward paper with natural motifs such as floral, plant, and animal patterns, as well as solid colors that evoke [nature].”

On top of this she adds areas of watercolor and, in the present work, individually applied Swarovski rhinestones which add touches of fluorescence, amplifying an otherworldliness and creating a picture of varying depths and frequencies. Berrío describes the process of working with collage as one filled with sensory delights—”Working with collage there is such a marvelous diversity of textures,” she enthuses. “Different sounds made as they are torn… I love the spreading of glue with sticky fingers, the stretching, the cutting. These collages are built layer by layer forming the topographical features upon the canvas.” These physical sensations manifest in the pictorial and emotional attributes of her work, as The Lovers 2 beckons not just a visual but also a tactile experience of viewing.

Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907. Neue Galerie, New York. Image: Luisa Ricciarini / Bridgeman Images

Discussing the women in her pictures, the artist says, “They are embodied ideals of femininity. The ghostly pallor of their skin suggests an otherworldliness; they appear to be more spirit that flesh. These are the women I want to be: strong, vulnerable, compassionate, courageous, and in harmony with themselves and nature.” In The Lovers 2, Berrío’s heroine is at once central and elusive. She transcends traditional space, enshrined in a protective tableau of flowers that evokes a sense of suspended time. The indeterminate setting and the figure’s interaction with symbolic elements like the bird and veil underscore a timeless narrative rooted in the feminine experience, one that floats between reality and myth. Berrío’s collage portraits are characterized both by the enigmatic women who inhabit them and the colorful, richly decorated clothing they wear. In The Lovers 2, this costuming is taken to new heights. Berrío’s subject is clothed in a multi-textured shawl and ornate, bejeweled headpiece, complete with a transparent veil. In the figure’s finery and positioning against a lush crimson backdrop, there is an evocation of the aesthetic and symbolic richness of Tudor and Elizabethan portraits from the late fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries. Both styles utilize elaborate regalia and intricate details to convey power and status, yet Berrío modernizes this concept by infusing her work with contemporary cultural and fantastical elements. Like the jewel-encrusted sitters of royal portraits past, Berrío’s figure is similarly crowned and pallid. Her powdery complexion recalls the lead-whitened skin fashionable among high-ranking women of the period and even the presence of a bird motif is reminiscent of the pelican broach that Queen Elizabeth I was known to wear as a symbol of Christian sacrifice.

Berrío’s collage paintings are steeped in magical realism. They sit at a crossroads of visual and literary traditions, highlighting a continuum of artists who blur the boundaries between reality and fantasy. The present work, with its contrast of traditional modes of portraiture executed in an incongruous and highly non-traditional manner, interlaces the familiar and the bizarre in a manner reminiscent of Latin American Surrealist pioneer Frida Kahlo’s deeply personal and symbolic portraits that blend elements of her Mexican heritage with surreal and mythic motifs. Similarly, Berrío’s use of embellishment and elaborate floral dreamscapes draws parallels to Austrian Secession leader Gustav Klimt’s luxurious, gilt accents, jewel-toned flower fields, and intricate patterns imbued with symbolism and psychological resonance. In the literary realm, Berrío’s narrative approach reflects the complex, labyrinthine universes of Jorge Luis Borges and the poignant, interwoven realities characterized by Gabriel García Márquez’s magical realism.

Leonora Carrington, Self-Portrait, c. 1937-1938. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Image: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2024 Estate of Leonora Carrington / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 

Berrío draws on South American folklore and personal memories, such as those from her childhood in rural Colombia and urban Bogotá. The Lovers 2 features a towering woman, her presence and that of the flamingo alongside her, invoking figures like Madremonte, or “Mother Mountain,” the mythical protector of forests from Colombian lore.^v These elements symbolize the integration of Berrío’s cultural heritage with her artistic expression, using animals to represent the deeper aspects of the human spirit, a theme originating from her childhood connection to the natural world. Birds specifically recur throughout her oeuvre, including in her 2023 solo presentation, The Spirit in the Land, staged at the Nasher Museum at Duke University in North Carolina, which focused entirely on a series of hummingbird-themed works inspired by the Mojave peoples’ belief that the birds were pathfinders who lead the way from darkness into the light. In the context of The Lovers 2, the flamingo is not just a companion but a part of the woman’s identity. The pastel-pink feathers of the bird blend seamlessly with her pale, tattooed arms and shimmering veil, creating a visual continuity that makes it difficult to discern where the woman ends, and the flamingo begins. This blending is further emphasized by the bird’s neck contorting behind the woman’s head, its feathers merging into the fabric of her dress. Such imagery suggests a symbiotic relationship between the two, highlighting themes of unity and the merging of separate entities into a single, harmonious whole. Through this interplay of human and animal elements, Berrío not only explores the aesthetic dimensions of her subjects but also delves into deeper themes of identity, coexistence, and the intrinsic ties that bind us to the natural world.

Focus: Contemporary Art

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1. Jean-Michel Basquiat

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#1. Untitled (ELMAR), 1982

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 40,000,000 – 60,000,000
USD 46,479,000

Jean-Michel Basquiat – Modern & Contempor… Lot 5 May 2024 | Phillips

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s monumental painting, Untitled (ELMAR), created in 1982, is a paradigmatic representation of the artist’s genius, making its auction debut after remaining in private hands for four decades. At nearly eight feet wide, this tour-de-force is a cornerstone of Basquiat’s golden year, during which he transitioned from street art to gallery success. Emblematic of Basquiat’s best works, Untitled (ELMAR) is rich with historic and mythical iconography, intertwined with the artist’s invented symbols and graphic marks that accentuate the physical, gestural nature of his creative process. Boasting an equally impressive provenance and exhibition history, the present work was exhibited at Gagosian Los Angeles in 1998, as part of a memorial exhibition commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the artist’s death. Untitled (ELMAR) was notably featured on the cover of the accompanying catalogue. More recently, the work was prominently exhibited in the artist’s historical 2018 retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. This sale marks the first time that this important work is being offered publicly.

Formerly part of the original collection of Francesco Pellizzi, the present work was acquired by the renowned historian and collector from Annina Nosei in 1984, just two years after its creation, and remained in his collection for decades. An inspired collector and friend of the artist, Mr. Pellizzi acquired timeless works that underscore Basquiat’s enduring significance and artistic vision, as they continue to inspire and provoke thought forty years later. Reflecting on his 40-year friendship with Francesco and the acuity of his perceptiveness, American painter David Salle remarked, “Francesco [was] always full of vitality and interests and witty observations and warmth and engagement, the same sense of deep inquiry, and also imagination.[…] And there was something else too: a quality I can only call wisdom, a macro way of seeing things at the same time as the tiniest detail… he had the close-up view and the overview, he saw the particulate and the flow. He could combine ‘like with like’, and also ‘like with not-quite-like’, which is more rare, and all the more so when done seemingly without effort.”

Francesco Clemente, Andy Warhol, and Jean-Michel Basquiat at the Pellizzi residence in New York, NY, 1984. Photo by Francesco Pellizzi. Image: © Francesco Pellizzi

In 1982, often hailed as Basquiat’s “Golden Year,” the 22-year-old artist produced approximately 200 significant works on canvas. Untitled (ELMAR), stands out for its raw, colorful, and direct style, epitomizing the lauded traits of this prolific period in Basquiat’s career. Characteristic of the work produced at this moment, the present painting constitutes a more confident prelude to the meticulous curation and self-consciousness of Basquiat’s later compositions, instead exuding an air of daring openness. Significantly, Untitled (ELMAR) was executed in the same year Basquiat was first introduced to Andy Warhol, a paramount encounter that would later lead to collaboration between the two artists. 1982 also marked Basquiat’s transition from “SAMO©”—the pseudonym under which he operated as a street poet and tagger, to an influential figure in the art world. Indeed, we see the influence of Warhol in Basquiat’s canvases from this year, the present work included.  In contrast to the pictorial abundance of many of his earlier compositions, in Untitled (ELMAR), Basquiat allows ample breathing room in which the implied connections between his signs and symbols can be lucidly drawn. This sense of spaciousness engenders an ambiguity within the painting that lends it a distinctly Warholian effect in that, despite his use of bold colors, frenetic brushwork, and dense layers of imagery, there is often an openness and expansiveness to Basquiat’s presentation. Untitled (ELMAR) incorporates space in unconventional ways, with areas of intense activity punctuated by less vigorously worked areas and even glimpses of raw canvas that can appear spare in comparison but are by no means passive. Basquiat orchestrates a dynamic tension that allows viewers to navigate through the artwork and interpret its various elements at their own pace. In doing so, he provides a space for pausing and, in turn, for emphasis.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump, 1982. Private Collection. Formerly in the collection of The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, Connecticut. Image: Archivart / Alamy Stock Photo, Artwork: © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York

In Untitled (ELMAR), Basquiat’s visual cadence akin to instinctive and visceral melodies, combined with his incorporation of handwritten text elements, is also evocative of Cy Twombly’s poetic incorporation of handwritten script and calligraphic marks. In its shared engagement with classical antiquity, Greek and Roman mythology, and the malleability of language, the present work exhibits intriguing parallels with a series Twombly produced in the 1960s featuring titles indicative of famous mythological couples. Here, Basquiat infuses urban culture with references to iconic figures and symbols of ancient lore, such as Icarus and possibly Apollo, the ancient Greek god of archery, weaving a cautionary tale that illustrates a similar fascination with the intersection of ancient myth and contemporary expression. Basquiat further blurs the boundaries between text and image, creating a richly layered work that evokes emotion, memory, and the timeless resonance of classical literature and history.

From a technical standpoint, Untitled (ELMAR) is an incredible example of Basquiat’s early style that incorporated visible pentimenti. Traditionally, a pentimento is a moment within a painting in which a previous compositional choice or image can be seen through the top paint layer.  Basquiat utilized this concept to his advantage, frequently painting with a mixture of thick and thin layers that intentionally revealed the underlying strata. This is particularly evident in the anatomy of the warrior figure, where the body is composed of overlapping swathes of red and white paint, black oilstick, and gold spray paint. The expansive blue sea also provides hints of what lies beneath its surface, with indiscernible gestures peeking through. Moreover, Basquiat asserts his process and presence by incorporating visible footprints that metaphorically ground his artistic expression. He often worked his canvases horizontally on the floor, reminiscent of New York’s earlier Abstract Expressionist painters like Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler.

In Untitled (ELMAR), Basquiat conjures a large-scale warrior figure, using vigorous brushstrokes in the style of Jean Dubuffet’s art Brut and subtly exposing its skeletal structure in a nod to his own enduring fascination with anatomy. Constructed with a mix of red flesh and oilstick bone, reinforced by metallic gold spray paint, Basquiat’s creation resembles a modern-day Frankensteinian fighter, assembled with unmistakable strength. The figure is enveloped in a haloed aura (coming from the Latin “aurea” for “golden”), a vivid burst of yellow forming something loosely akin to a mandorla—an almond-shaped motif often associated with Christian iconography depicting scenes from the life of Christ—or an aureole. Adding to the sense of sanctity, Basquiat’s use of gold embellishments and a haloed figure set against a bright background mirrors the shimmering gold accents often found in similar scenes, as illustrated in Medieval illuminated manuscripts.

[Left] Rock art at Wadi Abu Wasil, Eastern Desert of Egypt, prior to 3000 BC.
[Right] Unknown artist/maker, The Crucifixion, begun after 1234–completed before 1262, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. 

Extending from the warrior’s raised arms are a flurry of arrows and a bow, complemented by a crown of thorns atop his head, establishing a delicate equilibrium between European monarchical and African tribal power symbols. Basquiat’s inspiration here likely draws from Burchard Brentjes’ 1969 text, African Rock Art, a volume he was known to keep in his studio. The rich array of photographs and diagrams therein appealed to Basquiat for their cultural significance, aligning with his preference for a raw and unschooled style of drawing, as well as his affinity for graffiti, with cave art arguably serving as its earliest manifestation.

In a similar fashion to other large-scale single figure paintings from the period, such as Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump, 1982, formerly in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, in Untitled (ELMAR) Basquiat conveys his warrior’s strength anatomically. Curator and art historian Richard Marshall suggests that Basquiat may have been influenced to incorporate such boldness and aggression into his canvases upon encountering Picasso’s “Avignon” paintings, displayed at the Pace Gallery in New York in the winter of 1981. In the works on view, Picasso returned to drawing anatomically graphic and distorted figures in bold colors, an expressive style Basquiat undoubtedly felt an affinity for, given his lifelong admiration of the Spanish artist. Reflecting on his early exposure to Picasso’s work, Basquiat once stated that, “seeing Guernica was my favorite thing as a kid.”^ix Indeed, a parallel can easily be drawn between the figure at the far right of Guernica, crying out to the heavens with arms raised, illuminated by the jagged light of a burning house behind them—along with the faded dove, a symbol of peace obscured amidst the unfolding violence—and the heroic figure in the present work, confronting their winged target.

Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937. Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid. Image: Bridgeman Images, Artwork: © 2024 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 

In the present work, a “fallen angel” figure at left, birdlike and adorned with the recurring crown-of-thorns motif—which doubles as a halo—hovers above a luminous blue sea of scribbled waves and the text “ELMAR”, suggesting a modern-day Icarus on the verge of descent. Through this lens, Basquiat’s archetypal warrior at right takes on an additional layer of meaning, signaling the angel’s imminent downfall. Basquiat often used variations of the fallen angel motif in his art to delve into themes of identity, power dynamics, and societal alienation. Throughout art history, artists have employed this image, notably seen in Alexandre Cabanel’s eponymous painting, The Fallen Angel, 1847, at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, to depict a majestic yet sorrowful figure symbolizing rebellion, spiritual downfall, and the eternal struggle between divine and mortal realms. In Untitled (ELMAR), Basquiat continues this tradition, portraying the figure caught between heaven and earth, poised for a fall. This concept reflects his own experiences as a Black artist navigating a white-dominated art world, where he felt a perpetual sense of alienation and a fear of losing relevance.

The winged figure in Untitled (ELMAR) also resonates with Basquiat’s recurring bird motif, notably observed in his monumental painting created the same year, Untitled (LA Painting), 1982. Basquiat’s birds embody bravery and freedom, doubling as messengers from celestial realms. They evoke symbolism akin to ancient Roman culture where open-winged birds represented power and divine communication, their movements believed to reflect the will of the gods. Additionally, the bird figure may be a veiled reference to one of Basquiat’s heroes, the prominent American jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker. Parker, nicknamed “Bird”, was a leading figure in the development of bebop, whose improvised style greatly influenced Basquiat.^x The artist was known to listen to Parker’s music in the studio.

One of the key motifs in the present painting is a depiction of a skull or human head, which originates from an important oilstick on paper drawing entitled Untitled (Indian Head). Now in the collection of Museo Jumex in Mexico City, this image later became a recurring feature in several of Basquiat’s major works. In his poem titled J.M.B.’s Dehistories, Trinidadian-Bahamian poet Christian Campbell provides insightful interpretations of recurring visual motifs, such as the skulls and human heads that inhabit Basquiat’s oeuvre. He asserts that, “Basquiat’s heads are cartooned, spooked, fried, shocked, damaged. Strange as it may seem, I hear these heads laughing.” He describes them as if cackling in a mad chorus but concludes that, “They see us to the bone, just as we see them. They are witnesses. They are messengers. They have something true to tell us.”

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (Indian Head), 1981, Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico. Artwork: © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York

In Untitled (ELMAR), Basquiat’s replacement of the painted head with an intricate, additive rendering marks a stark complexity compared to the gestural lines created through painting, spraying, and drawing. Alongside his use of fragmented written language, inspired by William Burroughs’ cut-up technique, Basquiat employed collage elements to counteract both formally and materially with his intense painterly work. This integration of collage evokes parallels with the Constructivist and Cubist movements, particularly in the way Picasso and others utilized fragmented imagery to challenge traditional notions of representation. Similarly, Basquiat’s approach resonates with Robert Rauschenberg’s combines, where disparate elements are amalgamated to blur the lines between painting and sculpture. By incorporating collage into his oeuvre, Basquiat not only expands upon the rich legacy of assemblage but also engages in a broader artistic dialogue that spans across movements and generations. In Untitled (ELMAR), a torrent of imagery—ranging from symbols and diagrams to words—dances across the canvas against a backdrop of boundless blue and electric yellow. This chaotic yet controlled display manifests Basquiat’s recurring themes of identity, existentialism, and societal disillusionment. It synthesizes life, death, history, and mythology into a vibrant tapestry, where Basquiat’s insatiable hunger for knowledge and boundless creativity blur the lines between street art and the established norms of the traditional art world.

Central to Basquiat’s practice was representing seemingly conflicting aspects of human experience within a single work. Whether contrasting opposing colors, depicting scales of justice, or exploring themes like “God and Law,” the artist was consistently concerned with duality and reconciling opposing forces. In Untitled (ELMAR), Basquiat portrays the duality of the hunter and the hunted, alongside the notion of ascent followed by inevitable decline, echoing his own rise in the art world. Basquiat’s fascination with stardom and “burnout” becomes apparent in references to artists like Charlie Parker. Caught between a desire for fame and a fear of being consumed or exploited, the present work captures Basquiat’s apprehension of flying too close to the sun, symbolized by the pregnant moment before the hero’s downfall. Here, the winged figure soars like Icarus toward the heavens, defying limitations in pursuit of freedom. “Only one thing worries me,”

#2. The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet, 1982

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimate on Request
USD 32,035,000

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988), The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet | Christie’s (christies.com)

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)
The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet, 1982
Acrylic, oilstick and paper collage on canvas mounted on tied wood supports
60×60 inches (152.4 x 152.4 cm)
Signed, titled and dated (on the reverse)

The finest example of his iconic stretcher-bar paintings, The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet provides ample evidence of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s creative genius and visual dexterity. These unique paintings are perhaps the pinnacle of the artist’s attempts to upend centuries of painterly tradition by establishing new creative forms which adopted the sights, sounds, and raw materials of the urban landscape. Painted when Basquiat was just 21 years old, across this distinctive support he portrays his world through an encyclopedic display of signature motifs: crowns, anatomy, expressive marks, plus his distinctive lexicon of enigmatic words and phrases are used in the service of creating this epic composition. In addition to being an exemplar of the artist’s mark-making, The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet also establishes Basquiat’s ambition to introduce his personal heroes—Black sportsmen, musicians, and figures from the civil rights movement—into the canon of American art. In the present work, he harnesses the sport of boxing (one of the first sports where Black sportsmen prevailed) as the vehicle with which to achieve these goals. The artist’s boxing paintings have become some of his most sought-after works, as they are regarded as sitting at the very top of his extensive oeuvre. Exhibited in the artist’s seminal retrospective at the Whitney in 1992, this painting has not been seen in public for nearly 20 years.

Left: Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait at the Age of 63, 1669. National Gallery, London.
Right: Vincent Van Gogh, Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889. Courtauld Gallery, London. Photo: © Courtauld Gallery / Bridgeman Images.

The composition is dominated by two figures, one almost complete body on the right, and a bust on the left. The latter figure is realized by the artist applying layer upon layer of painterly marks to build up the requisite facial features such as the skin, eyes, nose, and ears. This labor-intensive technique results in a richly detailed rendering showing each of the constituent parts of the face and how they work together to form the familiar features we are used to. In contrast, to the right is a large black figure, adorned with a wide variety of powerful words and motifs. ‘Bracco di Ferro’ is scrawled across his chest, while the words ‘HOO, HOO, HOO, HOOVES’ tumbles down his body. A discombobulated arm lays over the top, alongside a series of cryptic numbers and fractions.

Basquiat fills the remaining surface area of his canvas with a litany of his enigmatic mark-making. His signature three-point crown is included multiple times, his © copyright symbol (asserting his ownership as the artist, something that was denied to generations of Black artists previously), the word ‘BOXEO’ (Spanish for ‘boxing’), the phrases ‘VERSUS PORK’ and ‘100% PERCENT,’ the outline of the skelly court (a street game popular in Black neighborhoods and a motif that particularly appealed to Basquiat because of its childlike qualities and graffiti-like origins), sit alongside a visual cacophony of more ambiguous words and numbers.

The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet is also radical within Basquiat’s career. It is a racially subversive homage to popular boxers of the time, many of whom were also personal heroes to the artist. The composition contains multiple references to the sport; in addition to the aforementioned BOXEO, ‘BRACCO DI FERRO’ can be translated into English as ‘at arm’s length,’ a primary objective of any boxer in this intensely physical sport. The ‘FOUR BIG’ that is written along the upper edge could be a reference to the four governing bodies of world boxing (the WBA, WBC, IBF, and the WBO) and the organizations whose championship belts are the much-coveted prizes sought by the world’s top boxers. The phrase ‘BUM EAR’ (lower left) could describe one of the physical effects of constantly being hit around the head, and the reference to Popeye in the title is an acknowledgment of the fact that the sport was a recurrent theme in the original cartoon, as the title character often had to undertake a boxing match to prove his spinach induced strength.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (Boxer), 1982. © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York

Within Basquiat’s pantheon of personal heroes, the boxer stands supreme. Either posing triumphantly with his arms raised—as in Untitled (Boxer) (1982, Private Collection)—or stoically with arms firmly placed by his side bracing for a fight, the boxer is the subject of some of the artist’s most triumphal paintings. For Basquiat, a champion such as Sugar Ray Robinson represented the striking dichotomy of being a Black man in America. Despite being regarded as the greatest boxer of all time, and one of the most famous African Americans of his generation, Robinson would have suffered the indignity of not being allowed into venues due to the pernicious evils of segregation that were still widespread in the United States during the boxer’s reign. This duality was reflected directly in 1983 (the year after the present work was painted) when asked by the legendary curator Henry Geldzahler what the subject of his paintings were, Basquiat replied bluntly, “Royalty, heroism and the streets” (J. Basquiat, quoted by H. Geldzahler, ‘Art: From the Subways to Soho—Jean-Michel Basquiat,” Interview, January, 1983).

Jean-Michel Basquiat, New-York, 1981-1980, Downtown 1981

However, as with many of Basquiat’s pre-eminent paintings, The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet is a multi-layered work which rewards the viewer by slowly revealing its complex narrative through prolonged looking. For example, in addition to the boxing reference, the term BRACCO is indirectly quoted from Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘braccio’ drawings. In Basquiat’s bastardized Italian BRACCO DI FERRO recalls da Vinci’s textual labels, which the Renaissance artist added to his anatomical figures. In Basquiat’s terms, these references signify a deep aspiration to become like the great Italian; as Robert Farris Thompson has said “the texts in his [Basquiat’s] paintings are, among many things, brave essays in cultural self-definition. They reflect not only the books he read and the worlds he lived in… more critically, they reflect how he made sense of all those realms” (R. Farris Thompson, ‘Royalty, Heroism, and the Streets: The Art of Jean-Michael Basquiat,’ in Jean-Micheal Basquiat, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1992, p. 28).

Text played a vital role in Basquiat’s emergence as an artist as, after he dropped out of school, he became a street artist and began spray-painting pithy, often poetic, texts all over New York City, often using the tag SAMO. However, these texts were not random musings of a disgruntled teenager, they were strategically placed at calculated locations in Soho and the East Village, sometimes even outside art openings all with the intention of getting influential people to see and take notice. There were not merely social texts, they were—as Thompson has noted—in essence adverts for Basquiat himself. Thus, in the case of the present work, the words—however mysterious they might at first seem—are deliberately chosen for their visual, aural, or metaphorical associations, all part of Basquiat’s rich and powerful lexicon.

Left: Muscle in the left hand, illustration from Gray’s Anatomy, 1974.
Right: Present lot illustrated.

Anatomical depictions too played a central role in the artist’s vocabulary. Basquiat was a veracious reader, something which his parents encouraged. When he was struck by a car while playing softball in the street as a child, to keep him occupied while he was laid up in hospital, his mother gave him a copy of the medical reference book, Gray’s Anatomy. What at first might seem an odd choice to give an eight-year-old child in fact played to his insatiable desire for knowledge, and also fueled his artistic endeavors as his mother knew that Michelangelo and all the great painters had studied anatomy.

The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet belongs to a distinguished group of works in which the artist constructed his own stretchers from objects he found on the street. By the time of his exhibition at the Fun Gallery in New York’s Lower East Side in November 1982, Basquiat had clearly begun working with unconventional supports. In doing so, Basquiat transformed the traditional notion of a support as a mere ‘surface’ into the basis of a three-dimensional object. Subsequently, these ‘stretcher bar’ canvases, as they have become known, have become some of the most celebrated and sought-after works of his career, with examples in major museum collections including A Next Loin and/or (1982, The Menil Collection, Houston), A Panel of Experts (1982, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), and LNAPRK (1982, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York).

Jean-Michel Basquiat, A Next Loin And/Or, 1982. Menil Collection, Houston. © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, NY
Jean-Michel Basquiat, A Panel of Experts, 1982. Montreal Museum of Art. © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, NY
Jean-Michel Basquiat, LNAPRK, 1982. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, NY

Painted in 1982, the present work was executed at a pivotal period in the artist’s career. Basquiat had recently undertaken two trips to Italy, where he spent time in Modena. He was initially invited to Europe by Emilio Mazzoli to participate in what would be the artist’s first-ever one-man show after the dealer saw the artist’s work in the legendary New York/New Wave show at New York’s P.S. 1. After the initial trip in May 1981, Basquiat returned the following March and it was during this stay that he painted several of his most respected paintings including Profit 1. It may have been during these stays that Basquiat came across the Italian version of Popeye that is referenced in the present work’s title. The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet is a seminal painting that combines many of the artist’s most important tropes. Painted at the height of his career, it represents the complex and insightful thinking of this gifted young painter. Almost always autobiographical in some way, Basquiat’s paintings are pervaded with the sense that the artist was talking to himself, exorcising demons, exposing uncomfortable truths and trying to explain the way of things to himself—an effort that became increasingly pronounced at this time.

#3. Campaign, 1984

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
USD 8,000,000 – 12,000,000
USD 10,101,000

Campaign | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960 – 1988)
Campaign, 1984
Acrylic, oilstick and silkscreen on canvas
85 7/8 x 68 1/8 inches (218×173 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 1984 (on the reverse)

Thundering with Jean-Michel Basquiat’s interpretation of Black history, Campaign testifies to the artist’s revolutionary impact within the art historical canon by forging a uniquely vehement artistic vernacular. Campaign was executed in 1984, heralding Basquiat’s arrival as an emphatic artistic force during the thrilling apex of his creative furor. By this stage in his career, Basquiat was confidently empowered: no longer the precocious street artist threatening establishment norms, he rose with acclaim as an acknowledged art world prodigy, capable of producing devastatingly striking artworks that perfectly distilled the zeitgeist of 1980s downtown New York. Belonging to Basquiat’s investigation into racial identity, Campaign belongs to a cycle of paintings from 1984 that incorporate the logo of Player’s Navy Cut cigarettes – an emblem that Basquiat appropriates and repurposes here, replacing its jaunty blonde mascot with the portrait of an African slave to signify the transatlantic slave trade. Towering at over seven feet, Campaign is a formidable reinvention of epic history painting in both scale and conceptual ambition. Here, galvanized by his own Black identity, Basquiat conjures an arresting meditation of African American history and European oppression in his inimitable painterly bravado.

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT ON THE SET OF DOWNTOWN 81. PHOTO © EDO BERTOGLIO

In Campaign, thematic intensity is underscored by Basquiat’s mastery of compositional magnitude and stylistic gravitas. Paired with contrasting passages of black and white, the bold color palette of saturated primary hues imbues the work with palpable dynamism. Deep aqua blue, opaque emulsion white, and thin translucent red electrify the composition, animating the surface in narrow streaks of intuitive fluency. A resplendent field of pure azure serves as the surreal and beguiling stage for a cacophony of Basquiat’s signature emblems: the spiky three-pointed crown; totemic skull-like idols; and textural scrawls, all of which echo the grit of the artist’s cultural environs in downtown Manhattan. An inflammatory declaration of painterly mastery dating from the pinnacle of Basquiat’s artistic development, Campaign bears a sheer intensity that powerfully embodies the artist’s undying legacy.

In the true Expressionist vein of artists such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Arshile Gorky, and Franz Kline, Basquiat harnesses pigment and iconography for his own means, charging Campaign with acerbic social commentary. In the upper left corner of the canvas, Basquiat appropriates and transforms the logo of a popular cigarette brand, Player’s Navy Cut, into a symbol through which he directly reckons with the historical legacy of colonial trade. Replacing the company logo’s trademark jaunty blonde and bearded sailor, however, Basquiat depicts a manacled slave in unmistakably African tribal dress, with traditional necklaces and piercings. The brand’s name in the logo, too, is replaced by the word “tobacco,” referencing the agricultural commodity associated with plantation slavery. The naval ships that typically flank sailors now adopt a more sinister meaning, referencing the transatlantic slave trade and the menacing specter of European colonial rule. Basquiat heightens the dramatic tension of Campaign by contrasting this satirical imagery with the phantom-like figures in uniform below, whose symbolic gestures harken back to archaic ritualistic iconography.

LEFT: ARSHILE GORKY, AFTER KHORKUM,1940-42. IMAGE © THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO / ART RESOURCE, NY. ART © 2024 THE ARSHILE GORKY FOUNDATION / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. RIGHT: FRANZ KLINE, BLUEBERRY EYES, 1959-1960. IMAGE © SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM, WASHINGTON, DC / ART RESOURCE, NY. ART © 2024 THE FRANZ KLINE ESTATE / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK

In Basquiat’s barrage of textual and visual motifs, his torrential stream of consciousness becomes the conceptual network for the commentary that he unabashedly sets forth. In the words of prominent dealer and curator, Jeffrey Deitch, “Basquiat’s canvases are aesthetic dropcloths that catch the leaks from a whirring mind. He vacuums up cultural fall-out and spits it out on stretched canvas, disturbingly transformed” (Jeffrey Deitch quoted in: Larry Warsh, Ed., Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Notebooks, New York 1993, p. 13). It is precisely this reliance on eclectic source material that created the waterfall of diverse imagery and alphanumeric mark-making apparent in Campaign. While it resists a facile interpretation, this cluster of motifs in Campaign provides further insight into Basquiat’s working method: more than an illustrative self-portrait that provides a simple likeness, it provides an instinctive regurgitation of the artist’s stimulus – a glimpse into the machinations of his inner cogitation, with its intensity laid fully bare.

20-PACK OF PLAYER’S NAVY CUT CIGARETTES, 1940S

Born to Puerto Rican and Haitian parents in Brooklyn, Basquiat drew from his ethnic background and racial identity to forge a body of work acutely conscious of his place within white Western art history. Unequivocally inspired by the fractured nature of Picasso’s Cubism, Basquiat also looked back to the Spanish master’s interest in African art and primitivism. Basquiat, however, harnesses the aesthetic language of primitivism further, manipulating it to expound upon his own version of history painting, a genre that traditionally lauded the triumphs and glories of Western empire. In Campaign, Basquiat takes on a didactic role by shifting focus to the labor of African subjects that enabled such abundance in Western society. By reappropriating these hallmarks of art history into his unique language and style, Basquiat maintains an ideological opposition to the oppressive systems and demands of that same tradition. “There was a kind of deliberate roughness to his paintings, as if to say: I remain a warrior of the streets; behold the world as seen through vernacular eyes,” writes critic Robert Farris Thompson. (Robert Farris Thompson, op. cit., pp. 31-32) Appropriating aesthetic references to African folk art to visualize his critique on Western history, Basquiat again underlines his position as the prodigious revolutionary, disrupts the predominantly white canon of art, and claims his rightful place as a prophetic voice for our modern age.

ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER, SELF PORTRAIT OF A SOLDIER, 1915. IMAGE © ALLEN MEMORIAL ART MUSEUM / CHARLES F. OLNEY FUND / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Paralleling the momentum of his meteoric rise, every expressive mark and form of Campaign from 1984 is imbued with Basquiat’s impassioned, almost compulsive declaration of edifying artistic intent. A maelstrom of text and images unfurls as a tongue-in-cheek redux of history painting with unbridled bravado: here, the individual elements of the present work are intricately laden with meaning, introducing themes of race, art history, and expressionistic gestural power to the canvas. Replete with the signature iconography, vibrant color, and urban vivacity that are synonymous with Basquiat’s immortal oeuvre, Campaign is a complex and neologistic refashioning of Black history. Pulsating with creative furor, every twisting application of line and stuttering dynamism of form in Campaign profoundly invokes the riotous triumph of Basquiat’s artistic vision.

#4. Untitled, 1981

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 7,000,000 – 10,000,000
USD 8,492,400

Untitled | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960 – 1988)
Untitled, 1981
Acrylic, oilstick and paper collage on paper
59×56 inches (149.9 x 142.2 cm)

In Untitled, the tumult of pure color and line that distinguish its dynamic composition parallels Jean-Michel Basquiat’s profound aesthetic historiography of the United States: in a phantom white abstraction, the geographical contours of the country’s map emerge here, marked by gestural inscriptions like “SUGAR” and “TOBACCO” that denote the agricultural commodities and labor outputs historically associated with distinct American regions. Executed in 1981, Untitled synthesizes the vigorous markmaking, calligraphic signs, and sociopolitical commentary that propelled Basquiat’s meteoric ascent from his street art origins to international stardom. Blazing hues of red, orange, and yellow electrify the dark pictorial surface, where the tactile qualities of his collage and paintwork – at times scrawled, at others dripping or smudged – retain and exalt the vital immediacy of his foundational practice. Testifying to its significance within Basquiat’s prolific output, Untitled bears an extensive exhibition history, including the critically acclaimed 2010-11 retrospective Jean-Michel Basquiat held at Fondation Beyeler, Basel and Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris and the 2017-18 exhibition Jean-Michel Basquiat: Boom for Real held at Barbican Center, London and Schirn Kunsthalle Museum, Frankfurt. Untitled is further distinguished by its exceptional provenance, having first been acquired from Anina Nosei Gallery, Basquiat’s first art dealer in the 1980s, by prominent contemporary art collector Edward R. Downe. A consummate and searing example of Basquiat’s early works on paper, Untitled embodies the artist’s innate ability to distill angst into visual dynamism and his newfound maturity as a deftly skilled draftsman.

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT IN HIS STUDIO, NEW YORK, 1982. PHOTO © GIANFRANCO GORGONI; © MAYA GORGONI. ARTWORK © ESTATE OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT. LICENSED BY ARTESTAR, NEW YORK

Dominating the center of the composition in Untitled, Basquiat abstracts the geography of the United States of America into an amorphous form of ghostly white segmented by key symbols and inscriptions. His loose painterly map associates American regions with the natural resources that have historically contributed to their economic development: “SUGAR” and “TOBACCO” repeat throughout the South to reference the agricultural economy of the Antebellum Era, while the West Coast is coated in dense scrawls of golden yellow, reminiscent of the California Gold Rush in the mid-1800s. Emerging respectively from swathes of blood red and ghostly white, two of Basquiat’s signature black skull-like heads stare outward with harrowing eyes and clenched teeth, as if to assert the primacy of the Black figure within the history of the United States. As Jackie Wullschlager astutely notes about the present work, “A sense of events as circular, a doomed cycle of violence and oppression — same old — dominates Basquiat’s take on history painting. Untitled is a loosely painted map of the US dotted with black masks and the words “Sugar” and “Tobacco” scrawled across the southern states.” (Jackie Wullschlager, “The off-the-wall brilliance of Jean-Michel Basquiat,” The Financial Times, 29 September 2017 (online))

LEFT: THE PRESENT WORK INSTALLED IN JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT & MANUEL OCAMPO AT HENRY ART GALLERY, SEATTLE, 1994. PHOTO © RICHARD NICOL. ART © 2024 ESTATE OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT. LICENSED BY ARTESTAR, NEW YORK. RIGHT: THE PRESENT WORK INSTALLED IN BASQUIAT AT MUSÉE D’ART MODERNE DE LA VILLE DE PARIS, OCTOBER 2010 – JANUARY 2011. ART © 2024 ESTATE OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT. LICENSED BY ARTESTAR, NEW YORK

With characteristic semiotic flair, Basquiat powerfully introduces central themes of race and capitalism into Untitled by way of this cartographic interpretation. Under Basquiat’s hand, commodities such as sugar, tobacco, and gold become allegorical motifs for a fraught economic history intertwined with colonialism, the slave trade, and plantation labor, revealing the complex and politicized relationship between modern society and natural resources. As curator Richard Marshall has observed, “These frequent references… reveal Basquiat’s interest in aspects of commerce – trading, selling and buying. Basquiat is scrutinizing man’s seizure and monopolization of the earth’s animal and material resources, and questioning why and how these resources, that are ideally owned by all of the world’s inhabitants, have become objects of manipulation, power, and wealth at the expense of the well being of all mankind” (Richard Marshall, “Jean-Michel Basquiat and his Subjects” in Enrico Navarra, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris 2000, p. 43).

The criticality behind Basquiat’s Untitled is commensurate with his searing painterly bravura seen in full display here, which reinvigorated the vocabulary of modern art with an unprecedented aesthetic intensity. Ever the iconographic alchemist, Basquiat did not merely appropriate or create pastiches of the styles, references, and traditions he accessed, he instead commanded these sources into a unique contemporary narrative. In Untitled, the depthless expanse of jet-black and stark strokes of white is especially redolent of Franz Kline; the rough eschewal of formal perspective invokes the Art Brut sensibility of Jean Dubuffet; and the abstracted blocks of red, orange, blue, and yellow recall the color fields paintings of Mark Rothko or Clyfford Still. Meanwhile, the two disembodied heads in the present work reference African reliquary masks not only in form but also in recalling an almost spiritual presence. Basquiat, like his hero Picasso before him, assessed African sculpture to interpret contemporary visual culture from a completely new perspective. While for Picasso, primitivism was an antidote to the conservatism of the academies, for Basquiat it was a means to critique the Western history of art, expressing a distinctly contemporary angst tied to prevalent social issues concerning race and ethnicity.

LEFT: ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, CANYON, 1959. IMAGE © THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART/LICENSED BY SCALA / ART RESOURCE, NY. ART © 2024 ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG FOUNDATION. RIGHT: CY TWOMBLY, SUMMER MADNESS, 1990. IMAGE © BPK BILDAGENTUR / MUSEUM BRANDHORST, BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMÄLDESAMMLUNGEN / ART RESOURCE, NY. ART © CY TWOMBLY FOUNDATION

Also exemplified in Untitled, Basquiat’s dynamic union of image and work is a signature component within his pioneering technique that asserts his painterly force with unabashed grit and subversion. For Basquiat, words are as potent as his graphic symbols, and his inclusion of text in his artworks is indebted to his street art days in the 1970s as part of the duo SAMO©. Initially, Basquiat first made waves on the burgeoning downtown New York art scene in 1978 when he teamed up with his classmate Al Diaz to paint enigmatic slogans across the walls of corporate or public buildings, in highly visible spaces all over the city. More than just a street art tag, however, these slogans, executed under the aegis of SAMO©, were poetic, syncopated literary maxims aimed at critiquing both the predominantly white art world and American culture at large. Taking the essence of the streets to the studio, Basquiat would later paint with voracious energy on anything he could get his hands on, from walls and discarded pieces of cardboard to old television sets and refrigerators, elevating the quotidian to ever-new heights. It is perhaps Basquiat’s works on paper like Untitled, however, which reveal some of the most striking displays of the undying expressive urgency for which the artist is acclaimed. A self-taught artist, Basquiat’s genius lies in his instinctual understanding of composition, and the immediacy of paper as a medium provided the perfect vehicle for his vigorous technique. Ritualistically layering symbols and marks, Basquiat constricts the combustive color of his American map in Untitled within a thrumming web of white oil stick, alluding to a deeper economic and labor history as dynamically textured and complex as the picture plane. Translated into a sheer visual voltage onto the paper surface, themes of history and capitalism that manifest here in Untitled reveal the impassioned intensity and critical perspective that Basquiat maintained throughout his larger practice. As curator Okwui Enwezor observes, “Even at the young age… with limited formal education in the practice of art, Basquiat was gifted with an ebullient self-confidence, and sought nothing less than to disrupt the restricted equipoise by which the conventional Western art system had governed the public understanding of art.” (Okwui Enwezor, “El Gran Espectáculo: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Modernity, Modernism,” in: Exh. Cat., Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris, Fondation Louis Vuitton, 2018, p. 39)

#5. Untitled (Portrait of Famous Ballplayer), 1981

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 6,500,000 – 8,500,000
USD 7,892,500

Jean-Michel Basquiat – Modern & Contempor… Lot 6 May 2024 | Phillips

In Untitled (Portrait of Famous Ballplayer), Jean-Michel Basquiat delves into “America’s Favorite Pastime,” juxtaposing symbols of the quintessentially all-American sport with his depiction of a central Black figure, as well as his iconic text and crown motifs. Created during a transformative period for Basquiat, marked by his increasing visibility in the art world, this painting epitomizes the essential traits of his early canvases; it blends the immediacy and gestural freedom of graffiti writing with fine art traditions to explore themes of race, selfhood, and national identity through the lens of the artist’s signature iconography. The work was showcased in historic exhibitions such as Annina Nosei’s Jean-Michel Basquiat Memorial Exhibition, which opened in December 1988 shortly after the artist’s passing and coinciding with what would have been his 28th birthday. Untitled (Portrait of Famous Ballplayer) was formerly in the collection of the renowned historian and collector Francesco Pellizzi, who acquired it in the early 1980s directly from Nosei, Basquiat’s primary dealer at the time. Having remained in the same collection for decades, this significant work will now be offered publicly for the first time.

Jean-Michel Basquiat Wearing an American Football Helmet, 1981 by Edo Bertoglio. Image: © Edo Bertoglio, Courtesy of Maripol, Artwork: © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York

One of Basquiat’s earliest and only paintings to feature the culturally loaded phrase “Famous Negro Athletes” (with “Negro Athletes” notably crossed out), Untitled (Portrait of Famous Ballplayer) serves as a potent commentary on race, identity, and representation. It also reflects Basquiat’s own experience as a Black artist navigating a predominantly white art world. Through the intentional crossing out of text, Basquiat underscores the theme of exclusion while drawing attention to the obscured words beneath. Basquiat’s use of written language, both legible and obfuscated, serves as a reflection of his inner dialogue and becomes a vehicle for conveying multiple layers of meaning. Through this juxtaposition of words and imagery, Basquiat engages viewers in a complex interplay of language, identity, and societal critique, inviting interpretation and challenging traditional notions of communication and expression. In Untitled (Portrait of Famous Ballplayer), Basquiat inscribes one of his soon-to-be-signature slogans—”FAMOUS NEGRO ATHLETES”—yet, while the word “FAMOUS” remains legible, the rest of the expression is intentionally concealed by a thick stripe of black spray paint. The act of crossing out text underscores the theme of exclusion, paradoxically drawing attention to the words beneath while suggesting their suppression.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Famous Negro Athletes, 1981. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut. Formerly in the collection of Glenn O’Brien. Image: Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Nelly Bly, B.A. 1994 and Michael Arougheti, B.A. 1993, Artwork: © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York

Basquiat’s inclusion of his signature crown motif above the floating heads and oversized baseballs in Untitled (Portrait of Famous Ballplayer) speaks to the majesty of these groundbreaking athletes as kings of their craft. Simultaneously, he reveals his admiration for the lone figure, the unsung hero at the center, whose crown is notably absent. In its place, Basquiat renders the head of his “FAMOUS NEGRO ATHLETE” in metallic gold, visually asserting the subject’s divinity and enduring significance, while evoking the grandeur of Byzantine icons portraying saints and religious figures adorned in gold leaf. In religious icons of Christian art history, gold was frequently used to symbolize transcendent, divine light embodying the invisible, spiritual world, and could be found in the background of icons, mosaics, panel paintings, and architectural settings. Basquiat plays with this visual history, using gold in the present work not only to pay homage to the athlete’s unparalleled skill but also to suggest a spiritual reverence for their contribution to the cultural landscape, where great human achievements are still most often rewarded with gold, in the form of gold statues and other decorations, and sportsmen are usually awarded gold medals or trophies to signify their victories.

 

Icon of the archangel Michael, Constantinople, first half of 14th century. Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens.
Image: The History Collection / Alamy Stock Photo 

Moreover, by choosing not to name a specific “Ballplayer”, Basquiat elevates them to the status of a symbol, an archetype rather than an individual. Echoing Andy Warhol’s iconic Gold Marilyn Monroe from 1962, in Untitled (Portrait of Famous Ballplayer), Basquiat further underscores the transformative power of celebrity and the intersection between art and popular culture. Through these symbolic elements, Basquiat invites viewers to contemplate the intersection of fame, race, and iconography, challenging conventional notions of heroism and idolization. Basquiat ennobled his heroes, using his crowns like the royal titles that famous African American musicians have sometimes adopted or the nicknames of sporting greats—such as Duke Ellington or Muhammed Ali, interchangeably known as “The Greatest,” “The Louisville Lip,” and “The Champ”—to create a court including renowned jazz musicians and celebrated athletes. In Untitled (Portrait of Famous Ballplayer), he establishes himself in that pantheon of Black heroes, employing his distinctive crowns as symbols of his induction and investiture into the overarching storyline of art history. Basquiat’s inclusion of baseball imagery reflects both his racial heritage as a Puerto Rican/Haitian American and the duality of exploitation and aspiration, mirroring his own ascendancy within the predominantly white art establishment, akin to the extraordinary success of these athletes.

 

[Left] Willie Mays with the New York Mets, c. 1972-73. Image: National Baseball Hall of Fame Library
[Right] Willie Mays, New York Mets Collectible Card, 1973. Image: Q20 / Alamy Stock Photo  

In Untitled (Portrait of Famous Ballplayer), Basquiat invites viewers to determine the identity of the protagonist. Could this ‘Famous Ballplayer’ be Jackie Robinson, the pioneering Black baseball player who broke the color barrier in the American major leagues during the 20th century? Basquiat saw in Jackie Robinson a resilient hero and an enduring symbol of self-made success, triumphing over the pervasive racial prejudices of the 1950s. Alternatively, it could be Hank Aaron, the inaugural figure in Basquiat’s pantheon of revered Black dignitaries. A childhood hero to Basquiat, renowned for his achievements rivaling those of Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron’s influence is palpable throughout Basquiat’s earliest works. Or perhaps, the enigmatic figure is Willie Mays, the legendary outfielder whose sensational over-the-shoulder catch—famously known as “The Catch” and considered by many to be one of the greatest defensive plays in history—during the 1954 World Series remains one of baseball’s most iconic moments.

#6. Chicken Wings Three, 1983

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
USD 2,409,500

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988), Chicken Wings Three | Christie’s (christies.com)

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)
Chicken Wings Three, 1983
Acrylic and Xerox collage on metal
35 1/2 x 35 1/2 inches (90.2 x 90.2 cm)

Containing the raw energy of street art with a nuanced approach to art history, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s unprecedented oeuvre set the stage for a new understanding of art at the end of the twentieth century. Chicken Wings Three, realized during a key point in Basquiat’s regrettably short career, is a prime example of the young artist’s ability to create dynamic compositions densely packed with visual information. It was executed in 1983, the same year that he was included in the Whitney Biennial, as the youngest artist to ever participate in the exhibition at the age of 22. It was also during this time that he joined the group of artists at Mary Boone’s gallery and became better acquainted with Andy Warhol. He had been introduced to the Pop artist the year before by dealer Bruno Bischofberger, and the ensuring friendship had an immense effect on both artists. Though Basquiat was not aligned officially with the tenets of American Pop, his use of Xerox machines and image manipulation in conjunction with expressive abstraction helped to cement his larger practice within the annals of art history.

Collaged onto a metal backing, a variety of Xerox copies are arranged in a raucous manner. Diagrams, drawings, and text in multiple languages cover the surface while creating radical juxtapositions of disparate subjects and ideas. Printed with black ink on white paper, the lines are clear and precise while also exhibiting Basquiat’s trademark knack for enlivening even the most simple mark with an inherent vitality. Human heads, cars, globes, tools, and a Godzilla-like creature are dispersed over the work’s surface alongside lists of minerals, diagrams, and references to currency and alchemy. The apparent disorder and chaos of these competing ideas somehow coalesce into a discrete image that illustrates Basquiat’s thought process and insatiable curiosity about the world around him. “There is the sense that what Basquiat presents results from a mind less dependent upon hierarchical and declarative judgment,” mused art historian and curator Fred Hoffman. “In presenting all that he portrayed as being of equal value, Basquiat presented himself as that non-judgmental observer who approached his subjects with a certain detachment, without an agenda, a need to separate out, to choose or select” (F. Hoffman, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Drawing, exh. cat., Acquavella, New York, 2014, p. 39). The overwhelming nature of daily life made its way readily into works like Chicken Wings Three where competing points of interest jockey for the viewer’s attention. Over the top of this visual array, the artist has added a layer of translucent color. At times, the pages are obscured by dark areas of paint or thicker applications of acrylic, but the overriding hue of the work is a deep vermilion that spreads from edge to edge in an expanse of ruby tint. Where the collage is most difficult to see, the painterly application of color results in thick, visible brushstrokes that contrast with the linear quality of the Xeroxes and the mechanical nature of their replication.

Drawings from Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebook, early 16th century. British Library, London.
Photo: British Library / The Art Archive at Art Resource, New York. 

Chicken Wings Three is a poignant example of Basquiat’s lifelong love affair with the act and art of drawing. Doodles, drafts, and sketches were the basis for his practice as he worked out ideas and crafted a discrete visual vocabulary on sheets of copier paper before committing them to canvas. Often, using mechanical means, he would duplicate, enlarge, and edit his originals to create a new amalgam that opened up a doorway to further information. “Drawing, for [Basquiat], was something you did rather than something done, an activity rather than a medium,” explained Robert Storr. “The seemingly throw-away sheets that carpeted his studio might appear little more than warm-ups for painting, except that the artist, a shrewd connoisseur of his own off-hand and underfoot inventions, did not in fact throw them away, but instead kept the best for constant reference and re-use.  By repurposing sketches and studies, Basquiat was able to create a cohesive collection of images that connected through various media. Symbols, motifs, and specific phrases often found their way into disparate formats and established a potent sense of the artist and his worldview throughout his oeuvre.

#7. Untitled (Grain Alcohol), 1983

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,996,000

Jean-Michel Basquiat – Modern & Contempo… Lot 13 May 2024 | Phillips

Arriving to auction for the first time in nearly four decades, Untitled (Grain Alcohol) exemplifies the gestural prowess and distinctive iconography that denoted the peak of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s career. Executed in 1983, soon after his meteoric rise to fame, the work features the same interrogation of “high” and “low” culture that would typify the rest of his too-brief oeuvre. In its hieroglyphic composition, crudely-rendered pictograms, and textual acronyms, the work stylistically harkens back to Basquiat’s past as a graffiti artist in the late 1970s. It also represents many of Basquiat’s pictorial interests at the time, such as crowns, superhero imagery, and jazz musicians, specifically referencing Bud Powell, Charles Mingus (CHRLES MNGS), Miles Davis (MLSDVS), Dizzy Gillespie (DZYGLPSE), Charlie Parker (C PRKR), and Max Roach (MX RCH). These citations not only showcase Basquiat’s deep appreciation for jazz music and its cultural significance but also highlight his penchant for incorporating a range of influences into his work, creating a rich tapestry of diverse visual and thematic elements. Bringing together motifs drawn street art, music, and pop culture, Untitled serves as a vibrant testament to Basquiat’s extraordinary vision.

Jean-Michel Basquiat DJing at Area, New York, 1985. Photograph by Ben Buchanon.
Image: © Ben Buchanan. All rights reserved 2024 / Bridgeman Images

Jazz music, and specifically bebop, was an enduring source of inspiration for the artist, resurfacing time and time again in over thirty of his famous paintings, such as Horn Players, 1983, The Broad, Los Angeles. Basquiat’s fascination with the genre stemmed from his upbringing in New York City, where he was exposed to the vibrant jazz scene of the 1960s and 1970s. This early exposure was later evoked in the artist’s studio practice and epitomized in Untitled, which mirrors the spontaneity and improvisation of jazz music through its rhythmic composition and swiftly drawn oilstick lines. As a musician himself, Basquiat ardently admired and identified with many of these figures—a sentiment visible in the pantheon of bebop luminaries that occupies the lower half of the image. In Untitled, Basquiat’s reverence for the genre is palpable, as he pays homage to these legendary musicians while also infusing the painting with his own distinctive visual language.

 Jean-Michel Basquiat, Horn Players, 1983. The Broad, Los Angeles. Artwork: © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York

Central to Basquiat’s practice was a sanctification of notable African American figures, which Basquiat used as an iconographic device to coalesce art history, pop culture, and the Black experience. As an answer to the lack of Afro-diasporic representation he witnessed during his frequent visits to the Brooklyn Museum during his youth, the artist began to anoint cultural icons in his own distinctive form of royal portraiture, just as Western art history valorized saints and kings for millennia. In the present work, these pioneering jazz figures—as well as heavyweight champion Jersey Joe Walcott—are surrounded by superhero references, which were also found in his painting Charles the First (1982). At the top of Untitled are two Superman shields; just below is a human figure labelled twice as Thor, the Germanic pagan god who holds a hammer and was appropriated as a Marvel comic in the 1960s. Thor’s signature thunderbolt is repeated across the center of the image, elevating Basquiat’s subjects to a superheroic status. Crowns, one of the artist’s quintessential pictorial tropes, coronate Walcott and Roach and reinforce Basquiat’s exaltation of these figures. These symbols have a double meaning of “kingship,” serving as a nod both to Basquiat’s past as a street artist and to jazz culture. This history also resonates with jazz notions of “royalty,” in which musicians were granted informal honorific titles, such as the “Prince of Darkness” (Miles Davis) or Nat “King” Cole. Embodying both of these traditions, Untitled presents these figures as reigning figures within their respective realms.

Portrait of Charlie Parker, Tommy Potter, Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, and Max Roach, Three Deuces, New York, N.Y., ca. Aug. 1947.
Image: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., William P. Gottlieb Collection

While the present work renders Basquiat’s superheroes at the height of their talents, it can also be interpreted as documenting their shared hardships. The scrawl “BENZEDREX INHALERS SOAKED IN WINE” refers to an over-the-counter nasal decongestant containing amphetamine, which was often abused by many jazz musicians—most notoriously Parker. The inhalers were typically broken apart to reveal a piece of cotton soaked in the drug, which would then be dipped in alcohol or coffee. Underscored by the work’s subtitle, Grain Alcohol, this reference foreshadowed Basquiat’s own addiction and premature death just five years after the execution of Untitled. In this way, the work serves as a poignant reminder of Basquiat’s kinship with his idols—illustrating how they were united by both their artistic brilliance as well as their struggles. Weaving together personal experience, popular culture, graffiti, and music, Untitled symbolizes Basquiat’s defiance against social and artistic hierarchies.

Famous Negro Athletes, 1981

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 500,000 – 700,000
USD 907,200

22978 Basquiat, Famous Negro Athletes (shorthandstories.com)

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)
Famous Negro Athletes, 1981
Oilstick and wax crayon on brown paper
17 3/4 x 23 7/8 inches (45.1 x 60.7 cm)

Held in the collection of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s friend and fellow artist Brett De Palma since 1981, Famous Negro Athletes is a formative drawing that incorporates several of Basquiat’s iconic and resounding visual motifs. The artwork depicts an anonymous athlete surrounded by symbols: church to the left, home to the right, a crown above, and a baseball below. Frantic at first glance, the composition is in fact a delicate formal balance between two city buildings, with each cryptic symbol offsetting the position of another. Whether this is the athlete in the city, or an advertisement of the athlete flyposted on a city wall, the athlete is central to the psyche of the viewer and artist. As Thelma Golden aptly wrote, “Basquiat identified with these athletes, their prowess, and their stardom, which seems so analogous to his own.” In his own words, Basquiat’s description of his artwork’s subject matter could easily be a description of the present work: “royalty, heroism and the streets.”

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (Orange Sports Figure), 1982. © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York.

The phrase “Famous Negro Athletes” is one of Basquiat’s most recognizable. It is a verbal trademark of the artist, comparable in importance and frequency to “Origin of Cotton,” “Tar Town,” and “Flats Fix.” The phrase appears in no less than five works from 1981-82, including a large work with the same title formerly in the collection of Glenn O’Brien, and an important Untitled 1981 suite of fourteen drawings. At face value, the titular phrase is merely descriptive –the figure is an athlete, and a famous one at that – and calls to mind great athletes such as Satchel Page, Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron. Aaron figures prominently in many of Basquiat’s works, and Basquiat’s frequent cryptic use of the letter ‘A’ and the name ‘Aaron’ are generally taken to be references to the famous ball player, who broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, and received frequent death threats during his chase of the record. In the present work, the letter A in the upper right may signify such.

Basquiat’s art is most trenchant when it is socially critical. He often used art to comment on colonialism, racism, and classicism, and a deeper reading of the phrase “Famous Negro Athletes” reveals a similar commentary here – one that relates to Basquiat as a Black artist breaking into the ostensibly white New York art world. Basquiat’s insecurity and frustration at being perceived and written about in the press as a ‘Black’ artist, rather than simply an ‘artist,’ is echoed by the frustrations Black athletes felt during the segregation era of baseball, when Black and white players were made to play in separate leagues. The racist distinction of ‘Negro athletes’ and ‘white athletes’ is analogous to the racist distinction Basquiat must have felt, even at that early point in his career, when distinguished a ‘Black’ painter.

Though the recurring theme of baseball in Basquiat’s art has yet to be fully explored, we know as a child he often attended minor league baseball games with his father in Brooklyn, and later in life he related how much he enjoyed the process of filling out the scorecard in the game’s program. The visual and alphabetical influence of baseball scorecards on Basquiat’s work is apparent in the X’s and O’s, K’s, and arcane lists of numbers that populate his paintings and drawings.

Left: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Brett De Palma, New York, circa 1982. Photographer unknown.
Right: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Brett as Negro, 1982. © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York.

The present work is also symbolic of the creative exchange between two important Lower East Side artists – Basquiat and Brett De Palma. Recalling his first meeting with Basquiat, De Palma recounted, “Diego [Cortez] introduced me to Jean-Michel at the opening of New York/New Wave, which I was in… Both Keith [Haring] and Jean gifted so many of us with their work. Keith painted a crib for our son when he was born and Jean left me a portrait [Brett as a Negro, 1982] that he did in Annina Nosei’s basement. I was working at a gallery in Soho when Jean first got his studio there and I would go over and hang out with him, and later at Crosby Street, but everybody came to that basement” (De Palma quoted in D. Buchhart, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Art and Objecthood, Berlin, 2022, p. 119). Both artists had solo exhibitions in 1982 with Emilio Mazzoli Gallery in Modena, Italy, and they exchanged a number of works with each other in the early 1980s, including the present lot. De Palma, In recalling when Basquiat drew the present work, remembered how the artist was drawn to the brown paper De Palma had available in his home, and how the roman numerals in the lower right came close to representing the date of execution. De Palma has owned this work since the day it was created, and he exhibited the piece at the 2018 exhibition, Zeitgeist: The Art Scene of Teenage Basquiat, curated by Sara Driver, Carlo McCormick, Mary-Ann Monforton and Howl! Happening, at the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College.

Untitled, 1984

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 15,000,000 – 20,000,000
USD 19,367,500
AUCTION RECORD FOR THE COLLABORATION

Untitled | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ANDY WARHOL and JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1928 – 1987 and 1960 – 1988)
Untitled, 1984
Acrylic, oilstick and graphite on canvas
116 x 165 1/4 inches (294.6 x 419.7 cm)

 

A supreme superimposition whereby the detached consumer symbols of Pop meet a streetwise sensibility, Untitled from 1984 resounds with the epic collision and collaboration between two of the most legendary forces of twentieth-century art history: Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. First facilitated by Zurich-based dealer Bruno Bischofberger, this iconic collaboration united two artists from different generations and backgrounds at the zenith of the downtown New York art scene in 1982: Warhol, the revolutionary progenitor of Pop Art working out of The Factory, and Basquiat, the newly rising enfant terrible recognized for his street art in the downtown crucible of New York. Extending the Surrealist methodology of “exquisite corpse” in which various artists collectively assemble a composition by individually adding illustrations in sequence, each artist accumulated image atop image in their signature medium – acrylic for Warhol, oilstick for Basquiat – to result in celebrated corpus of Collaboration paintings, of which the present work is among the fullest and most accomplished.

Untitled is distinguished by its remarkable marriage of Basquiat’s trademark skull-like heads with Warhol’s iconographic commercial symbols, resulting in a composition of brilliant reds, greens, and blues that is made still more remarkable by its monumental scale. Since its initial debut at the seminal exhibition of the Collaborations series at Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York in 1985, Untitled has also been exhibited at Basquiat x Warhol: Painting Four Hands at Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris in 2023 as well as BASQUIAT X WARHOL at The Brant Foundation, New York in 2023-2024, two recent and critically acclaimed exhibitions dedicated to the artists’ relationship. Borne from the creative spontaneity that electrified this partnership, the explosive yet harmonious kaleidoscope of quotidian symbols, gestural scrawlings, and talismanic heads in Untitled exhibits a riveting visual and semantic exchange between two of art history’s most inventive minds.

When the two were first introduced to one another in 1982 by Bruno Bischofberger, Basquiat was a young street artist who had only just emerged to mainstream legitimacy while Warhol had reigned the New York avant garde for two decades. “Down to meet Bruno Bischofberger (cab $7.50). He brought Jean-Michel Basquiat with him,” documents Warhol in one diary entry from October 1982 about their initial meeting. “He’s the kid who used the name ‘Samo’ when he used to sit on the sidewalk in Greenwich Village and paint T-shirts…he was just one of those kids who drove me crazy…And so had lunch for them and then I took a Polaroid and he went home and within two hours a painting was back, still wet, of him and me together.” (Andy Warhol quoted in: Pat Hackett, ed., The Andy Warhol Diaries, New York 1989, p. 462) Schooled by the gritty aesthetics of his native-New York streets rather than the academy, Basquiat offered a fresh and contrarian perspective that reinvigorated Warhol, even inspiring him to once again use the paintbrush, while the well-established Warhol plugged Basquiat into a vast network that cemented his critical ascendancy. As fellow Pop artist Ronnie Cutrone recalled, “Their relationship was symbiotic. Jean-Michel thought he needed Andy’s fame, and Andy thought he needed Jean-Michel’s new blood. Jean-Michel gave Andy a rebellious image again.” (Ronnie Cutrone cited in: Victor Bockris, Warhol: The Biography, Cambridge 2003, pp. 461-62)

Each already prodigious and radically inventive, Basquiat and Warhol’s distinctive artistic styles rivaled each in many ways, as evinced by the dizzying medley of image and color seen in Untitled. Here, the ready-made iconography of Warhol’s screen printing process finds an immediate intervention in the striking, urban attack of Basquiat’s gestural brushwork. Warhol first laid down his images in Untitled by crisply emblazoning graphic imagery – baseball mitts, tennis rackets, sneakers, numbers, and the bright red Zenith electronics logo – to which Basquiat responded by filling in other parts of the canvas with impulsive bravado. Basquiat’s painterly swathes of blue and ivory, freehand childlike scrawls, and skeletal heads dominate the negative space around Warhol’s interspersed images, only to be quickly overlaid again by new barrages of Warhollian illustrations. Warhol’s “½” looms large on the canvas, iterated three times in three different sizes. Reading this fraction as a literal expression of a division between Warhol and Basquiat here would be misleading, however, because the painting is nothing if not shared. Describing their wholly synergetic back-and-forth, Basquiat once recalled, “[Warhol] would put something very concrete or recognizable, like a newspaper headline or a product logo, and then I would try and deface it, and then I would try and get him to work some more on it.” (Jean-Michel Basquiat cited in: Exh. Cat., Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Basquiat, 2010, p. 47)

LEFT: ANDY WARHOL, SELF-PORTRAIT, 1986. IMAGE © TATE, LONDON / ART RESOURCE, NY. ART © 2024 ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. RIGHT: JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT, FLEXIBLE, 1984. PRIVATE COLLECTION. IMAGE © PHILLIPS. ART © 2024 ESTATE OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT. LICENSED BY ARTESTAR, NEW YORK

Both artists, though so strikingly different, shared a critical disposition as outsiders within the art world – Warhol was a wounded celebrity who preferred to affect the pose of an enigmatic voyeur, and Basquiat was a young African-American prodigy with a growing reputation, but no formal art training. Both artists also looked to popular culture for imagery – Warhol to advertising, newspapers and Hollywood stars; Basquiat to jazz musicians and professional athletes. The dialogue shared between the two artists powerfully manifests across the sweeping surface of Untitled, which embeds fragments of the daring zeitgeist of 1980s America that they respectively defined: the cult of athletic celebrity, the allure of consumer culture, the specter of urban decay. Basquiat’s signature totemic figures, rendered with primal energy and gestural immediacy, confront the viewer with their unvarnished presence, while Warhol’s graphic imagery recalls his earlier portraiture cycle of famed athletes and serves as a prism through which to interrogate the nature of commercial and sports iconography. Ultimately, this remarkable cacophony of image and color in Untitled encapsulates the accelerated energy and cultural milieu of the city that both artists called home, while the monumental, mural-like scale of the canvas testifies to their larger-than-life personas within it.

Pulsating with creative furor, overflowing with wild imagination, Untitled blurs the boundaries between commercial art and street art to perfectly synthesize Warhol’s and Basquiat’s respective artistic legacies. Speaking to the superlative caliber of the present work, curator Dieter Buchhart writes, “Basquiat and Warhol attained the highest complexity and synthesis of their two positions in works such as China Paramount, Untitled, and 6.99. In Untitled, Warhol created a network of athletic goods, including a catcher’s glove and a tennis racket, and loafers. A dialogue in contradictions, this develops into a web of symbols, numbers, signs, objects, heads and surfaces in light blue and ivory, like one of Basquiat’s spaces of knowledge in which the artist combines everything that surrounds him and what he gathers around him.” (Dieter Buchhart, “Basquiat x Warhol: A Dialogue in Contradictions,” in: Exh. Cat., Paris, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Basquiat x Warhol: Painting Four Hands, 2023, p. 24) Such synergy between two divergent visual languages upon a singular canvas testifies to the profoundly symbiotic relationship that the two artists shared. “Each one inspired the other to out-do the next,” Keith Haring observed during one of his visits to the studios of Warhol and Basquiat. “The collaborations were seemingly effortless. It was a physical conversation happening in paint instead of words. The sense of humor, the snide remarks, the profound realizations, the simple chit-chat all happened with paint and brushes.” (Keith Haring, “Painting the Third Mind,” in Exh. Cat., Paris, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Basquiat x Warhol: Painting Four Hands, 2023, pp. 110-111)

 

2. Keith Haring

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Untitled, 1986

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
USD 4,470,000

Untitled | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

REPEAT SALE

Sotheby’s New-York: 12 May 2021
Estimated: USD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
USD 5,779,200

Untitled | Contemporary Art Evening Auction | 2021 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

KEITH HARING (1958 – 1990)
Untitled, 1986
Acrylic on canvas
60×60 inches (152.4 x 152.4 cm)
Signed and dated JAN. 22 1986 (on the overlap)

Captivating in its impactful scale and black-white-red chromatic simplicity, Untitled from 1986 is a vivacious testament to Keith Haring’s distinct pop vernacular and his career-long interest in political activism. Sprawling across the canvas, Haring depicts a stunning array of figures in a moment of spectacular activity, encased within a stark red border, rendered in the bold, stark palette for which he is best known. Untitled is a seminal example of the artist’s distinct visual language and his determination to celebrate music, dance, and an interconnected human spirit through his art despite the overwhelming sociopolitical challenges of the 1980s. In its astonishingly assured compositional structure and maze-like complex arrangement of figures, Untitled embodies Haring’s highly acclaimed oeuvre, capturing the vivacious energy that characterized the New York cultural scene.

Like his contemporaries, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, Keith Haring was driven by a deep-rooted personal desire to serve as a narrator of the modern age. Arriving in New York City in 1978, Haring was immediately drawn to the urban music and graffiti scene. Music and the urban culture surrounding it proved to be a major source of inspiration for the artist early on: “All kinds of new things were starting. In music, it was the punk and New Wave scenes… And there was the club scene – the Mudd Club and Club 57, at St. Mark’s Place, in the basement of a Polish church, which became our hangout, a clubhouse, where we could do whatever we wanted.” (the artist quoted in: David Sheff, Rolling Stone, August 1989, n.p.) The extraordinary sensation of rhythm that pervades Untitled, and other works from this year, can be connected to the artist’s deep understanding and love of the alternative and highly original music scene of the New York scene at the time. Untitled demonstrates the ways in which Haring’s work developed in expressive scope from the first half of the 1980s, indicating a new aesthetic maturity and creative profundity that signify the work of an artist at the height of his powers.

THE CLOSING PARTY OF PARADISE GARAGE, 1987. PHOTO © TINA PAUL. ART © 2024 THE KEITH HARING FOUNDATION

Haring’s deceptively simple outlined figures represent an incisive cultural commentary on the issues facing the United States in the mid-1980s, including AIDS, drug addiction, racism, and economic inequality. Through his bold lines and contoured forms, which are simultaneously self-contained and balanced against each other, Haring offers a new meaning to figurative painting, one that would become a defining icon of the generation. Even in the face of AIDS, a disease to which Haring himself succumbed in 1990, the present work retains the artist’s distinct positive energy; rather than devolving into injury, misery, or anxiety, Untitled illustrates Haring’s unique appreciation of human relationships and intense, receptive embrace of all walks of life. Untitled epitomizes Haring’s inimitable aptitude for conveying pulsating movement through forms distilled to their most basic, essential components. Haring’s confident hand draws bold, self-assured strokes, eschewing a pre-meditated schematic plan for spontaneous genius. The bold chromatic choice of color and the figures’ nearly grid-like formation are at once lyrical and balanced, conveying a potent energy that enlivens the picture with strong emotive power. For Haring, dance was a symbol of life and coexistence.

Untitled, 1982

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 2,046,500

Keith Haring (1958-1990), Untitled | Christie’s (christies.com)

KEITH HARING (1958-1990)
Untitled, 1982
Sumi ink on paper
72 x 115 1/2 inches (182.9 x 293.4 cm)

Untitled brings us Keith Haring at the absolute pinnacle of his creative prowess. Painted in 1982, the artist’s annus mirabilis, this is a monumental self-portrait teeming with the artistic attributes that bought Haring both critical and commercial revere. Humorous in nature and executed with exquisite draftsmanship, we see the artist’s ability to synthesize historical inspiration while seemingly predicting the future of cultural discourse. Held in a single private collection since it was acquired from the artist’s estate, this is an exceedingly rare opportunity to acquire a work so central to the artist’s oeuvre. Sumi ink works on paper are held in the permanent collections of The Met, the Museum of Modern Art, Buffalo AKG, and the Brooklyn Museum, among many others.

Coming to renown in the early 1980s by swiftly executing satirical drawings on blank poster sites in New York City’s subway system, Haring’s constant battle to evade law enforcement is the subject matter for the present work. In an almost uniquely autobiographical narrative, we see the artist himself ecstatically running away from a recently completed subway drawing, most likely from an ‘off-scene’ cop. Within the inset painting, we see the artist’s full visual lexicon. The central ‘X’ man is a common indicator of self-portraiture. Serpentine squiggly lines hark to Haring’s studies of Aboriginal and native art as well as Egyptian hieroglyphics. Dogs had first appeared in Haring’s subway drawings; he brilliantly subverted their historical associations with obedience into an emblem of rebellion with their fierce, annotated barks. The inclusion of two in the present work is perhaps an additional slight to the incoming police. Finally, crowing the scene, is exactly what this unwelcome enforcement is trying to abolish – flying and dancing figures showcase the euphoria of New York’s gay scene of the late 70s and early 80s.

Away from the painting-within-a-painting, we are then enthralled to see the artist himself triumphantly fleeing. With his hands over his eyes—a recurring theme in Haring’s depictions of himself—he escapes the scene excitedly. Animated lines around his face and limbs allude to his joyful, swift exit. Intentional drip marks emphasize the still-drying masterpiece in which he successfully left his mark on the city for all to see. In fact, our escaping protagonist is seemingly leaping out of the entire picture plane. Looking back to his past with reverie, this poignant composition is Haring’s remembrance of a liberated youth. It causes us to question how we reflect upon our own origins and our creative pursuits. Having recently debuted at Tony Shafrazi Gallery with resounding admiration, Haring’s star was quickly rising. Following his creative beginnings executing artworks swiftly in public, drawing was always Haring’s primary intention. Works such as Untitled were not created in precedent to a canvas. Rather, large-scale works on paper, as with the subway drawings, were executed with considerable performative power and in conceptual recognition of his humble beginnings. They presented a considerable challenge, both physically and conceptually. One can follow the exceptional command of line for which Haring became so admired; like a late Picasso drawing, his brush seems to hardly lift off the page, even on this monumental sheet.

Keith Haring, Untitled, 1982. Museum of Modern Art, New York. © The Keith Haring Foundation. Photo: © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY.

Paper was also important to Haring as it maintained sincerity with his earlier practice. In the wake of his success, he came under pressure from gallerists to conform to more commercially viable mediums. Sticking with paper allowed him to remain resolute with street art – much the same reason he often opted for vinyl tarp and metal panels rather than linen canvases.  In addition to his phenomenal technical prowess, Haring was a also master of subject and humor. This is what allowed his works to so eloquently synthesize the past, while remaining relevant far into the future. Untitled is first and foremost a monument to Contemporary Street art, however, through its intentional flatness of plane and satirical tone, we see much conceptual common ground with Pop. Haring’s abilities were in fact greatly appreciated by his forebears, including the master, Roy Lichtenstein. Moving to the future, the humor present in such a work, particularly within its graphic content, is what cemented Haring’s ongoing cultural relevance. Keith’s picture-word system has acted as predecessor to today’s pictographic and emoji-driven lexicon. Smiley faces, hands over eyes, dogs, hearts, globes and other ideograms ring surprisingly familiar to the miniature graphics that we send on our smartphones today. After all, the desire for a universal system of communication is something that our digital age, Keith Haring’s ideograms, and ancient hieroglyphics all have in common. By making reference to historical communication and influencing the next generation’s, Haring has taken us full circle.

3. George Condo

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#1. Conversations, 2012

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,500,000 – 3,500,000
USD 3,145,500

Conversations | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GEORGE CONDO (b. 1957)
Conversations, 2012
Acrylic, charcoal and pastel on canvas
70×90 inches (177.8 x 228.6 cm)
Signed and dated 2012 (upper left)

A sublime synthesis of art historical tropes and contemporary aesthetics, Conversations epitomizes the exceptional virtuosity, psychic intensity and fragmented perspectives that distinguish George Condo’s remarkable oeuvre. Executed in 2012, the present work was produced shortly following George Condo’s major mid-career retrospective George Condo: Mental States at the New Museum, New York; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Hayward Gallery, London; and Schirn Kunsthalle. The formal constituents of this exceptional canvas—its confidently contoured figures, vibrant palette, and richly textured surface—reveal a brilliant fusion of many of the artists’ most significant motifs. Anchored by a central figure reminiscent of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, the confluence of idiosyncratic figures in the present work is emblematic of Condo’s signature mode of ‘psychological cubism,” in which he ruptures the picture plane to reveal the complexities and multifaceted nature of human emotion. Incorporating Abstract Expressionist action painting, the formality of Old Master portraiture and the wry humor of pop art, Condo’s Conversations employs ostensibly contradictory elements of canonical art history to both challenge and collapse traditional conceptions of genre.

LEFT: PABLO PICASSO, LES DEMOISELLES D’AVIGNON, 1907. IMAGE © THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART/LICENSED BY SCALA / ART RESOURCE, NY. ART © 2024 ESTATE OF PABLO PICASSO / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. RIGHT: WILLEM DE KOONING, WOMAN VI, 1953. IMAGE © CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART, PITTSBURGH, PA / ART RESOURCE, NY. ART © 2024 THE WILLEM DE KOONING FOUNDATION / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK

A striking coalescence of color and form, Conversations evocatively recalls Pablo Picasso’s masterful Cubist facture; yet, where Picasso radically shattered the picture plane to explore multiple viewpoints in the same moment, Condo here ruptures his compositions to explore the complexities of the psyche. Embodying the artist’s career-long interrogation of representations of the figure throughout art history, George Condo’s Conversations examines the aesthetic legacies of Cubism within his surreal figures, both appropriatings and recontextualizings the traditions of portraiture. Following a nine-month stint as the diamond duster in Andy Warhol’s Factory, Condo emerged onto the 1980s New York art scene alongside seminal figures like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Like his peers, Condo was critically engaged throughout the eighties in bringing to life a new form of figurative painting that stylistically blended the representational and the abstract. Condo coined the terms ‘artificial realism’ and ‘psychological Cubism’ to define his lexicon of amusing caricatures, profound and intimate portraits, and grotesque abstractions. In Conversations, Condo inverts and inserts art historical tropes, paying homage to Pablo Picasso’s protagonist, Matisse’s fluid and organic figures, Lichtenstein’s archetypal blonde heroines, among others in a playful and absurd new context that simultaneously revives, and humorously undermines, the integrity of portraiture.

Dominated by rose-colored hues punctuated by bright blue, red, pinks and yellows, Condo’s lines and color fields teeter on the periphery of representation and abstraction; as Condo describes, “There was a time when I realized that the central focal point of portraiture did not have to be representational in any way.” (the artist quoted in: Anney Bonney, “George Condo,” BOMB Magazine, Summer 1992) Like Matisse’s figures, rendered in simplified shapes and liberated contours, Condo’s characters break free from strict representational conventions, continuing a Modernist experimentation with the human form that Matisse set forth. Here, Condo’s figures—each set in conversation, each positioned in a different perspective and each boldly contoured—collapse the traditional delineations between not only painting and drawing, but also the beautiful and the grotesque, the comic and tragic. As Holland Cotter noted in his review of George Condo: Mental States at the New Museum in 2011: “Mr. Condo is not a producer of single precious items consistent in style and long in the making… He’s an artist of variety, plentitude and multiformity. He needs to be seen in an environment that presents him not as a virtuoso soloist but as the master of the massed chorale.” (Holland Carter, “A Mind Where Picasso Meets Looney Tunes,” The New York Times, 27 January 2011 (online)). Conversations, from 2012, is a quintessential embodiment of the fantastical, pictorial landscapes rife with hedonistic entropy that typify Condo’s genius. Within the fractured realm of the canvas, abstraction and figuration collide with a ferocious velocity; while clearly discernible, the silhouette of each figure evades clear delineation, as Condo deftly manipulates our ability to interpret the tableau before us, toying with the boundaries of non-representational and figurative paintings. Painted with broad, gestural brushstrokes that convey the fleeting and fluid nature of conversation, the present work is encapsulates Condo’s inimitable ability to reflect and synthesize the human experience.

#2. Focusing on Space, 2016

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,270,000

George Condo – Modern & Contemporary Art… Lot 15 May 2024 | Phillips

As is evident in Focusing on Space, Condo assiduously borrowed from a range of 20^th century artistic sources, the rapid exchanges energizing Abstract Expressionist canvases and Cubism’s sharp dissections, spatial logic, and emphasis on simultaneity allowing him to articulate multiple emotional and psychological states concurrently. Questions of space had preoccupied Cubists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, at once reducing distinctions between figure and ground, and exploring innovative new methods of presenting multiple viewpoints simultaneously; a technique that for Picasso would find new emotional intensity in his monumental Guernica and related Weeping Woman series. Similarly, in its compositional verve and complex internal rhythms, Focusing on Space recalls the muscular mark-making of Abstract Expressionists such as Willem de Kooning, notably in works such as Pink Angels, where charcoal and paint work together to create a frenetic network of lines and interpenetrating forms. As our eye travels across the expanse of the canvas here, compositional stability seems to break down and reinforce itself by turns as the arched, loosened ribbons of paint are met and countered with corpulent, jagged brushstrokes, all threatening to expand well beyond the picture’s surface.

Music, like sensation, informs Condo’s practice, discernable here in the paintings syncopated rhythms and counterpointed motifs. At the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, alongside art history, Condo majored in music theory, studying the classical guitar and then the lute. His subsequent participation in the punk band called “The Girls” led Condo to meet fellow artist-musician Jean Michel-Basquiat during the band’s performance in Tribeca, New York—a friendship that would persuade Condo to move to the city and pursue art full time at twenty-three years old. A rhythm, or rather, improvision remains central to Condo’s mark-making, staccato impastos fearlessly liberated across the surface. In Focusing on Space, Condo weaves an intricate arrangement of line and texture, where oil and pigment stick blur indistinguishably—much like the faces and bodies of his characters—melding into a raw, graffiti-like scrawl and sinuous graphic simplicity that knits the foreground and background into cohesive alignment.

#3. Female Portrait, 2008

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,200,000 – 1,800,000
USD 1,206,500

Female Portrait | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GEORGE CONDO (b. 1957)
Female Portrait, 2008
Oil on canvas
72×60 inches (183 x 152.4 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 08 (on the reverse)

Searing with psychological depth, George Condo’s Female Portrait Composition from 2008, represents the paradigm of the artist’s radical approach to contemporary portraiture that unpacks the complexity of subject-hood. Overwhelming with an immediacy of pathos, eccentricity and satire, Female Portrait Composition evinces Condo’s innovatory aesthetic mode of painting, that harnesses the traditions of European portraiture to employ an ingenious articulation of Contemporary figuration, infused with a Surrealist and Pop twist. Striking and dazzling, the female figure gazes are the viewer with an astounding intensity, her single cerulean blue eye quietly reflecting the light across the surface of the immense canvas. In the present work, the cyclopean stare acts as centrifugal force that is framed by a dizzying lock of sculpted hair, zany button nose, rosy cheek and cocked eyebrow, to convey a spry and daring demeanor of the subject. The facial vocabulary in Female Portrait Composition is elevated further with the comedic elongation of the neck, megawatt smile, the cupids bow punctuated with garish red lipstick and goofy, deciduous teeth that offset the angularity of the oversized jaw. The outrageously impossible anatomical proportions in Female Portrait Composition serve as direct counterpoints to the technical mastery of the painted surface.

PABLO PICASSO, DORA MAAR IN AN ARMCHAIR, 1939. © 2024 ESTATE OF PABLO PICASSO / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK.

Condo’s intricate brushwork captures the dignified and majestic posturing of the female subject in Female Portrait Composition. This period of production in Condo’s practice is distinguished by his employment of the concept of artificial realism: the strategy of taking a real subject and making it artificial. The sharp triangulation of the torso creates extraordinary dimension and structure to this profoundly analytical Cubist composition, that discreetly engages with the tension between the painted surface and the psychological depth of portraiture. Overtly saturated, the bubblegum pink of the figure is sliced by the searing yellow, royal purple and dazzling black that comprises the stark chest of the female figure, the multi-triangulation of her figure creates a complex and spellbinding impact for the viewer. This extraordinary compositional architecture is further echoed by the black triangle situated above the shoulder, which creates balance between the absurdity of the length of the neck and the truncation of the arm.

GEORGES BRAQUE, WOMAN SEATED AT AN EASEL, 1936. © 2024 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK.

Female Portrait Composition successfully engages the visual language of Cubism and propels it further via the vehicle of artificial realism. The Cubist notion of reducing the image to a limited number of geometric shapes was the very genesis of the Cubist quest for compositional simplification and dynamism. For Condo, the present work is the very prism of his fragmented reconstructions, typical of only his most superlative paintings from the mid-2000s, in which the very nature of the identity of the subject is a construction only he can contort, obfuscate and translate into an energizing reimagination of contemporary figuration. The refinement and technical skill deployed in Female Portrait Composition is not only demonstrated by the hilarious anatomical improbability of the singular eye, offset nose, lips and triangulated torso, but is equally seen in the splendid cross-hatching of the rich charcoal and midnight blue, which creates an almost atmospheric quality that pays homage to the influence on Baroque and modern masters in Condo’s groundbreaking practice.

Beyond standing as a superlative example of the very mechanics of Condo’s language of painting, Female Portrait Composition is fresh to the market, having remained in the same private collection for nearly a decade and having previously been owned by the esteemed collectors, Steven and Ann Ames. The selection of Female Portrait Composition by the Ames family further demonstrates the undeniable quality of the present work as a standout example from one of Condo’s most celebrated periods of production.

 

Shimmering Forms, 2010

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,260,000

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957), Shimmering Forms | Christie’s (christies.com)

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957)
Shimmering Forms, 2010
Acrylic, pastel and graphite on canvas
70×70 inches (177.8 x 177.8 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Condo 2010’ (upper left)

It has been suggested that to view even one of George Condo’s momentous paintings is to consider an entire world, defined by its range of subjects, styles and art historical influences. The prolific artist arrived in New York in 1980, upon which he was quickly embraced by the downtown art scene. Working closely with the likes of Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, the artist forged his own unique style, deploying the time-honored techniques of the old masters to bring his uncanny visions to life. Over the course of his decades-long career, Condo has amassed an enormous repertoire of art historical references, which he synthesizes through his own pictorial language. His works seem to float above time, lacking any individual features that tether them to specific moments in history. Instead, what remains is a picture of eerie familiarity and psychological closeness. In Shimmering Forms, 2010, Condo shuffles the deck of art history, fusing abstraction and figuration, the tangible and the imagined, the beautiful and the grotesque. The crowded composition presents the viewer with Condo’s most storied and desirable motifs, showcasing the power of Condo’s singular visual lexicon alongside his masterful draftsmanship and energetic painterly sensibilities. Forged from the wealth of art history, George Condo’s Shimmering Forms captures the artist’s ability to blend different styles and mediums, establishing his own pictorial language while traversing the waters of the human psyche.

George Condo, New York, 2011. Photo: Mike McGregor / Contour by Getty Images.  Artwork: © 2024 George Condo / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Part of the artist’s “Drawing Paintings” series, the blend of various media and styles at play in Shimmering Forms bloom into an expressionistic and surrealist landscape. Drawing from elements of cubism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism, the work is significant not for its focus on any one element, but rather the narrative that emerges from the confluence of these many different styles. The delineated forms, melded together with a symphonic clash, pay homage to the competing visual rhythms of cubism, while Condo’s gestural lines give way to fragmented, sliding planes, echoing the distinctive energy and organization of abstract expressionism. The alluring, sinuous female figures recall the powerful and sensuous women of Ruben’s baroque masterpieces. The flattened plane is reminiscent of Cezanne’s radical perspective, as the figures seem to float in space, tethered by only their relation to one another. However, Condo’s approach to his practice is not one of emulation or appropriation; instead, he maintains that great art is characterized by its ability to repurpose and reinvent existing styles. Though at first glance viewers recognize the familiar canonical motifs such as the reclining nude and the decisive lines which define the canvas’s architecture, the rich deposits of Condo’s fabricated characters imbue the work with modern eclecticism. The soft, languid composition of Condo’s nude women are contrasted with the frenetic energy of his cartoonish characters. Furthermore, the juxtaposition of representational forms mirror the very act of Condo’s artistic process. In producing the “Drawing Painting” series, Condo desired to assert the equality of drawing and painting, combating the traditionally-held view of painting as a superior medium. Known for innovatively blending the most established art historical motifs with cartoon-like figures, the work collapses centuries of art’s most defining symbols and debates into one canvas.

The monumental cloud-blue canvas is peppered with stark, black outlines, depicting the most iconic symbols of Condo’s oeuvre. Condo asserts that caricatures and cartoons, specifically those inspired by everyday citizens, are an indispensable part of his practice.

“The cartoon is a very bizarre weapon against the sort of intellectual concept of what our supposedly high-art culture is all about… I think the interest is that it’s a sort of entry into a certain kind of serious component of the human psyche.” 

Shimmering Forms is rich with several of Condo’s celebrated characters. Rodrigo, who Condo has described as a “kind of lowlife” and is recognizable by his elongated neck, bulbous nose and neck tie, is depicted several times throughout the canvas. The Cocktail Drinker’s wife, shown in fishnet tights and holding a cocktail glass, is reproduced in the far right corner. Indeed, the canvas is filled with Condo’s signature characters and recurring motifs, such as ballooning cheeks and enlarged eyes, reminiscent of the artist’s highly celebrated portraits. The soft, Grecian female forms populating the lower register are juxtaposed with the tightly arranged, grotesque and cartoonish portraits of the upper register. Instead of radicalizing any one style or motif, the collaging of a diverse range of symbols and characters suggests the traces of an other-worldly narrative.

Willem de Kooning, Excavation, 1950. Art Institute of Chicago. © 2024 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Blurring the line between abstraction and figuration, the meandering and vivacious canvas offers a view into Condo’s unfiltered psyche. The composition is dynamic, undulating between areas of meticulously detailed sketching and uninterrupted pools of white and blue. The artist has described the process of producing abstract art as automatic, saying that his abstract works are “detailed descriptions of undefinable thoughts.” As opposed to his portraits, which offer intensive studies into the artist’s fabricated characters, paintings such as Shimmering Forms display the relationship of his thoughts and characters to one another. Presented as a culmination of Condo’s life-long fascinations, the painting’s rich amalgamation of imagined characters and quasi-figurative forms converge into a chaotic, cubist landscape, offering a coup d’œil into the artist’s fantastical universe.

The Young Sailor, 2012

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 882,000

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957), The Young Sailor | Christie’s (christies.com)

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957)
The Young Sailor, 2012
Oil on canvas
40 1/4 x 32 1/4 inches (102.2 x 81.9 cm)
Incised with the artist’s signature and date ‘Condo 2012’ (upper left)

Pablo Picasso, Le Marin, 1943. © 2024 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Rodrigo and His Mistress, 2007

Phillips New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 660,400

George Condo – Modern & Contemporary Art… Lot 26 May 2024 | Phillips

William Holman Hunt, The Awakening Conscience, 1853. Tate Gallery, London

On his strategy of ‘Psychological Cubism,’ Condo explains: “Picasso painted a violin from four different perspectives at one moment. I do the same with psychological states. Four of them can occur simultaneously. Like glimpsing a bus with one passenger howling over a joke they’re hearing down the phone, someone else asleep, someone else crying – I’ll put them all in one face.” In this way, the grinning couple is both seemingly inviting us to watch their indecency and seething that they’ve been caught. The blend of seduction and repulsion is like watching a train wreck from which we can’t look away. Knowing that the extramarital exploit can’t end well for Rodrigo, we view them with wry amusement.

Antipodal Dream, 1996

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 596,900

Antipodal Dream | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

GEORGE CONDO (b. 1957)
Antipodal Dream, 1996
Oil on canvas
72×60 inches (183 x 152.4 cm)
Signed and dated 1996 (on the reverse)

Powerful in its ambient ethereality, George Condo’s Antipodal Dream is a definitive example of the artist’s stylistic construct of artificial realism, through which he has expanded the traditional realm of figurative painting to portray the often-humorous idiosyncrasies of contemporary life. As part of Condo’s experimental series known as “Antipodal portraits,” the present work is an outstanding example of the synthesis of Condo’s unique visual language and the art historical concerns that fascinated him throughout his career. Known for his unique and sometimes humorous repurposing of classical subjects, Condo draws from influences as varied as the Old Masters and Picasso’s Cubist language to construct worlds and characters that toe the line between fantasy and reality. His “antipodal portraits” exist in this liminal space, presenting psychologically complex figures on the “outskirts of society” in indeterminate settings with absurdly juxtaposed features. They often include recurring symbols, such as bubbles, wine glasses, and cigarettes. In an interview with the Hong Kong art magazine Ran Dian, Condo describes these antipodal figures as “humanoid” that “live independent of our existence… and they don’t necessarily want you to know that they’re in there. They are living in the periphery to a certain degree.. and they are… putting your molecules in place and you, as an artist, are able to tap into that depth of your psyche and see these characters.” Condo compares his search for these “antipodal beings” as similar to Da Vinci’s intensive study of anatomy, which ultimately allowed him to better understand the external world and develop his remarkable naturalism.

PORTRAIT OF A GIRL IN A BLUE DRESS WITH A PARROT IN A PALATIAL GARDEN, WILLEM VERELST (ACTIVE C. 1734-C. 1752, PERA MUSEUM, ISTANBUL.

Antipodal Dream is a portrait of a standing figure in formal clothes from a bygone era, whose unique form borders between the human and the animalistic. In contrast to the figure’s stark presence, an ominous cloud looms in the upper left corner painted with gentle gestural brushstrokes, evoking a dreamscape and further unsettling the composition as perspective and depth are warped. The figure us positioned against a sea of gray-blue and black, demonstrating Condo’s mastery of the eighteenth-century Baroque depictions of portraiture as well over the pictorial plane. Condo embodies the dichotomy between past and present by frequently incorporating stylistic influences and formal qualities used by Old Master painters into his own work.

“That’s a sleepwalker I was thinking of. Somebody that was walking in their sleep so they’ve got dressed up and walked out of their dream. That’s framed, in a strange way, like a classical portrait of this imaginary figure.”

JAMES ENSOR, SQUELETTE ARRÊTANT MASQUES, 1991. SOLD AT SOTHEBY’S PARIS, 2016 FOR $8.1 MILLION. ART © 2023 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK / SABAM, BRUSSELS

While the work’s subject matter probes the boundaries of reality, Condo approaches the work with a naturalism inspired by the Dutch Old Masters. Condo describes the framing of light in this portrait as inspired by Rembrandt and Frans Hals, who developed a technique in which the background of the figure corresponds uniquely to the lighting of its face, with the dark background echoed on the opposite side of the face. This creates, according to Condo, a “constellation of human psychology,” one of the artist’s primary fascinations. In the present work, the dark, swirling brushstrokes of the background suggest a storm cloud emanating from the figure, while the green clown nose and stretched necklace convey a satirical, humorous quality to her attire and presence. The figure’s features are instantly recognizable as Condo’s exceptional visual language, with its large ears, bulbous cheeks, and mismatched eyes (COMP). The figure’s hairy arms, green nose, and wide neck contrasts with her formal dress and delicate pearls, uniting the grotesque and the beautiful to confront the viewer with the unresolveable contradictions of the human psyche. Building upon years of refining and maturing an iconic figurative style, Condo’s Antipodal Dream is a work of dramatic intensity, at once utterly uninhibited and full of instinctive acumen.

The Apparition, 2009

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 504,000

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957), The Apparition | Christie’s (christies.com)

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957)
The Apparition, 2009
Oil on canvas
40×36 inches (101.6 x 91.4 cm)

The Maitre D, 2007

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 252,000

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957), The Maitre D | Christie’s (christies.com)

GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957)
The Maitre D, 2007
Oil on canvas
24×18 inches (61 x 45.7 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Condo 07’ (on the reverse)

4. Cecily Brown

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Functor Hideaway, 2008

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,500,000 – 3,500,000
USD 3,569,000

Functor Hideaway | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

CECILY BROWN (b. 1969)
Functor Hideaway, 2008
Oil on canvas
77×55 inches (195.6 x 139.7 cm)
Signed and dated 2008 (on the reverse)

Abounding with vitality and striking color, Functor Hideaway from 2008 exhibits Cecily Brown’s revered synthesis of gestural abstraction and immanent figuration. In the present composition, Cecily Brown prioritizes ambiguity over narrative as bold thrashes of color manipulate seemingly anthropomorphic forms into a subliminal image, challenging the viewer to derive meaning from its frenzied yet meticulously constructed network of painterly swathes. Upon relocating to New York from London, Brown established herself amongst a cadre of New York painters revitalizing the figure in avant-garde art and, engaging in a dialogue with art historical antecedents, Brown helped to usher in a new era for figurative painting alongside artists such as John Currin and Lisa Yuskavage. Acquired shortly after it was executed in August 2008, Functor Hideaway has remained in the same private collection ever since.

LEFT: LUCIAN FREUD, STANDING BY THE RAGS, 1988-89. TATE MODERN, LONDON. IMAGE © THE LUCIAN FREUD ARCHIVE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2024 / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES. ART © 2024 LUCIAN FREUD. RIGHT: JOAN MITCHELL, PAINTING, 1956-1957. MUSÉE NATIONAL D’ART MODERNE, CENTRE GEORGES POMPIDOU, PARIS. IMAGE © CNAC/MNAM, DIST. RMN-GRAND PALAIS / ART RESOURCE, NY. ART © ESTATE OF JOAN MITCHELL

Within the present composition, verdant greens, fleshy pinks, and icy blues oscillate between controlled precision and spontaneous freedom. Bolts of crimson galvanize Brown’s fluxing landscape as expressive marks carve and collide across the canvas. Riotous strokes of green rendered in varying hues suggest a forested landscape; coalescing amongst expressive bursts of fleshy paints, splinters of the human form melt into swirls of color. In an almost generative nature, the painting gives birth to new forms through an endless cycle of evolution. Describing her medium, the artist expounded, “It’s sensual, it moves, it catches the light, it’s great for skin and flesh and heft and meat.” (the artist quoted in: Derek Peck, “New York Minute: Cecily Brown,” Another, 14 September 2012) Indeed, the weather in Brown’s arcadia is equal parts cool and dewy like an early morning, and hot and humid like midsummer noon.

Readily discernable in the present work is a deep resonance with a seemingly endless array of art historical references, suggesting Édouard Manet and Paul Cezanne’s luminous rendering of the body and organization of space. Undoubtedly influenced by the brash mark-making of the Abstract Expressionist movement, her visual language and gestural approach to painting are also indebted to the expressive, abstracted qualities of Joan Mitchell or Willem de Kooning. Looking closely, a small, white skull emerges from the lower right quadrant of the painting, a critical vanitas motif in not only the artist’s oeuvre, but also throughout the lineage of Western art history. Functor Hideaway melts the representational into an abstracted frenzy while simultaneously celebrating the nude form. Indeed, rather than objectifying the nude, the artist’s intense and unapologetic gaze celebrates its abstraction. The artist explains, “You’ve got the same old materials—just oils and a canvas—and you’re trying to do something that’s been done for centuries…I have always wanted to make paintings that are impossible to walk past, paintings that grab and hold your attention.” (Cecily Brown quoted in: ‘Cecily Brown: I take things too far when painting’, The Guardian, 20 September 2009, online)

HIERONYMUS BOSCH, THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS, 1490-1500. PRADO, MADRID. IMAGE © BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Recently celebrated with a significant career survey at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid, Cecily Brown is undoubtedly one of the most successful contemporary painters working today. Brown’s inclusion in the following collections, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Whitney Museum, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Broad, Los Angeles, further underscores the artist’s influence and importance. As Functor Hideaway navigates between chaos and control, a frenetic energy emerges yet somehow Brown maintains a sense of harmonious composition within the work. The painting stands as a powerful testament to the artist’s mastery, showcasing her ability to provoke deep contemplation and elicit profound emotions from viewers.

Mesmerizing and immersive, Brown’s choreography of painterly gestures in Functor Hideaway engulfs the viewer into a phantasmagorical realm, akin to a woodland pathway through the frenzied woods. Here, we see Brown break free from traditional narrative conventions as she blends centuries of artistic styles and techniques, putting forth a distinctive artistic voice that has emerged as the natural successor in the lineage of Western art history. With the full gravitas of Brown’s accomplished painterly bravado, Functor Hideaway envelops the viewer in an all-engulfing textural and chromatic world, offering, as its title suggests, a retreat into the sensorial and the imaginative.

Untitled, 2006

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 300,000 – 400,000
USD 571,500

Untitled | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

CECILY BROWN (b. 1969)
Untitled, 2006
Oil on canvas
17 x 12 1/2 inches (43.2 x 31.8 cm)
Signed and dated 05.06 (on the reverse)

Though incredibly abstract, Cecily Brown’s Untitled is a tantalizing example of her immense capacity to combine materiality with imagination. Brown’s distinctive and hypnotic style, a fluid approach that blurs the definition of figuration, shines through in this 2006 piece. The pops of seafoam green at the center set amongst a cacophony of light blue and salmon-pink brushstrokes leave the viewer in a teeming landscape of rich textures and sensory experiences.

“I’m trying to be in a space between abstraction and figuration… The place I’m interested in is where my mind goes when it’s trying to make up for what isn’t there. When something is just suggested.”

A master of color, Brown herself has affirmed her desire to create works that you “[can’t] tear your eyes away from.” (Cecily Brown, in D. Peck, “New York Minute: Cecily Brown,” Another, September 14, 2012). Not only does her work exist as a decadent example of the richness of oil paint, rather, her oeuvre is a perfectly harmonic blend of bold experimentation and rich art historical precedent. While Brown has certainly referenced both Willem de Kooning’s fleshy paintings of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as Lucian Freud’s melting, carnal forms, Brown’s handling of figuration and abstraction in Untitled cleverly pays homage to the radiating and vibrating still life paintings of Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, and Jean Siméon Chardin. By adding her own distinctive mark to art’s love affair with oil paint, Brown forges a line from the past to the present in this powerful work. Swirling and dripping with the past and the present, Untitled is a visceral embodiment of Brown’s capacity to maintain a robust multiplicity of meaning without a single wasted drip of paint.

Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band, 2016

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 6,000,000 – 8,000,000
WITHDRAWN

Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band | The Now Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)
GUARANTEED

CECILY BROWN (b. 1969)
Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band, 2016
Oil on canvas
97 1/8 x 150 3/4 inches (246.7 x 382.9 cm)
Signed and dated 2016 (on the reverse)

Currents of cobalt, cerulean, and lapis blue eddy and whirl across the expansive canvas of Cecily Brown’s Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band, forming a maelstrom of pigment that is emblematic of the artist’s prodigious mastery of painterly abstraction. Executed in 2016, Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band represents Brown’s theatrical rendition of a seascape, recounting an art historically recursive narrative with contemporary resonance. The present work is one in a cycle of five paintings based on 19^th century Romantic landscape painting, namely Eugène Delacroix’s The Shipwreck of Don Juan and Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa, all of which were unveiled in an exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery in 2017. Standing at a panoramic scale, Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band submerges the viewer in its oceanic depths, demanding a durational process of looking that rewards the viewer with an intrinsic quietude that belies Brown’s frenetic brushwork. Recently honored with a major career survey Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Brown’s commitment to wrestling her subjects free from their conventional contexts results in paintings that fluctuate between perceptible and imperceptible form.

Replete with lush impasto and sumptuous chromatic passages, the present work sees Brown’s virtuosic command of paint on full display. Amidst a tidal vortex of rich blues and creamy whites, ribbon-like strokes of green, coral, and eggshell yellow evoke the ripples and refractions of water, while gusts of murkier charcoal frame the composition. The converging momentum and direction of Brown’s brushstrokes bestow Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band with a gravitational centrality. Brown’s loose gestures coalesce into new forms, distorting spatial depth and suggesting fragments of figurative representation in an endless churning of organic matter. “I think that painting is a kind of alchemy,” says Brown, “the paint is transformed into image, and paint and image transform themselves into a third and new thing.” (the artist quoted in: Klaus Kertess, Cecily Brown, New York, 2008, p.16)

LEFT: THÉODORE GÉRICAULT, THE RAFT OF MEDUSA, 1819. LOUVRE, PARIS. IMAGE © BRIDGEMAN IMAGES. RIGHT: FERDINAND VICTOR EUGENE DELACROIX, THE SHIPWRECK OF DON JUAN, 1840. LOUVRE, PARIS. IMAGE © BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Within the present composition, glimpses of flesh toned paint echo the bathing nudes of classical tradition, a subject that is also alluded to in the present work’s title. Built up with layers of sumptuous oil paint, the surface of Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band is replete with all the sensuality of the human figure, which remains at the core of Brown’s iterative process. Echoing Géricault’s rhythmic system of triangles, Brown’s robust gestures obscure and deconstruct a singular reading as bodies and forms break down into restless, sinuous and elusive activity. In an impossible feat of aesthetic sorcery, Brown manages to retain all the overindulgence of the Rococo style, the grandeur of the Old Masters, and the airy lightness of the Impressionists, while opening new pathways to representation. Unabashedly engaging with the medium’s material presence and the ambiguity of present narrative, Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band appeals directly to the senses, eliciting pleasure and awe in equal measure.

In Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band, Cecily Brown presents an allegorical and turbulent vision that synthesizes all the lush and dramatic suspense of her Romantic source material, while melding the representational into an abstracted plane. Freeing subject matter to transcend classical narrative by synthesizing practices from centuries of artistic practice, Brown’s practice emerges as a triumphant summation of Western art history and a unique new voice of aesthetic prowess and wit. In doing so, Brown achieves a novel alchemy within her paintings that distinguishes her as a contemporary master of the painterly medium.

5. Yoshitomo Nara

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Ships in Girl, 1992

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,500,000 – 2,000,000
USD 1,512,000

Ships in Girl | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

YOSHITOMO NARA (b. 1959)
Ships in Girl, 1992
Acrylic on canvas
55×55 inches (139.7 x 139.7 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ’92 (on the reverse)

Vivid and charming, with a rebellious air, Ships in Girl is the epitome of the stylistic motifs and emotional resonance that have positioned Yoshitomo Nara as one of the most internationally acclaimed living artists of our time. Painted in 1992, Ships in GIrl emerges from the artist’s time at the Dusseldorf Kunstakademie in Germany, a seminal period during which Nara developed his most iconic visual and conceptual motifs. Demonstrating the classic vernacular of the so called “Nara Girl”, the lone, childlike figure whose demure exterior often gives way to intense emotion, Ships in Girl encapsulates the principal investigations of Yoshitmo Nara’s oeuvre– childhood, innocence, loneliness, rebellion, and the complexity of memory and emotion– all delivered with a graphic punch. Testament to the importance of the works from the early 1990s, paintings from this period reside in esteemed institutions including the San Francisco Museum of Art, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, while the sister work to this piece currently resides in the collection of the artist.

In Ships in Girl, a large, geometric head floats in a flat blue expanse. Her features are simplified and charming, outlined in dark black strokes. With the large exaggerated eyes and graphic outline, the present work bears clear stylistic affinities to both Pop Art and Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts, illustrating the seamless unification of Eastern and Western themes and motifs that characterizes Nara’s revolutionary oeuvre. In lieu of a direct portrait, Nara uses Ships in Girl as a sort of character study, reflecting the viewer’s own perceptions back upon themselves. A masterful fusion of incorruptible youth and punk attitude, the present work combines mischief and innocence to convey a beguiling charm that gives way to a darker angst. At first glance, her expression seems slightly awed or surprised, but upon further inspection her gaze is concentrated and direct, her curved, open mouth almost pouty and the eyes set in a determined glare. Rather than outwardly violent or destructive, the set of the eyes and the burning flame feel almost critical, a rebellious defiance of the surrounding world.

YOSHITOMO NARA, SHIPS IN GIRL, 1992, ACRYLIC AND COLORED PENCIL ON PAPER 28 × 34 CM, COLLECTION OF THE ARTIST. © YOSHITOMO NARA, PHOTO: YOSHITOMO NARA

In the early 1990s, Nara’s compositions became more stark and forthright in their graphic sensibility, which allowed that artist to expand the cultural and psychological subtext in his work. From 1988 to 1994, Nara studied at the Dusseldorf Kunstakademie in Germany. Far from his native Japan, Nara reacted to the isolation and vulnerability imposed by the language barrier by way of the childlike characters that would become part of his signature artistic vocabulary .In the present work, the youthful figure is detached from any discernible setting. Adorning her hair are miniature ships on the verge of sailing off into the sprawling ocean of blue, relating to Nara’s own isolation and distance from his home. ”When I went to the school in Germany, I found myself again feeling alone, facing my canvas. Again, the inadequacy of the outer world enriched my inner world,” (Yoshitomo Nara in conversation with Aimee Lin, “How Yoshitomo Nara’s Manga-Inspired Paintings Tap Into Universal Feelings of Anxiety”, Art Review, 2015) Stripped of superfluous detail, Ships in Girl elucidates the emotive potential of the lone figure

TŌSHŪSAI SHARAKU, THE ACTOR OTANI ONIJI III AS EDOBEI IN THE KABUKI PLAY KOI NYOBO SOMEWAKE TAZUNA (THE BELOVED WIFE’S PARTICOLORED REINS), 1794, THE BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON.

“The time when I was depicting children in a lot of my works was probably a period when I was trying to regain something childlike.” explains Nara, “… I still do depict children, but the images that people generally associate with me are from that time when I was trying to take back my childhood” (Yoshitomo Narat quoted in: Melissa Chiu, “A Conversation with the Artist”, Exh. Cat., Asia Society Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody’s Fool, 2010). In Ships in Girl, Nara toys with innocence and rebellion as childlike expressions simultaneously resonate with adult emotions. Nara’s solitary children are often lauded as “symbolic representation of the dominant feelings of Japanese youth in the late 1990s and early 2000s, characterised by a sense of uncertainty about the future, vulnerability, and a yearning for the innocence preserved in the inner child” (Matsui Midori. “Art for Myself and Others: Yoshitomo Nara’s Popular Imagination”, in Exh, Cat., Asia Society Museum, Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody’s Fool, 2010, p. 13).

Ships in Girl evinces Nara’s revolutionary painterly practice, creating a fusion of “high, low and kitsch; East and West; grown-up, adolescent and infantile; and so seamless as to render such distinctions almost moot” (Barbara Smith, “Cuddling With Little Girls, Dogs and Music”, The New York Times, 2010) “There is solitude and sadness, and sometimes a bit of rage” describes critic Marco Meneguzzo, “a small iniquity expressed perhaps to demonstrate one’s existence (Marco Meneguzzo, “Yoshitomo Nara”, Artforum (online)). Tapping directly into the emotional center of not only disaffection and anxiety but also the spiritual core at the foundation of hope and renewal, Ships in Girl is a powerful stand-in for a generation of young people at the dawn of the twenty-first century and beyond.

The Night, 2003

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 698,500

The Night | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

YOSHITOMO NARA (b. 1959)
The Night, 2003
Acrylic and colored pencil on paper
72.4 x 51.4 cm (28 1/2 x 20 1/4 inches)
Signed with the artist’s initials and dated 2003 (on the verso)

Yoshitomo Nara’s The Night from 2003 captures the artist’s signature arresting visual power that harnesses the transcendent dynamism of the innocent, serene and doe-eyed gaze of the girl as its subject. Simultaneously rebellious and reflective. the child’s olive eyes narrow into a menacing glare and her lips tighten in a singular red line, yet her cheeks remain rosy and the lids of her eyes lined with an angelic baby blue. The child’s hair crowns her head in a fiery halo, tempered by the milky-white of her sweater. The effect is dazzling as defiance is softened with youthful naiveté. A testament to its significance within the artist’s broader oeuvre, The Night was included in the artist’s major travelling exhibition Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens from 2003 – 2005 which travelled around the US. The Night has remained in the same private collection for over two decades since it was acquired in 2003 from Blum & Poe in Los Angeles the same year it was executed.

YOSHITOMO NARA IN HIS STUDIO. NICK MARINO, “TRUE BELIEVERS: YOSHITOMO NARA PAINTS WHAT HE HEARS,” NEW YORK TIMES, 24 JULY 2020

Nara’s “big-headed girls”, a term coined by Yeewan Koon in her book, Yoshitomo Nara, have cemented themselves within contemporary art’s cultural lexicon. These girls persist as the artist’s most recognizable and distinct motifs, revisited time and again throughout Nara’s oeuvre. The cherubic figures are frequently employed as allegories for revolution. The present figure’s assertive expression disarms the viewer, asking Nara’s audience to wonder at what the child could be protesting. The combination of youthful features with complex emotional expression culminates in a sense of unease: the young girl conveys a wisdom that should be beyond her grasp. Art historian Kristin Chambers observes that, through his portraits of children, “Nara captures the tension between innocence and experience, physical isolation and mental freedom, containment and independence. [He] embraces the whole of the human condition and recognizes that, in fact, evil is an essential part of innocence.” By embracing seemingly paradoxical elements, Nara captures the nuance of human experience in the many faceted expressions of his subject.

YOSHITOMO NARA, DRAWING ROOM BETWEEN THE CONCORD AND THE MARRIMACK, 2010

A twenty year long fascination for Nara, the small girl in the present work is the utter embodiment of the artist’s endless pursuit and exploration of themes of solitary, rebellion and innocence that define the very essence of childhood. Nara characterizes his own childhood in the rural community of Aomori Prefecture as a lonely period during which he turned to music as a form of companionship. The artist was drawn to American rock music, particularly the alternative rock and punk music of the 1970s and 1980s. Nara’s favorite musicians include bands such as The Ramones and Nirvana as well as the singular artist Patti Smith. This attraction to counterculture and rebellion would manifest itself years later in the disaffected expressions of Nara’s intimidating protagonists.

Following Nara’s relocation from Germany’s Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1988 and homecoming to Japan in 2000, The Night represents a profoundly subtle tonal shift in his artistic practice. The geometric forms, such as the child’s pear-shaped head, oval eyes, linear mouth, and cylindrical neck, rendered in acrylic and colored pencil, recall Japanese anime and manga cartoons. Nara’s forms were also inspired by ukiyo-e woodblock prints, reflective of an appreciation for historical Japanese art as well as contemporary styles. In this way, the present work reads as a marriage between two cultural heritages that were formative to Nara. In fact, the artist continues to maintain studios in both countries, honoring the nations that shaped his artistic growth. In The Night, Nara’s subject serves as a confrontational talisman for disgruntled youth. This iconic imagery that embodies the rebellious spirit of rock music and the loneliness that defined the artist’s childhood captures the artist at his best. Nara’s fiercely expressive character leaves the viewer a feeling haunted and considering how innocence can be exploited as an illusion. In his depictions of girls, Nara captures a universal revolutionary spirit that resonates on a truly global scale.

6. Christopher Wool

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Untitled (TRBL), 1990

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
USD 2,310,600

Untitled (TRBL) | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

CHRISTOPHER WOOL (b. 1955)
Untitled (TRBL), 1990
Enamel on paper
36×24 inches (91.4 by 61 cm)
Signed and dated 1990 (on the reverse)

An iconic and visionary masterwork, Untitled (TRBL) epitomizes the disruptive spirit and striking visual impact of Christopher Wool’s painterly practice. It is one of the most significant examples of Wool’s Word Paintings – uniquely combining the sequential enamel layers, anarchic drips, and defiant and timeless message that defines the best of Wool’s oeuvre. We see the word TRBL doubled and inverted, first painted in a deep blue, with the T starting in the lower right, then overpainted with white enamel, flipped upside down, then with TRBL superimposed over the top in Wool’s iconic, glossy black. We see the trace of the blue underpainting in the ghostly forms behind the white, and through the letter R, where Wool has left a skip through which the viewer can peer to see the underlayer. The shiny, painterly quality of the present work’s surface makes it particularly compelling: articulated through strokes of richly built-up enamel paint, the structure enforced by Wool’s stencil is subverted by drips of paint that disrupt the composition, introducing the presence of the artist’s hand. Executed in 1990, a pivotal year in which the best of Wool’s Word Paintings were executed, Untitled (TRBL) stands as one of the most iconic of Wool’s four-letter paintings; by removing the vowels from TROUBLE Wool breaks the word, changing its significance and making it a new signifier. Untitled (TRBL) also bears remarkable provenance, having been held in the same private collection for over twenty years and once belonging in the collection of Tom Patchett, who was key in shaping the Los Angeles art scene of the 1990s with his gallery Track 16.

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT, PEGASUS, 1987. PRIVATE COLLECTION. ART © 2024 ESTATE OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT. LICENSED BY ARTESTAR, NEW YORK

Untitled (TRBL) is exemplary of Wool’s four-letter Word Paintings, which he began painting in 1989 using a standard sans-serif capitalized font commonly used by the American military to create imposing and confrontational artworks. Running the letters together with no spaces in between to reduce quick legibility, these text paintings elide linguistic and visual aesthetics in a manner that is confusingly humorous yet deadly serious. Here, Wool has truncated the word “trouble” by eliminating its vowels; thus, “TRBL” opens itself to possibilities of new vowels and new forms of interpretation. Further hinting to additional pathways of meaning, the ghostly suggestion of the same letters hang upside down and in reverse beneath the inked “TRBL,” casting the entire orientation of the picture plane into question. Painted over, yet still visible, these enigmatic shadows reveal arresting glitches of process – the rich incidents of skipping and distortion that corrupt our reading of the words as text becomes a visual rather than purely linguistic device. With drips of white and black paint, Wool centers our attention toward the material application of enamel, harnessing the pictorial qualities of his stenciled letters to accentuate their status as shapes and de-naturalize their communicative utility. Speaking to the paradoxical nature of Wool’s Word Paintings, Bruce Ferguson writes, “Some gestalt, visual or cultural, is inevitable given the geometric order that prevails, but it is not a happy or a complete one, grammatically assured and visually complete. Rather, the Word Paintings signal the desire for completion, the desire for a viewer to be complicit with meaning and a desire for an anarchistic pulse beyond language to be maintained as well. If painting can still forcefully offer the idea of such freedom and such bonding, despite how complicated its strategies and procedures have, of necessity, become, then Wool’s work strongly points to the relevance of its raptures today in ways that are both critical and compliant, both estranging and strange.” (Bruce W. Ferguson, “Patterns of Intent,” Artforum, September 1991, p. 98)

Though the exact source of Untitled (TRBL)’s linguistic readymade is not confirmed, two potential origins surface: the first being the 1988 film noir Trouble in Angel City, told from the perspective of novelist Raymond Chandler, and the second being the death of Stevie Ray Vaughan, blues guitarist and front man of the band Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, who tragically died in a helicopter accident the year of the present work’s execution. Irrespective of his exact source, Wool, in his use of stencils as a form of mechanical reproduction, as well as his appropriation of ‘low-brow’ phrasing and profanity, confuses the traditional boundaries of textual and artistic language – this is a subversive conceit familiar from the Pop Art of Warhol or Lichtenstein, all the way to the readymade aesthetic of Duchamp. As explained by Katherine Brinson: “Wool was less concerned with language as a means to transcend image, or with the problematic conjunction of text and image, than with text as image. He has long been fascinated by the way words function when removed from the quiet authority of the page and exposed to the cacophony of the city, whether through the blaring incantations of billboards and commercial signage or the illicit interventions of graffiti artists. But with their velvety white grounds and stylized letters rendered in dense, sign painter’s enamel that pooled and dripped within the stencils, the Word Paintings have a resolute material presence that transcends the graphic.” (Katherine Brinson in: Exh. Cat., New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (and traveling), Christopher Wool, 2013, p. 40)

 

Untitled, 2011

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 1,222,200

CHRISTOPHER WOOL (B. 1955), Untitled | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED

CHRISTOPHER WOOL (B. 1955)
Untitled, 2011
Silkscreen on linen
129×96 inches (304.8 x 243.8 cm)
Signed and dated ‘Wool 2011’ (on the overlap)
Signed and dated again ‘Wool (2011)’ (on the stretcher)

Untitled is one of just eight iconic paintings Christopher Wool exhibited at the 2011 Venice Biennale, each featuring one of the artist’s abstract forms. Over ten feet tall, the field of deep burgundy that inhabits the surface of Untitled dissolves into earthy colors. Hazy lines like television static divide the canvas roughly into quadrants. Biomorphic shapes emerge, made even more bodily by the blood-red pigment. As if we are looking into a microscope, two small forms in the upper right of the canvas appear to be in the process of dividing like cells. Also exhibited in the artist’s acclaimed 2013-2014 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, the present work is a monumental, rigorous, and engrossing painting that challenges and seduces by equal measure.

Untitled is the result of a multifaceted process involving several media. Wool began by taking photographs of old drawings and enlarging them up to a huge scale, thereby reducing them to individual dots, and transferring them to linen via silkscreen. The blown-up images were painted, re-photographed, and altered again using Photoshop. C Yet it is impossible to exactly trace Wool’s steps. Though Wool is perhaps best known for his text-based paintings, Untitled proves his ongoing investigation of abstraction as well. In the early 1990s, the artist began to silkscreen using flower motifs, and in the mid-1990s, he painted over reproductions of these paintings with bright colors. Around 2000, he began his Grey Paintings, which use an allover grey field. The Venice Biennale paintings represent a turning point with their complexity, corporeality, and understated beauty. They call to mind the quasi-abstract paintings of Surrealist Joan Miró, who likewise used the medium to create a phantasmagoria of organic shapes, as in Femme et oiseaux dans la nuit (Woman and Birds in the Night) (1945). Untitled also clearly wrestles with the legacy of Abstract Expressionism. Interestingly, Wool cites Jackson Pollock’s late black paintings as his favorite by the artist. Executed in the early 1950s, these black paintings oscillate between figuration and abstraction and allow organic forms to emerge. Untitled also calls to mind the staining technique of Helen Frankenthaler, and she was also known to use rusty-red hues in paintings like Pink Lady (1963) and Gulf Stream (1963).

7. Damien Hirst

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Ocean Spray, 2016

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 350,000 – 550,000
USD 882,000

23171 Hirst, Ocean Spray (shorthandstories.com)

DAMIEN HIRST (B. 1965)
Ocean Spray, 2016
Household gloss on canvas
67×79 inches (170×200 cm)
Signed, titled and dated ‘2016 ‘Ocean Spray’ Damien Hirst’ (on the reverse)
Signed again ‘Damien Hirst’ (on the stretcher)

Across a dazzling expansive surface, Ocean Spray presents a vast sea of Technicolor dots. Impasto daubs of red, pale blue, lilac and bubble-gum pink paint seem to flutter like confetti over the white ground of the canvas. The work is one of Damien Hirst’s Color Space paintings—a series from 2016 that represents an evolution from his seminal series of Spot paintings begun thirty years earlier. Launched in the same year as his acclaimed Veil paintings, the vibrant Color Space works mark the artist’s enduring obsessions with chromatic maximalism, formal deconstruction, and art history.

Where Hirst’s Spot paintings can be distinguished by their hard-edge Minimalist sensibility—flat circles of color were rendered with the mathematical precision of a machine in neat, parallel rows—his Colour Space paintings relish in a new-found painterly expression. Sterile grids give way to loose and unbridled gesture, and indeed, Ocean Spray is enriched by traces of human touch. The colorful, imperfect discs of paint seem to dance across the canvas, skimming like stones and leaving accidental splatters and drips. The surface pulsates with movement, denoting an improvised and spontaneous creation that nods to the all-over canvases of Abstract Expressionist titan Jackson Pollock. Though some of the formal rules upheld by the Spots remain—no same color is repeated, and each dot is consistently sized—here, beyond an exercise in pictorial deconstruction, Hirst harnesses abstraction for its emotive capacity.

Jackson Pollock, Lavender Mist: Number 1, 1950, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), 1950 (nga.gov)

Standing before Ocean Spray and its expansive field of twinkling dots, one is reminded of late-nineteenth-century Impressionist and Post-Impressionist techniques, of warm Pointillist seascapes in Southern France by Signac and Seurat, or Monet’s dappled water garden at Giverny. Painting directly from nature—en plein air—these artists broke new ground by responding to the ever-changing effects of natural light and atmosphere. Organic daubs of color squeezed straight from the tube fractured the environment to its smallest constituent particles.

Here, as is consistent across his maverick practice, Hirst too considers the very nature of perception and representation. The titles selected for the Colour Space paintings have their own double-edged significance. Terms like Ocean Spray, Reed, Morning Dew, and Black Thistle imply a poetic, figurative quality, yet are in fact derived from the generic color names for domestic house paints. Executed over a century after the French Impressionists rose to fame, in an age of digital screens and pixelated surfaces, the present work upholds the dot as “the most basic unit of creativity” (B. Gopnik, “Damien Hirst: Colour Space Paintings”, Gagosian Quarterly, 22 June 2020).

Visionary, 2008

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 400,000 – 600,000
USD 571,500

Visionary | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

DAMIEN HIRST (b. 1965)
Visionary, 2008
Butterflies and household gloss on canvas, in artist’s chosen frame
Diameter: 60 inches (152.4 cm)
Titled and dated 2008 (on the reverse); signed (on the stretcher)

Lumichrome, 2005

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 200,000 – 300,000
USD 406,400

Lumichrome | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

DAMIEN HIRST (b. 1965)
Lumichrome, 2005
Household gloss on canvas (2-inch spot)
34×34 inches (86.3 x 86.3 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 2005 (on the reverse); signed (on the stretcher)

8. Takashi Murakami

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FLOWER MATANGO (A), 2001-2006

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,143,000

Flower Matango (A) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

TAKASHI MURAKAMI (b. 1962)
FLOWER MATANGO (A), 2001-2006
Oil, acrylic, fiberglass and iron
550x300x250 cm (216 1/2 x 118 1/8 x 98 1/2 inches)
This work is a unique variant

Grandiose yet garish, elegant yet powerful, Flower Matango (A) stands as a masterpiece of visual splendor, epitomizing Takashi Murakami’s era-defining practice. Situated at the core of the sculpture is Murakami’s iconic flower ball, replete with smiling psychedelic daisies rendered in intricate 3D relief, each flower distinguished by a candy-colored hue assigned through a unique serial number. Sprouting from the top of the sphere is an elaborate configuration of nimbly and intricately intertwining vines and tendrils whose paths – in adherence to Bézier curves – were generated by advanced computer graphic software, epitomizing the high level of craftsmanship in Murakami’s practice and his tenacious commitment to engineering precision.

Visually associative of referents as diverse as Ikebana flower arrangements and baby crib mobiles, the whimsical monstrosity of Flower Matango (A) takes direct titular reference from the 1963 Japanese horror film Matango, which featured monsters with mushroom-shaped heads in reference to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A testament to the power of Murakami’s irreverently provocative oeuvre that merges high and low art and culture. another version of Flower Mantango was exhibited within the gilded halls of the Palace of Versailles in Paris in 2009. By engaging in socio-cultural scrutiny via a signature kawaii aesthetic, Flower Matango (A) is positioned at the very apex of Murakami’s practice and iconography.

JEFF KOONS, LARGE VASE OF FLOWERS, 1991. PRIVATE COLLECTION. ART © JEFF KOONS STUDIO
VAN GOGH, SUNFLOWERS, 1889. VAN GOGH MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM. ART © VAN GOGH MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM 

One of the most renowned artists of his generation, Murakami is widely acclaimed for orchestrating an artistic empire descended from the Warholian art-business model. In a complex negotiation between the mass market, Japanese historical tradition and the avant-garde of the contemporary art world, Murakami’s work is subtly yet acutely politically oriented. Cloaked beneath the signature barrage of beaming faces, a studied cultural project is at work that merges pre-modern Japanese tradition with the contemporary sub-culture of otaku, eroding cultural hierarchies and binary divisions in the wake of Japan’s post-war cultural identity. In forging an aesthetic grounded in the special effects of animé and manga, Murakami presents a vision of the culturally dislocated Japanese generation nurtured by the political custody of the US after World War II. Exposed to the American capitalist model, the resulting economic prosperity was considered to have cultured a ‘limited freedom’ of postwar Japanese democracy. In turn, this fostered a culture seen to lack self-reflective tradition or spiritual depth – the ultimate embodiment of which is the indigenous comic book sub-culture of otaku. Emblematically present within the excessive and almost fetishistic detail and childlike appeal of Murakami’s open-mouthed flowers is the very quintessence of the artist’s response to such cultural conditions, conceptually unified under the umbrella term ‘Superflat’.

Reflective of the flattened social structure and erasure of political identity in the nuclear fall-out of the atomic bomb, Murakami’s otaku inspired art takes on infantile cultural conditions as the vehicle to develop and globally proliferate a new and manifestly Japanese art. In orchestrating a multivalent commercialized artistic venture which has famously entailed teaming up with Louis Vuitton and celebrities such as Kanye West, Murakami wields the mainstream corporate brand as a megaphone to establish and legitimate his otaku inspired practice. Moreover, by taking on aspects of Surrealism, evocative of the Kitsch aesthetic of Jeff Koons, Murakami’s practice is firmly rooted within the contemporary canon of Western art. However, within this stream of referents that constitute the artist’s search for a cultural voice, Murakami masterfully bridges the gulf between the new representational aesthetics and the greater pre-modern classical tradition indigenous to Japan.

CIRCLE OF KANO MITSUNOBU, FLOWERS AND GRASSES OF THE FOUR SEASONS, LATE 16TH CENTURY
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK

Smiling flowers are uniquely emblematic within Murakami’s globalised artistic mission and mature visual lexicon; as a photograph of the artist dressed as one of his smiling flowers for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York substantiates, the cutesy animé inspired floral motif denotes a trademark of Murakami’s public persona. With Murakami’s emblematic flowers featured prominently in recent solo exhibitions, including Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2017-18), the present work is exemplary of the artist’s graphically dynamic oeuvre. According to Murakami, the employment of flowers as an endlessly repeated motif stems from a period of intense daily study of the flower itself.

“I spent nine years working in a preparatory school, where I taught the students to draw flowers… At the beginning, to be frank, I didn’t like flowers, but as I continued teaching in the school, my feelings changed: their smell, their shape – it all made me feel almost physically sick, and at the same time I found them very ‘cute’. Each one seemed to have its own feelings, its own personality. My dominant feeling was one of unease, but I liked that sensation. And these days, now that I draw flowers rather frequently, that sensation has come back very vividly. I find them just as pretty, just as disturbing… So I thought that if the opportunity arose, I would very much like to make a work in which I would represent them as if in a ‘crowd scene’.” 

While the proliferation of cheerful, polychromatic faces in Flower Matango (A) evokes the experience of psychedelia, the flowers’ anthropoid eyes furthermore generate the uncanny illusion of being watched from within. Regarding the propagation of multiple eyes in his works, Murakami states: “In the case of my works, these eyes that are looking at them [the viewers] from multiple angles also refuse to determine a focal point.” The artist continues: “I realized that by lining up a multitude of eyes you can create a very simple code that means the spectator really does feel he is being watched […] Compared to the classical technique of representation using ‘one-point’ perspective, my Superflat idea does not really correspond to traditional Western perspective, but to the introduction of a ‘multiplicity of points’. By [depicting] a large number of eyes I disturb the perspective, or rather, I diversify it’” (the artist cited in: Ibid., p. 81-83). Anointed the “Emperor of Signs” by Alison Gingeras, Murakami’s fanatical repetition and attention to detail is symptomatic of a tautological necessity to at once secure and deny significatory meaning. Infused with an abundance of referents, Murakami’s trademark smiling flowers lie at the heart of an agenda of Japanese identity politics. Herein lies the cultural strategy of Murakami’s artistic project of postcolonial re-territorialisation: by forging a dialectic between mass and sub culture, cultural alterity and westernized dominance, orient and occident, Murakami’s hybridized art not only put Japanese otaku on the map of the contemporary world but used it to reference and embody the overwhelming phenomenon of cultural collisions occurring all over the world.

TAKASHI MURAKAMI (b. 1962)
In Death, Life. The Mountains and Rivers Remain.,2015
Acrylic and gold leaf on canvas
141×120 cm (55 1/2 x 47 1/4 inches)
Signed and dated 2015 (on the overlap); variously inscribed (on the stretcher)

 

9. Other Artists

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Peter Doig

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 5,000,000 – 7,000,000

PETER DOIG (b. 1959), Rainbow Wheel | Christie’s (christies.com)
GUARANTEED

PETER DOIG (b. 1959)
Rainbow Wheel, 1999
Oil on canvas
78×73 inches (198.1 x 185.4 cm)
Signed twice, titled and dated ‘Peter Doig, ’98’-99′ “RAINBOW WHEEL”‘ (on the reverse)

Measuring over six feet in height, Rainbow Wheel plunges its viewer into an ethereal landscape of Peter Doig’s making. At the center of this monumental and dreamlike composition stands a vibrant-yellow Ferris wheel, the spokes of which radiate like the sunbeams. At its base, crowds gather to ride the magnificent rotating wonder or gape at the old-fashioned bumper cars. Shades of pink, lavender, and seafoam define much of the fairground against which bright pops of red and green glow brightly. Rainbow Wheel sumptuously captures summertime wonder, cotton candy, thrill, and possibility.

Painted in 1999 and acquired for the de la Cruz collection that same year, Rainbow Wheel marks an important moment in Doig’s career, during which he moved away from the thick handling of paint that had the far characterized his canvases. In works from this new period—including Figure in Mountain Landscape II, held in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art—Doig’s treatment of paint is lighter, more translucent. Color teems. Lines are delicate, gossamer. Light seems to originate from somewhere internal. The airiness and sense of marvel imbue his canvasses with, as Nicholas Serota described, “a kind of mythic quality that’s both ancient and very, very modern” (N. Serota quoted in C. Tomkins, ‘The Mythical Stories in Peter Doig’s Paintings’, The New Yorker, December 11, 2017).

Given their traditional techniques, it is a wonder that paintings such as Rainbow Wheel were executed during the decade that saw the rise of the Young British Artists. For his contemporaries, who were also working in London, shock and nerve were frequent gestures. The art was boisterous and rowdy—replete with images and materials that seemed to have been harvested directly from their urban worlds—and Doig’s quieter paintings offer a bold counterpoint to the bravado that so dominated the art world during these years. Indeed, in contrast with the Young British Artists, Doig allows for and encourages reverie. The oversized presence of the Ferris wheel adds to the romance and frivolity of Rainbow Wheel; what could embody pure joy more than a machine whose sole aim was to show its riders the majesty of the world? The amusement park ride was dreamt up for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where organizers hoped to rival Gustave Eiffel’s eponymous tower that had so wowed the crowds at the Exposition Universelle in Paris four years earlier.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 8,000,000 – 12,000,000

FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES (1957-1996), “Untitled” (America #3) | Christie’s (christies.com)

FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES (1957-1996)
“Untitled” (America #3), 1992
42 light bulbs, porcelain light sockets and electrical cord
Overall dimensions vary with installation
Length: 504 inches (12.8 m)

In 1991, Felix Gonzalez-Torres suspended two lightbulbs from entwined electrical cords. He named the work “Untitled” (March 5th) #2; the purposely parenthetical portion of the title is likely in reference to the birthday of his partner, Ross Laycock, who had recently passed away from an AIDS-related illness. The paired lightbulbs, which will likely burn out at different intervals, capture the poignant realities of life and relationships. “When I first made those two light bulbs,” Gonzalez-Torres said, “I was in a total state of fear about losing my dialogue with Ross, of being just one” (F. Gonzalez-Torres, quoted in N. Spector, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, exh. cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1995, p. 183). Yet by making the work officially “Untitled” and formatting the rest of the title as a coded reference in parentheses, Gonzalez-Torres complicates this neat narrative.

“Untitled” (March 5th) #2 gave rise to Gonzalez-Torres’ series of lightbulb installations, which are known as “the light string works” and are clearly among the most iconic and affecting works of his oeuvre. Before decisions are made for each installation, the majority of these works purposefully appear to be identical; they are made from standard lightbulbs (most often 42) in standard porcelain light sockets, attached to a length of cord. Yet these light string works are startlingly profound and awe-inspiringly beautiful. Gonzalez Torres was deeply interested in questioning our perceptions of uniqueness as well as addressing the critical and integral role of ownership. The configuration of each of these sculptures is entirely up to its owner (or authorized exhibitor) each time the work is installed, always having the potential for change, and always in dialogue with its context – dangling, draping, cascading or hanging… While all of the light string works are “Untitled”, each also has a parenthetical portion of its title, further setting the works apart from one another but also binding them together, perhaps as a sort of abstract conceptual portrait. Some of the content in these parenthetical portions of the titles may obliquely refer to places or events in Gonzalez-Torres’s life, while some, like the present work, “Untitled” (America #3), are expansive, explicitly allowing a viewer room to cultivate their own associations and connotations. A guiding strategy within Gonzalez-Torres’ practice was collaboration: sometimes with the public, but always with the works’ owners. By setting up certain core parameters that are often open for interpretation and incorporate other individuals’ engagement, the artist encourages the work’s horizon to remain perpetually in the now.

When “Untitled” (America #3) is displayed, light bulbs cast a glow, together radiating a tangible warmth; the work was included in the artist’s seminal solo exhibition held, in 1995, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York. As with any light bulb, the bulbs used to install this work too have finite lives, though the rate at which they expire varies – and Gonzalez-Torres intended for bulbs to be immediately replaced when they burn out, also addressing a sense of immortality. By dint of their material, the light string works are unassuming, yet they establish an intense and palpable sense of presence and emotion. Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s art purposefully drew from and subverted both Minimalism and post-Minimalism. Gonzalez-Torres’s use of commonplace materials like light bulbs and electrical cords has its roots in Minimalism, the 1960s art movement that championed industrial materials, such as concrete, aluminum, and plastic, and an almost literalist approach to the art object. Reacting to the emotion and excess associated with Abstract Expressionism, artists believed that an artwork should only reference itself. Donald Judd, one of Minimalism’s principal voices, explained in his 1964 treatise “Specific Objects”, “The thing as a whole, its quality as a whole, is what is interesting”: “Materials,” wrote Judd, “vary greatly and are simply materials. They are specific. If they are used directly, they are more specific” (“Specific Objects”, 1964, republished by The Judd Foundation, online).

Untitled, 2005

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 2,000,000 – 3,000,000

MARK GROTJAHN (B. 1968), Untitled | Christie’s (christies.com)

MARK GROTJAHN (B. 1968)
Untitled, 2005
Oil on canvas
58×48 inches (147.3 x 121.9 cm)

A raucous panorama of color and line, Mark Grotjahn’s Untitled brims with insatiable, ecstatic power. Part of the artist’s acclaimed Face Paintings series, the work is a burst, a prismatic explosion – color and experience melded together. Into a kaleidoscopic ground, Grotjahn has rendered a mask-like face whose angularity recalls Pablo Picasso or Henri Matisse. Yet far from simply aping art historical motifs, the artist has instead breathed new life into the past even as he remains wholly contemporary. Executed in 2006, Untitled is a tour de force, created contemporaneously to Grotjahn’s solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art; the work was exhibited that same year at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

After applying bright swathes of color, Grotjahn scrapes, peels, rakes, and incises the surface of a canvas, leaving behind every trace of his hand’s determination. Shapes emerge out of the impasto pigment, a vortex of activity and animation. Reds, greens, pinks, and blues all combine and meld with one another to suggest skin and flesh. Deceptively simple, each Face Painting announces the methods of its creation. Paint itself is as much the subject of Untitled as the image on the canvas. As Roberta Smith wrote of these works: “They emphasize painting as a psychic and bodily process fueled in part by the devouring and digesting of previous art to formulate a new synthesis” (R. Smith, “Mark Grothjahn; ‘Nine Faces’”, The New York Times, 12 May 2011, online).

Pablo Picasso, Self-portrait, 1907. Narodni Galerie, Prague. © 2024 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

With their emphatic embrace of an elementary aesthetic, Grotjahn’s Face Paintings can be placed in dialogue with works by the European Modernists, who found themselves inspired by African and Oceanic art. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, thousands of African and Oceanic sculptures were shipped back to Europe, the result of colonial expeditions and conquests. Treated as artefacts, these were exhibited at ethnographic museums throughout the continent’s major capitals. Young artists in particular flocked to these exhibitions and began to incorporate into their art new ways of depicting the human figure based upon what they saw. Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Matisse’s La Raie Verte, and Amedeo Modigliani’s sculptures, among countless others, all showed the influencing role of what was seen to be exotic and other.

When conceiving of his Face Paintings, however, Grotjahn chose not to engage with indigenous art himself, but rather to look at the art created by these Modernist predecessors. He thought back to his first encounters with Picasso, whose work he saw as a young child illustrated in books owned by his grandfather. years later, Grotjahn decided to make the master of Modernism a springboard for his new artistic interpretations. Accordingly, Grotjahn’s Face Paintings offer new modes of seeing the past.

Julie Mehretu

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 4,000,000 – 6,000,000

JULIE MEHRETU (B. 1970), Fever graph (algorithm for serendipity) | Christie’s (christies.com)

JULIE MEHRETU (B. 1970)
Fever graph (algorithm for serendipity), 2013
Acrylic, ink and graphite on canvas
96×120 inches (243.8 x 304.8 cm)

A majestic painting brimming with the inscrutable yet mesmerizing mark-making for which she is best known, Julie Mehretu’s Fever Graph (Algorithm for Serendipity) is nothing short of incredible, a fever dream of the wondrous capacity for experimentation and renewal that exists in contemporary painting today.

A panoramic work evoking a fairy tale landscape that’s marked by areas of inky blurs and ghostly lines, the present work presents a fictional realm whose very depiction defies legibility and interpretation. Scattered bits of letters and words coexist alongside vector lines forming “x”-marks and crosses, while a pale yellow moon presides over a dreamy mountain-scape that seems to melt into oblivion. Faintly discernible beneath the chaotic markings of its surface imagery lies the urban plans for Tahrir Square, the symbolic and literal site of the 2011 uprisings in Cairo, part of what became known as the Arab Spring. Born in Addis Ababa in 1970, Mehretu was personally impacted by the geopolitical turbulence in North Africa, and these important paintings have come to symbolize an imagined realm where the capacity for change, renewal and resilience is infinitely possible. As such, they continue Mehretu’s ongoing pursuit of the symbolic and expressive capacity of abstract painting to symbolize larger human emotions and themes.

Jackson Pollock, No. 1A, 1948, Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2024 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © Boltin Picture Library / Bridgeman Images.

Painted in 2013, Fever Graph (Algorithm for Serendipity) is a monumental painting inflected with beautiful passages of luminous color and the artist’s signature mark-making. The artist draws the eye deep into the recessional space of the painting by positioning two perspectival lines along the lower edge that direct the eye into the center of the canvas, where most of the pictorial activity is located. In the upper register, smoky gray marks seem to delineate a series of faraway mountain peaks, which at times appear to be given three-dimensional modeling and depth by pale washes of luminous color. Along the right edge, a two-story house with a gabled roof seems to be nestled into the landscape, while nearby a series of telephone poles recede into the distance. Mehretu’s work is often deliberately inscrutable, and it is not surprising to find that her imagery flickers back and forth between all-out abstraction and hints of realism.

Drawing from a rich visual tradition inspired by both Eastern and Western cultures, Julie Mehretu’s visual inspiration has included architectural blueprints, Baroque engravings, Japanese calligraphy, comic book motifs and graffiti. With the improvisatory flair of a jazz musician, Mehretu riffs off these diverse sources to create beautiful and seductive large-scale paintings that lure the viewer in with their mind-boggling array of countless, swirling marks. As part of her research, the artist often searches for source material online, and she became increasingly interested in search engine algorithms around the time that the present work was created. In fact, Fever Graph (Algorithm for Serendipity) takes its name from these search engine algorithms, particularly the technology’s ability to intuit and predict human behavior.

Alighiero Boetti, Mappa, 1990, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome. © Alighiero Boetti, DACS 2024. Photo © Stefano Baldini / Bridgeman Images.

This important cycle of paintings is also marked by an expressive use of color and a freer, more gestural style of mark-making, which critics were quick to point out, when the paintings debuted at Marian Goodman Gallery in May of 2013.  In Fever Graph (Algorithm for Serendipity) and the related painting Cairo (2013; The Broad, Los Angeles), the artist has incorporated architectural renderings of Cairo’s Tahrir Square to reference the populist uprisings of the first months of 2011. This important body of work speaks specifically to the civic and bureaucratic ineptitude of the Hosni Mubarak regime; by underpinning her paintings with the faint schematic renderings of the buildings in Tahrir Square, Mehretu draws attention to the outsized bureaucratic role of Mubarak’s government and its chronic inefficiency. Her epic four-part painting Mogamma (first exhibited at Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany, in 2012) was inspired by the 14-story bureaucratic monolith of the same name, which presides over Tahrir Square. In the present painting and throughout the series, Mehretu was able to “translate the violent elements of revolt into a powerful visual analogue” (T.J. Demos, “Painting and Uprising: Julie Mehretu’s Third Space,” in Julie Mehretu: Liminal Space, exh. cat., White Cube, London, 2013, p. 55).

Leonardo da Vinci, Study for The Adoration of the Magi, circa 1480. Photo: Scala / Art Resource, NY.

Also present in this body of work was a particular new kind of mark that found its way into Mehretu’s work around this time. Particularly in the upper register and along the periphery, Mehretu depicted a kind of smudged mark that is a cross between an emphatic gesture and all-out erasure. These faint marks linger like the silent “ghosts” of previous marks, almost like the faded cyphers on a stone tablet that has faded over time to become an illegible palimpsest. Mehretu was also interested in the idea of in-between spaces, calling her 2013 exhibition at Marian Goodman Gallery “Liminal Squared.” In her marks which are not fully marks but also not quite erased, she has found a half-way “liminal” entity that is both things at once. So, too, do her paintings exist as the “in-between” spaces where opposing forces can coexist side by side.

Richard Prince

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 1,200,000 – 1,800,000
USD 1,270,000

Untitled (Cowboy) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

RICHARD PRINCE (b. 1949)
Untitled (Cowboy), 2012
Acrylic and inkjet on canvas
66 3/4 x 40 inches (169.5 x 101.6 cm)
Signed and dated 2012 (on the overlap)

Emerging from a dusty background, the eponymous protagonist of Richard Prince’s Untitled (Cowboy) proffers the resounding mythos of the American cowboy as one of persistent endurance, resolute control and heroic capability in the face of an expansive unknown. Executed in 2012, Prince’s Untitled (Cowboy) stands as the culmination of the artist’s contemplation on the aesthetic mythology surrounding cowboys—a testament to his ongoing exploration of this emblematic American figure, which initially thrust him into the spotlight during the seventies and eighties. With a vibrant palette and layers of thickly textured paint, Prince offers a contemporary reinterpretation of the portrayal of the stoic ranch hand, orienting the viewer in vertical alignment with the solitary cowboy. Charging forth with a gun in one hand and reins in the other, this cowboy is in control.

Few subjects have captivated Prince’s imagination as fervently as the cowboy, whose solitary existence amid harsh landscapes resonates with a collective longing for an American hero. Elevated from humble Southern origins and transformed into an emblem of rugged individualism by Hollywood’s imagination and the charismatic performances of icons like Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, the cowboy embodies a nostalgic yearning for a bygone era of American masculinity. Through his iconic Cowboy series, Prince innovatively dissects and reconstructs the underlying mechanisms that underpin the cowboy’s mythical stature, while simultaneously presenting his subject in compelling scenes of endurance and fortitude. In doing so, Prince has crafted some of the most recognizable and thought-provoking works of the late 20th and 21st centuries.

J. M. W. TURNER, RAIN, STEAM, AND SPEED – THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY, 1844. NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON.

Prince’s own fascination with cowboy iconology began in the Time Life building, where he worked one night a week for the magazine by clipping editorials to support his artistic career. He found himself captivated by the authorless advertisements and the conversancy of their repetitive iconography, keeping various clippings for himself as he worked. He was particularly drawn to the image of the cowboy in Marlboro’s advertisements. Acknowledging the enduring symbolism of the cowboy as the archetype of masculine heroism, the cigarette company’s marketing executives launched a highly successful campaign for their filtered cigarettes, disseminating cinematic imagery of the cowboy’s stoic heroism across newspapers, billboards, and televised advertisements across the United States. Prince began repurposing these images by rephotographing them, removing all references to branding so that the standalone images might be scrutinized for their readily identifiable motifs that pervasively supplied themselves as the underpinnings for American culture. As he progressed in the rephotographing and recasting of the quixotic cowboy, his work unfolded in four distinct phases. In the earliest phase, Prince’s works were characterized for their grainy close-ups of ranchers printed in a standard format. By the second stage, improved laboratory techniques allowed him to substantially increase the scale and intensity of the final reproduction. In the third phase, he worked from high quality images, which imbued the photographs with a newfound crispness and clarity that surpassed even the original advertisement. And finally, in the fourth stage, Prince turned to painting as a means of infusing his photographic work not only with a vibrant refinement, but with a shrewd commentary that would undercut the propagation of machismo sensibility that had been widely disseminated in American mass media.

Unlike earlier iterations of the cowboy, Prince completely abandoned the Marlboro advertisement as his source material in the fourth phase. Instead, he sourced online for vintage Western paperbacks – often hundreds at a time – whose covers of cowboys would be scanned, enlarged, cropped, printed onto canvas, and then adorned with vivid, brilliant strokes of paint. He had found extensive inspiration from the covers of “dime-store” novellas when he embarked on his equally seminal series of Nurse Paintings, from which he drew upon the uniformly melodramatic, artificial female protagonists who were often tawdrily cast on troves of pulp fiction paperback covers. As with the Nurse Paintings series, Prince almost entirely effaces all traces of the paperback cover in the present work, employing bold swathes of vibrant yellows, blues, and greens that merely hint at the source material. Prince casts the lone star against a pulsating saffron backdrop evocative of the untamed expanses of the Wild West. This stark contrast to his surroundings accentuates the cowboy, depicted in richly textured strokes of walnut, scarlet, and white, who forges ahead, leaving behind any vestiges of his past in the dust-filled terrain. Positioned just above the horizon of the picture plane, he meets the gaze of the viewer head-on, cutting through the barrier of a fourth wall that permeates the work with a unique uncanniness characteristic of Prince’s approach.

Isolated under the expressionist layering of paint, the association with vintage Western novels and the Marlboro brand in Untitled (Cowboy) begins to fade as the pure image of a cowboy emerges; Prince invites the viewer to truly see and feel the power of the icon behind the image. His cowboy series is an undeniable practice of his acute awareness of the underpinnings of American mass culture that percolate in the subconscious. Splendidly manifested in Untitled (Cowboy), Prince’s reproduction of the familiar visual world brings to light the mechanisms that administer its proliferation as mythology. The result of this critical re-photographing practice is a conceptually innovative, breath-taking, enigmatic image that is endowed with a history of the artist’s continued practice and mastery.

Elizabeth Peyton

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 752,000

Christmas (Tony) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ELIZABETH PEYTON (b. 1965)
Christmas (Tony), 2000
Oil on panel
12 x 9 1/8 inches (30.5 x 23.2 cm)
Signed, titled and dated 2000 (on the reverse)

Intimately scaled and rendered in lush, sensual brushstrokes, Christmas (Tony) from 2000 exquisitely depicts Elizabeth Peyton’s fellow artist and longtime lover Tony Just. Wearing an exquisite royal blue pinstriped suit and porting a wide-brimmed hat that mysteriously obscures the figure’s eyes, the present work is suffused with a cool seductiveness, which manifests everywhere from Peyton’s attention to her subject’s tousled hair and ruby lips, to her delicate, dreamlike palette of soft purples and browns. Like much of Peyton’s oeuvre, Christmas (Tony) is striking in its simplicity of style and subject matter; as in her numerous other portraits of friends and loved ones, she paints with broad strokes and spare details that make the scene at hand seem both mundane yet hazy, to create a powerfully atmosphere impact for the viewer.

Christmas (Tony) is a classic example of Peyton’s endless fascination with the feminine and androgynous male forms, a subject she began exploring at the start of her career through portraits of a fresh-faced Napoleon Bonaparte inspired by the 19th-century paintings of Jacques-Louis David and Antoine-Jean Gros. It was this same aesthetic impulse that drew Peyton to Tony when they first met at a party in the 1990s. As she once recalled, “He was magnetic. I wanted to look at him all the time.” (Elizabeth Peyton, quoted in Steve Lafreniere, “A Conversation with the Artist” in Matthew Higgs, et. al., Elizabeth Peyton, New York, 2005, p. 252) The present work seamlessly weaves together all of these characteristic elements of Peyton’s practice into a single painting. She depicts Tony—whose appearance she has often compared to that of a youthful Napoleon—in a paparazzi- like image of him in his finest clothing. Slipping deftly between signifiers of gender, culture, and history, Peyton’s portrait is a charming token of love that simultaneously casts an insightful eye on ideas of masculine perception and identity in modern society.

Martin Wong

Sotheby’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 600,000 – 800,000
USD 952,500

Liberty Mourning the Death of Her Sister – Beijing | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

MARTIN WONG (1946 – 1999)
Liberty Mourning the Death of Her Sister – Beijing, 1989
Acrylic on canvas
48 x 59 1/2 inches (121.9 x 151.1 cm)

Liberty Mourning the Death of Her Sister – Beijing from 1989 is testament to Martin Wong’s ability to revel in his lived experience to create powerfully enduring works of art. In the present work, Wong showcases a characteristically poignant and deeply introspective rendition of the Statue of Liberty, one of the most iconic symbols of American democracy. Exuding a state of palpable mourning and sadness, Lady Liberty’s posture is one of incredible sorrow, her head in her hands, contrary to her usual proud stance. To her left, the pergolas of Beijing’s cityscape frame the pictureplane, signaling a deeper underlying significance to the iconic statue’s state of dismay. By presenting Lady Liberty in tears, Wong directly references the government suppressed student-led democracy movement in China, which culminated on June 4, 1989 following the incredibly tragic June Fourth Incident. Wong, as a son of Chinese immigrants, was incredibly impacted by this horrific act of violence and subsequently realized three portraits of the Statue of Liberty in mourning. A masterful example of the most consistent theme within his storied practice, Liberty Mourning the Death of Her Sister – Beijing was created in the same year as this historic event in Chinese history, and was subsequently exhibited at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in June of 1990.

LEFT: MARTIN WONG’, LIBERTY MOURNING THE DEATH OF HER SISTER – BEIJING, 1989 , THE ALBRIGHT-KNOX ART GALLERY, BUFFALO / RIGHT: MARTIN WONG, UNTITLED (STATUE OF LIBERTY), 1990, PRIVATE COLLECTION

The figure depicted in the present work grieves over the events of June 4, 1989, when the Chinese government suppressed the student democracy movement in Tiananmen Square. The ‘sister’ referenced in the work’s title is taken from the ‘Goddess of Democracy’ statue that students of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing erected in Tiananmen Square directly facing off against the giant portrait of Chairman Mao that hangs on the Gate of Heavenly Peace. As a child of Chinese immigrants who fled communist China in search of the opportunities promised in the United States, Wong felt deeply empathetic for the plight of the Chinese youth who were fighting for their own freedom. This momentous portrait of Lady Liberty serves as an enduring symbol for the American desire for widespread democracy and the continuous pursuit of justice in the face of political and socioeconomic adversity.

In the present work, Wong carefully painted Lady Liberty’s face with hundreds of small bricks, each containing a brilliant depth of color and shading, a marked departure from the green oxidized copper original statue. Indeed, Wong’s fascination with bricks within his practice carries through his most recognizable works. For Wong, bricks are a metaphor for the New York City’s urban landscape, which to him, often felt deeply confining. As openly-gay Chinese-American man, Wong experienced the isolating feeling of being different and considered an outcast by wider society. Moreover, in 1978, Wong purchased a toy train station lined with small-scale bricks, which sparked his obsession with the medium. Wong’s employment of bricks within his paintings also pays homage to his background as a sculptor, having studied ceramics at Humboldt State University as a young artist. Indeed, the act of painting each brick with great details mirrors the labor-intensive process of creating physical bricks themselves. By changing the material of Lady Liberty from copper to brick, Wong also pays homage to the immigrant workers that built many of the buildings in New York City. Underscoring Wong’s unique ability to find beauty and signficance in the mundane, his employment of bricks can also be seen as his attempt to rebuild his idealized peaceful world by way of the image. Throughout his career, Wong’s work highlighted those who were subjugated or experienced violence at the hands of the state. Liberty Mourning the Death of Her Sister – Beijing reigns as an impactful portrait of the Statue of Liberty in mourning, and within Wong’s entire body of work, stands out as one of the most iconic and moving tableaus. A portrait that is as telling about its subject matter as it is about its creator, Liberty Mourning the Death of Her Sister – Beijing endures as Wong’s touching tribute to an unspeakable tragedy of democracy, underscoring his autobiographical approach to social realism and his insurmountable empathy for his fellow man.

Jeff Koons

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 350,000 – 550,000
USD 819,000

https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6482494

JEFF KOONS (B. 1955)
Snorkel Vest, 1985
Bronze
21x18x6 inches (53.3 x 45.7 x 15.2 cm)
This work is number three from an edition of three plus one artist’s proof

A significant forerunner to the artist’s use of fabricated inflatables, Jeff Koons’s Snorkel Vest is an important bronze from his iconic Equilibrium series. Departing from the readymade sculptures of his earlier work, the cast bronze sculptures of the Equilibrium series anticipated Koons’s later use of inflatables—most notably in the Celebration and Popeye series.

“Inflatables, of course, are metaphors for people, and they are metaphors of life and optimism for me. The most deathlike image I know is of an inflatable that has collapsed.”

Snorkel Vest, of course, will never collapse. This iconic sculpture exists in a state of preservation and equilibrium; a flotation device permanently inflated but prepared to sink anyone who might try and wear it; a deep meditation in bronze on the perils of salvation. At once aesthetically alluring and meticulously fabricated, this sculpture speaks to the very heart of Koons’s relationship with inflatables—lacing them with a dark commentary on the notion of salvation. Worn on the chest and strapped at the back, inflated and deflated through an oral inflation tube, this type of flotation vest is most popular among recreational snorkelers. The dark commentary on dysfunction is apparent in Snorkel Vest when considering that the flotation device, cast in bronze, no longer floats. In fact, the allure of sculpture resides in its juxtaposition of material and form, and the result of this juxtaposition is an extremely tactile work of art that almost begs to be touched. With its attractive folds of vinyl and nylon cast in bronze, one cannot help but wonder whether the vest is in fact solid or soft. The apparent contradiction of a bronze inflatable leads then to the startling realization that Koons has created a work of art that is the functional opposite of its archetype. The buoyant life preserver now sinks, and we are left to understand that the devices meant to save us may in fact drown us.

Impossibility and unsustainability are essential themes in the artist’s Equilibrium series, and Snorkel Vest embodies these themes with undeniable sprezzatura. The meticulous cast and the rich color of bronze arouse our curiosity and create a unique viewing sensation that is simultaneously solemn and buoyant, exciting and somber. At the same time, Snorkel Vest operates intellectually by allowing us to question, through the medium of sculpture, the act of preservation, as well as the heavy ideals preserved in monuments. Koons’s various attempts at preservation (in bronze, behind glass or in tanks of water) render all of the objects in his Equilibrium series useless. The basketball can no longer be dribbled, the bronze lifeboat cannot float, but by rendering these objects physically immutable, they are kept from decomposing and deflating. This is the state of equilibrium or balance toward which the entire Equilibrium series aspires, as the artwork is harmonized for the present, existing in stasis, almost inaccessible.

BLUD ‘N TAR, 2024

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 120,000 – 180,000
USD 189,000

KENNY SCHARF (B. 1958), BLUD ‘N TAR | Christie’s (christies.com)

Focus: Post-War

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1. Joan Mitchell

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Sotheby’s to Offer Four Masterworks by Joan Mitchell Spanning Nearly Half a Century

Noon, circa 1969

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 15,000,000 – 20,000,000
USD 22,615,400

Noon | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

JOAN MITCHELL (1925 – 1992)
Noon, circa 1969
Oil on canvas
102×79 inches (259.1 x 200.7 cm)
Signed (lower left); signed and titled (on the reverse)

Thick rectangles of marigold, violet, and verdant green join feathery, impastoed daubs of paint in Joan Mitchell’s Noon, a masterpiece which triumphantly announces the artist’s full confidence in the medium. Executed circa 1969, Noon emerges from the year after she relocated to Vétheuil, a town in the French countryside once home to Claude Monet. This move would mark a decisive turn in her career, as her canvases became larger and the stimulation afforded by the bucolic splendors of her surroundings proved immensely generative. Shifting away from the academic concerns of her earlier output, by the late 1960s, Mitchell had entered a new era, one which sees her brushwork at its most diverse and self-assured.

JOAN MITCHELL PHOTOGRAPHED IN VÉTHEUIL, FRANCE, 1972. PHOTO © NANCY CRAMPTON

Towering at over eight feet tall, Noon’s surface absorbs its viewer into its poetic translation of the landscape into bursting, uncompromising color and form. This is a painting that reveals a mature artist at her absolute height: in 1972, the Everson Museum in Syracuse would organize the first major solo survey of Mitchell’s work – in which the present work was notably exhibited – and just two years later, she would be honored with a monumental retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Undoubtedly among the best examples from this celebrated period, Noon testifies to the profundity of Mitchell’s encounter with the natural world: its wealth of color, space, and light find home on Mitchell’s early Vétheuil canvases with exacting specificity, vestiges of a life shaped by place, directed by gesture, and documented by brush.

LEFT: SAM FRANCIS, UNTITLED, 1958. IMAGE © THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART/LICENSED BY SCALA / ART RESOURCE, NY. © 2024 SAM FRANCIS FOUNDATION, CALIFORNIA / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. RIGHT: CLAUDE MONET, WATERLILIES, 1916-1919.
MUSÉE MARMOTTAN-CLAUDE MONET, PARIS, FRANCE.
IMAGE © ERICH LESSING / ART RESOURCE, NY

In 1968, Mitchell permanently settled on a sprawling rural estate in Vétheuil. There, secluded from the dominant narrative of Abstract Expressionism, her paintings begin to exhibit the same sumptuousness of palette and acute sensitivity to light articulated in the captivating plein air paintings of Claude Monet, who painted the landscapes of Vétheuil years before. In her work, she accepted all of Vétheuil’s offerings: her palette took on the region’s ultramarines, sunny yellows, and tangerines, all of which would comprise her signature palette until her death. Opening like portals into the expansive world around her, doused in rich, exuberant light, her paintings communicated a brightness not unlike Henri Matisse’s Open Window, Collioure, which extends the chromatic vivacity of the outdoors beyond the representational and into the experiential. Likewise, her canvases continued to stretch outwards, reaching out to meet the vaulted ceilings of her studio.

The paintings that poured out of her initial years in France revealed not only Mitchell’s full chromatic expression but also her rich personal associations with the land and the artists it has inspired. As a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she reveled in the magisterial canvases by Monet and van Gogh housed at the Art Institute’s galleries, artists whom she’d venerated in youth and would go on to establish a kinship through place.

LEFT: VINCENT VAN GOGH, ROAD TO SAINT-REMY, 1890.
PRIVATE COLLECTION, LUGANO, SWITZERLAND
 IMAGE © ERICH LESSING / ART RESOURCE, NY. RIGHT: CHAIM SOUTINE, LANDSCAPE, 1919. PRIVATE COLLECTION. IMAGE © BRIDGEMAN IMAGES. ART © 2024 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK / ADAGP, PARIS

Her evocations of the world around, however, do not merely situate Mitchell in a lineage of artists in the same pursuit: unlike Mondrian, whose grids systematically distilled the natural world, or Kandinsky, whose resplendent geometries found their inspiration in music, Mitchell concerned herself – or submitted herself, rather – to affect. Dancing between deliberation and immediacy, abstraction and allusionism, her definitively nonrepresentational vocabulary remains encoded with figurative, illusory vestiges charged with feeling. The present work’s title speaks to this – Mitchell, who rose at midday and worked late into the evenings, titled Noon after the earliest, hottest point in her day. At noon, the light is its clearest and most direct, and, befittingly, Noon sees the artist utterly lucid, triumphant in the apex of her creative powers.

“I would rather leave Nature to itself. It is quite beautiful enough as it is.
I don’t want to improve it…I certainly never mirror it.
I would like more to paint what it leaves me with.” 

Cacophonous yet sonorous, Mitchell exercises the whole of her technical proficiency and derives inspiration from the place she loved most. Noon suffuses its viewer in aqueous, animated glory, and the painterly force contained therein would direct the tenor and cadence of the rest of her prolific years in Vétheuil.

Ground, 1989

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 12,000,000 – 18,000,000
USD 10,101,000

Ground | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)
GUARANTEED

JOAN MITCHELL (1925 – 1992)
Ground, 1989
Oil on canvas, in two parts
Overall: 220×395 cm (86 5/8 x 155 1/2 inches)
Signed (lower right)

Ebullient, calligraphic ribbons of rose, cerulean, orange and emerald pirouette across the monumental surface of Joan Mitchell’s Ground, an exemplar of Mitchell’s last mature body of work. Executed in 1989, in the final years of her career, Ground sees Mitchell triumph over her ailing health, once again calling upon the diptych format to produce a composition so saturated, expansive, and self-assured that it marks the utter apex of her technical and creative powers. Muscular yet balletic, Mitchell’s late works from the 1980s remain perhaps her most powerful and affecting abstractions of the French countryside, dappling resplendent showers of light and color into a gestural vocabulary unmistakably her own.

Testament to the significance of her late diptychs in the artist’s prodigious oeuvre, other large-scale examples are held in such esteemed international institutional collections as Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and Centre Pompidou, Paris, among others. A confident ode to Mitchell’s resilient physicality and propulsive dedication to her medium of oil paint, Ground represents the apotheosis of the abstract vernacular she developed so tirelessly.

CLAUDE MONET, LE BASSIN AUX NYMPHÉAS, 1917-19. PRIVATE COLLECTION. SOLD AT SOTHEBY’S, NEW YORK FOR $70.3 MILLION IN MAY 2021

Ground summons a prismatic range of colors, exhibiting a more open construct: the alabaster field acts as equal partner to lilac, apricot, and shots of dark wine, all riotously tangled at the command of Mitchell’s broad brush. The frenetic, dense composition reveals the artist’s affinity for the American action painters, among whom she lived and worked in the initial decade of her mature career; as one of the few women to garner significant critical acclaim within the early days of the predominantly male Abstract Expressionist movement.

Across the face of Ground’s two canvases, Mitchell’s unencumbered hand leaves marks redolent of the animation and tactility that defied her age: Mitchell’s canvas ceases to be merely a surface, transforming instead into a performative arena in which she choreographs the ever-shifting light, colors, movements, and textures of Vétheuil. “She would open up the tenuous space of her compositions and dance ribbons of color and gesture across the surface,” Richard D. Marshall observed, “or construct compartmentalized passages of form and color that would coalesce into energized physical expressions. With apparent abandon, she threw, splashed, or forced paint onto the canvas in her distinctive colors and gestures: the paintings display her fondness for a palette of blue, green, orange, black, and white, together with her personal vocabulary of choppy vertical smears, washes of pastel hues, slashed aggressive hues, loops of joyful color, definite drips, thick globs of paint, and eccentric composition.” (Richard D. Marshall quoted in: Exh. Cat., New York, Cheim & Read, The Last Paintings, 2011, n.p.)

HENRI MATISSE, LA PERRUCHE ET LA SIRÈNE, 1952. IMAGE © PICTORIGHT AMSTERDAM/STEDELIJK MUSEUM AMSTERDAM. ART © 2024 SUCCESSION H. MATISSE / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK

Though the gestural style of her American contemporaries – storied artists such as Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning – shaped her abstract painterly idiom, Mitchell’s profound appreciation for the beauty of the natural world fostered a strong connection to the French Impressionists and European Post-Impressionists. For instance, Ground’s concentrated bulbs of pigment recall Henri Matisse’s iconic cutouts, such as in La perruche et la sirène from 1952, which forgoes perspectival order in favor of emphasizing the interplay between organic form and the negative space of the canvas.

LEFT: WILLEM DE KOONING, UNTITLED V, 1982. IMAGE © THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART/LICENSED BY SCALA / ART RESOURCE, NY. ART © 2023 THE WILLEM DE KOONING FOUNDATION / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. RIGHT: VINCENT VAN GOGH, IRISES, 1889. IMAGE © THE GETTY, LOS ANGELES

Through her last works, the transformative effects of that initial move to Vétheuil in 1968 stayed with Mitchell; there, she found the conceptual freedom to create a highly idiosyncratic painterly style which marries the ethereal with the physical, the felt with the seen. Sumptuously layered and smeared upon the soaring canvas, each coruscating stroke invokes a lush density reminiscent of Monet’s late renderings of his rose garden at Giverny. As Mitchell and Monet entered the final years of their careers, both produced canvases of startling energy that defy time and age, miraculously capturing the impermanence of light suspended in decentralized space, resulting in Ground’s concentrated bulbs of pigment. The radical experimentation that transpired every decade of Mitchell’s working life culminates in Ground: ceaseless, repeated investigations of line, color and form embody the visceral interplay between strength and sensuality, delicacy and mass, marrying the explosive freedom of her final diptychs with the disciplined compositional infrastructure of her early abstractions.

Chord X, 1987

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 10,000,000 – 15,000,000

JOAN MITCHELL (1925-1992), Chord X | Christie’s (christies.com)

JOAN MITCHELL (1925-1992)
Chord X, 1987
Oil on canvas
102 ½ x 78 5/8 inches (260.4 x 199.7 cm)
Signed ‘Joan Mitchell’ (lower right)

Painted in 1987, Joan Mitchell’s Chord X is a dazzling late career masterpiece in which a soaring cluster of beautiful, jewel-like colors provides the vehicle for the artist’s bravado brushwork. Mitchell’s Chord paintings were created in the years directly following her Grande Vallée paintings, after the artist had recovered from serious health issues and the loss of family and friends. They begin to announce a new clarity of vision that emerges in her late work, in which airy passages of white paint allow the colors in her arsenal to truly sing. Named after musical chords, in which three or more tones played together yield a more complex and sonorous sound, Mitchell’s Chord paintings also testify to her long abiding love of music, particularly Bach’s cantatas, which she listened to obsessively at this time.

In the last five years of her life, Mitchell, like fellow Abstract Expressionist, de Kooning, pared down her visual vernacular to its true essence, embracing pure colors like cobalt blue, emerald green, yellow, violet and crimson, which—in the present work—she used in a direct alla prima technique. “Mitchell lets fly with color,” the art critic Bill Berkson observed, upon viewing her 1988 retrospective at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.,” writing: “You can watch her arranging, supervising, making the strokes and drips go securely where she wants” (B. Berkson, “In Living Chaos: Joan Mitchell,” Artforum, September 1988, p. 97).

Indeed, Mitchell has masterfully orchestrated these effects in Chord X, often pairing opposite colors side-by-side, such as green with red, or yellow with blue. Elsewhere, she pairs analogous colors like green and blue, blue and. purple, or yellow and green, which act as secondary “notes” to be played with their contrasting neighbor, yielding new tonal variations that evoke the musical “chord” that the title describes. The intensely tangled and knotted brushstrokes in Chord X can be seen as a continuation of the tightly interwoven but nevertheless lyrical and arcing brushwork of the Grande Vallée paintings. Using the full reach of her arms and legs, Mitchell used a wide brush to create the vigorous back-and-forth and up-and-down movements, adding touches of black to deepen the color relationships. The colorful, tangled and hovering cloud in Chord X is nevertheless inflected with sparkling passages of bright white, lending an airy atmosphere that evokes the fluttering, wriggling aliveness of the natural world, particularly her home in the pastoral French countryside of Vétheuil.

Henri Matisse, Dance I, 1909. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2024 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.  Photo: © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY.

Chord X also testifies to the artist’s life-long passion for the great French Modernists, notably Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Paul Cezanne and Claude Monet. Mitchell communed with the French Masters on a daily basis at her home at La Tour, which afforded her a distant view of Monet’s cottage. Particularly in the last years of her life, she seemed to draw them in closer around her, as if she finally allowed herself the freedom to join them in their perennial quest to capture the effects of nature and the “impression” it left her with. Particularly in Chord X, Mitchell’s clever arrangement of opposing colors demonstrates what van Gogh called “the mysterious vibration of kindred tones” (V. van Gogh, quoted in P. Albers, Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter, A Life, New York, 2011, p. 391), and what is often referred to as “broken color” in Impressionist paintings describing the juxtaposition of two or more colors in a single passage.

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition Number 8, 1923. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

The allegorical title of the Chord series corresponds to a moment in Mitchell’s life when music proved to be both an inspirational and restorative force. A longtime music lover, whose obsession had begun in childhood, Mitchell would often accompany her father to concerts in Chicago, and her mother, a poet, invited musicians to their home. Indeed, during the mid-1980s, music was a rallying call-to-arms, spurring her on to climb the stairs to her studio and get on with the business of painting. Her favorites at the time included Bach’s Cantata 78, along with Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone. She also returned to Mozart’s Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute again and again.

Untitled, circa 1955

Lush torrents of jewel-toned pigment burst from the canvas in Joan Mitchell’s Untitled, producing a symphony of fuschia, violet, and cobalt that coalesces with the artist’s quintessential vision. Executed circa 1955, the onset of the most formative and celebrated period of Mitchell’s career, Untitled initiates a nuanced dialogue between representation and abstraction; memory and emotion; gesture and color with its unrestrained painterly vocabulary. Comparable masterworks that Mitchell produced in the 1950s are today regarded as her first mature body of work, with many belonging to some of the world’s most renowned institutions including City Landscape, 1955 in the Art Institute of Chicago, which bears a similar handling of paint and palette as the present work. Untitled emerges from a critical time in Mitchell’s career: following a trip to Paris in 1955 – around the time she executed the present work – Mitchell continued to return from New York, eventually moving there outright in 1959, drawn to the landscapes that would foster within her endless inspiration. Across the monumental expanse of Untitled, Mitchell expresses her distinct Abstract Expressionist voice with resplendent lyricism: the immense scale, dynamic clusters of feathery brushstrokes, and modulating intensity of paint distinguish Untitled as a paragon not only of Mitchell’s prolific career, but also of the heroic sensibilities inherent to Abstract Expressionism.

WALTER SILVER, JOAN MITCHELL, C. 1958. THE WALTER SILVER COLLECTION, THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY. IMAGE © COPYRIGHT NY PUBLIC LIBRARY

 

Speaking to the kinship Mitchell felt with the French Impressionists, La Plage is executed in a palette suggesting the juxtaposition of land and water. As Rosalind Krauss describes: “In this painting one finds a small-scale and tender evocation of those feelings about both landscape and painting that were the combined discoveries of Impressionism. Which is to say that there is a rehearsal of those feelings of the magical that are elicited by the paintmark’s capacity to declare and then transcend its own inert physicality. The daub of burnt umber that can be seen transforming itself into a patch of shadow or a rough outcropping of stone has about it an almost endless power to astonish us with its continual performance of metamorphosis. This quality of magic is at the same time daunted by a recognition that nature totally outdistances one’s capacities to describe or imitate it: the scale and luminosity of nature being essentially inimitable. This series of recognitions, promoted by the best of landscape painting, leaves one both trapped in and consoled by an apprehension of the limitations of consciousness.” (Rosalind Krauss, “Painting Becomes Cyclorama,” Artforum, vol. 12, issue 10, June 1974, pp. 50 – 52)

LEFT: CLAUDE MONET, ÉTRETAT: THE BEACH AND THE FALAISE D’AMONT, 1885. ART INSTUTE OF CHICAGO.
RIGHT: MAURICE PREDERGAST, BEACH SCENE, C. 1910-1913. BARNES FOUNDATION, PHILADELPHIA.

Though geographically distant from her New York contemporaries and even the Parisian art scene, Mitchell’s work always stood in vivid dialogue with the artistic cutting edge. Her familiarity with the work of Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Philip Guston is apparent in her bold brushwork while her compositional rigor echoes Robert Motherwell’s Elegies to the Spanish Republic. In the present work, an embrace of the white void paired with deliberately erratic and geometric forms is particularly redolent of Cy Twombly: Mitchell’s own command of rectangles and trapezoid-like shapes echoes Twombly’s use of similar forms. As the embodiment of beauty and of the psyche, these forms exude an extremely reduced architectural language that is not grounded in the materiality of form but in psychological potential. Similar to Twombly, who himself had emigrated away from New York to seek refuge in the by-gone antique opulence of Rome, Mitchell developed a strong predilection towards landscape. Rather than expressing her emotions in figurative forms, Mitchell’s embrace of the void and whiteness echoes the dictum of French avant-garde poet Stéphane Mallarmé: “To paint, not the thing, but the effect it provides” (Georges Jean-Aubry and Henri Mondor, Eds., Stéphane Mallarmé – Œuvres completes, Paris 1945, p. 307). Just as Twombly had embraced a visual kind of Mallarméan silence, Mitchell started to engage with the white ground in a similarly evocative way. Superseding mere background, whiteness in the present work becomes an intensely enlivened part of the composition and acts as a powerful contrast to the brilliance and forcefulness of Mitchell’s use of color.

As with the most quintessential examples of Mitchell’s celebrated corpus, La Plage possesses a visual authority that summons the viewer to imagine the physicality of Mitchell’s creative process while experiencing the intoxicating expressiveness of its outcome. Consistent with Mitchell’s most celebrated work of the 1970s, the mesmerizing mixture of thin, emotive swathes of paint and thicker, more spontaneous brushstrokes exhibited in the present work suggests a corresponding progression towards greater emotional depth on the part of the artist. It is in the mesmerizing coalescence of these diverse applications that La Plage derives its ultimate painterly presence.

Crow Hill, 1966

Christie’s New-York: 16 May 2024
Estimated: USD 7,000,000 – 10,000,000
PASSED

JOAN MITCHELL (1925-1992), Crow Hill | Christie’s (christies.com)

JOAN MITCHELL (1925-1992)
Crow Hill, 1966
Oil on canvas
76 3/4 x 51 inches (195 x 129.5 cm)
Signed ‘Mitchell’ (on the reverse)

Joan Mitchell’s Crow Hill is a virtuoso painting that showcases the artist’s unique ability to choreograph lavish applications of paint in the service of evoking the most powerful human emotions. Painted in 1966, a period regarded as being one of the most seminal for the artist, the painting showcases Mitchell’s contribution to the post-war canon: combining her highly skillful brushwork, her advanced use of color, and her unrivalled understanding of compositional space. Evoking feelings of both love and empathy, Crow Hill expresses the sense of liberation that she felt in her new home in France, but also the crushing sense of loss following the death of two people close to her. These competing emotions would lay the groundwork for some of her most important paintings of the next two decades, as she began to move away from the aggressively Abstract Expressionist brushwork that dominated her canvases of the 1950s and began to evolve a wider range of more sophisticated gestures that allowed her work to develop a distinctive lyrical quality.

The surface of Crow Hill sets out a highly sophisticated arrangement of gestural elements, thick slabs of impasto, delicate trails of thinned pigment, dense pools of color, and pockets of white space all tussle for attention. The upper half of the composition is comprised of a complex lattice of interwoven painterly elements. This muscular patchwork of azure, cobalt, and Persian blues interspersed with myrtle and forest greens, and adorned with flashes of royal purple and ruby red, displays Mitchell’s skills as one of Abstract Expressionism’s pre-eminent colorists. Never overwhelming, yet always deliberate, her painterly energy manifests itself superbly across the surface of the large-scale canvas. As the eye explores, the density of the composition begins to loosen and areas of white pigment punctuate and open up the surface. The abundant brushstrokes that dominate the upper portion of the canvas become more articulated, their weighty volume dissolving into elegant lines of effervescent drips, surrounded by swathes of powdery white pigment.

Vincent Van Gogh, Wheatfield with Crows, 1890. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Photo: Art Resource, New York.

Mitchell is well-known for adopting enigmatic titles for her paintings and Crow Hill is no exception. While no direct meaning has been recorded, inferences have been drawn to the symbolic meaning of the eponymous bird in the painting’s title. In van Gogh’s famous Wheatfield with Crows (1890, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) the artist’s vigorous brushwork depicts a murder of crows, often regarded as a harbinger of death, shown as a series of black forms sent against an ominous dark blue sky. Yet, although Mitchell was hugely inspired by natural forms, she was quick to remind people that she was resolutely not a referential painter.

“I paint from remembered landscapes that I carry with me, and [from] remembered feelings of them, which of course become transformed. I would rather leave nature to itself. I would like more to paint what it leaves me with.”

Joan Mitchell in her studio, 1962. Photo: BIOT Jean-Pierre / Paris Match via Getty Images. Artwork: © Estate of Joan Mitchell.

2. Andy Warhol

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2.1. Flowers

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Late Four-Foot Flowers, 1967

Sotheby’s New-York: 13 May 2024
Estimated: USD 7,000,000 – 10,000,000
USD 11,250,000

Late Four-Foot Flowers | Contemporary Evening Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

ANDY WARHOL (1928 – 1987)
Late Four-Foot Flowers, 1967
Acrylic, silkscreen ink and graphite on canvas
48×48 inches (121.9 x 121.9 cm)

Four hibiscus in fluorescent shades of pink, orange, and violet bloom across the emerald surface of Late Four-Foot Flowers, in which Andy Warhol imposes his Pop idiom on one of the most storied genres in art history: the floral still life. The present work, executed in 1967, emerges from Warhol’s revisitation and expansion of the flower motif, during which time he diversified the palette, scale, and screens of the image he first debuted three years earlier, which today has become synonymous with American Pop.

ANDY WARHOL, PHILIP FAGAN AND GERARD MALANGA, NEW YORK, 1964. PHOTO UGO MULAS © UGO MULAS HEIRS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ART © 2024 ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK

Warhol’s shrewd recontextualization of a photograph published in the June 1964 issue of Modern Photography evinces a nascent interest in a more abstract, philosophical vernacular, one preceded by his Death and Disaster series and extended through the skulls, shadows, and religious iconography of his mature corpus. The flower motif’s resounding significance in the history of art, from the Dutch Vanitas to Claude Monet’s water lilies to Van Gogh’s sunflowers, also proved a fitting, intellectual subject for the Pop idiom he had explosively introduced earlier that decade. Warhol also borrows from the Modernist innovations of Henri Matisse, who in La Gerbe considered the floral subject as a vehicle for chromatic exploration and formal abstraction. Despite its vital, decadently saturated palette and ostensibly decorative aesthetic, which undoubtedly appealed to Warhol in his program of developing a truly popular art form, this is a motif laced with a preoccupation with mortality that permeates Warhol’s entire oeuvre, all the way through to his final self portraits. Late Four-Foot Flowers summarizes Warhol’s greatest contribution to twentieth century artmaking—the balance between appropriation and ingenuity—and endures today as a vibrant moniker for the artist, one that epitomizes the fragility of life and intangible transience of fame.

LEFT; HENRI MATISSE, LA GERBE, 1953. LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART. IMAGE © 2024 MUSEUM ASSOCIATES / LACMA. LICENSED BY ART RESOURCE, NY. ART © 2024 SUCCESSION H. MATISSE / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. RIGHT: ROY LICHTENSTEIN, BLACK FLOWERS, 1961. IMAGE © 2024 THE BROAD, LOS ANGELES. ART © ESTATE OF ROY LICHTENSTEIN

Warhol first approached the flowers at the suggestion of the legendary Henry Geldzahler, then assistant curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who encouraged the artist to engage directly in the art historical tradition of still-life painting. The subsequent flowers Warhol created in summer 1964 would be the paintings he chose to exhibit in his inaugural show with Leo Castelli, a shift in representation that cemented his place at the artistic fore of his generation. Over the next few years, Warhol would return to the subject, such as in his solo installation at Galerie Ileana Sonnabend in Paris in 1965 and again in the present work. The source image for the Flowers originated in a series of color photographs of seven hibiscus blossoms printed in the June 1964 issue of Modern Photography, taken by editor Patricia Caulfield to demonstrate the varying visual effects of different exposure times and filter settings. The seriality of the images in Modern Photography undoubtedly appealed to Warhol’s acute sensitivity to repetition and mechanization, though rather than transfer the entire page of the magazine with four rectangular images of flowers, he isolated and cropped a square composition that included four flowers from one of the reproduced photos. This crop was then transferred onto acetate and its tonal range polarized to increase sharpness and provide the optimum template for the silkscreen mechanical to be made. Warhol chose the square format because of the four possible orientations available.

LEFT: GUSTAV KLIMT, BAUERNGARTEN (BLUMENGARTEN), 1907. PRIVATE COLLECTION. SOLD AT SOTHEBY’S, LONDON FOR £48 MILLION IN MARCH 2017. RIGHT: LUCIAN FREUD, DAFFODILS AND CELERY, 1947-48. SOLD AT SOTHEBY’S LONDON FOR £1.2 MILLION IN FEBRUARY 2006. PRIVATE COLLECTION. ART © 2024 LUCIAN FREUD

Warhol’s updated interpretation of this age-old motif, however, is consciously unimpassioned: he first rejected the hierarchical compositions of the grand tradition of still-life painting in Western art history in favor of an overhead perspective, which banishes the horizon and flattens and distorts the shape of each petal. Further, subtle modulations in light, shadow, and hue are eschewed in favor of planar zones of flat pigment, rendered in artificial Day-Glo and fluorescent ink and acrylic. After the Death and Disasters series of 1962-1963, which depicted sensational images of electric chairs, atomic bombs, and car crashes, the motif of four brightly blooming hibiscus flowers was almost anodyne, a palliative to the horror and violence of his previous imagery. However innocuous the Flowers seem, however, Warhol inescapably inherits historic concerns around time and temporality presented by the floral still life. Mortality would remain an obsessive, constant theme throughout the artist’s life, and his canvases—though they have succeeded in concretizing his artistic legacy in collective consciousness—betray his desperation to render the ephemeral permanent, frozen at moments of optimal beauty, even when undercut by terror.

The Flowers create “a virtual, painful stillness,” notes Heiner Bastian. “Since they seemingly only live on the surface, in the stasis of their coloration, they also initiate only the one metamorphosis which is a fundamental tenet of Warhol’s work: moments in a notion of transience. The flower pictures were for Everyman, they embodied Warhol’s power of concretization, the shortest possible route to stylization, both open to psychological interpretation and an ephemeral symbol. But the flowers…were also to be read as metaphors for the flowers of death. Warhol’s Flowers resist every philosophical transfiguration as effectively as the pictures of disasters and catastrophes which they now seem ever closer to.” (Heiner Bastian cited in: Exh. Cat., Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie, Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 2002, p. 33) Exuberant now, but soon to perish, the Flowers are Warhol’s confrontation of the art historical lineage he so tirelessly worked to become a part of, and Late Four-Foot Flowers serves as a metaphor for the fleeting transience of everything Warhol loved: beauty, greatness, and celebrity.

Andy Warhol

Christie’s New-York: 14 May 2024
Estimated: USD 20,000,000 – 30,000,000
USD 35,485,000

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987), Flowers | Christie’s (christies.com)

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)
Flowers, 1964
Acrylic, fluorescent paint and silkscreen ink on linen
82×82 inches (208.3 x 208.3 cm)
Signed twice and dated later ‘Andy Warhol Andy Warhol 65’ (on the overlap)

A towering achievement of Pop Art, Andy Warhol’s Flowers epitomizes the seismic effects of the twentieth-century’s most significant art movement. Bringing together the essential elements of Warhol’s oeuvre, this monumental painting displays the artist’s bold aesthetic vision alongside his deeply considered conceptual rigor. Measuring 82” square, this is among Warhol’s largest canvases and was one of just three Flowers of this size to be included in the seminal exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery which unveiled this body of work to an astonished public. “[The Flowers] are so goddamn beautiful,” wrote the critic Peter Schjeldahl. “And so simple. And their glamour was so intense … That’s why we reach for the word ‘genius’” (P. Schjeldahl, quoted in T. Scherman and D. Dalton, Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol, New York, 2009, pp. 236-237). Later selected for inclusion in the 2020 Warhol retrospective at Tate Modern, Warhol’s Flowers marks a pivotal point in the artist’s career, as he shifted from his powerful Death and Disaster series into a more seemingly palatable subject, but one that nonetheless retained the ability to rock the art world.

From a series of nine 82 inch Flowers painted in 1964, all set against lush green backgrounds, the present work is undoubtably one of the most striking. It boasts three dazzling Indo-orange blooms and a fourth rendered in a fiery cadmium red, all set against a verdant green ground, and all rendered in Day-Glo paint. The present work is the only 82” Flowers in which all the flowers and the foliage are painted with Day-Glo pigments. All of these oscillate against one another in natural light, but the effect is magnified when viewed under ultra-violet light. The hand-painted petals are the result of Warhol projecting an image of the flowers onto the canvas using a acetate sheet and then tracing their outlines in pencil before applying their vivid colors by hand. Though later works would see the artist eschewing this ‘handmade’ quality in favor of full mechanical reproduction, the present work is still adorned by his brush, however imperceptibly. By reducing the entire composition down to a few choice colors, Warhol creates a graphic intensity that has more in common with mass media billboards and printed periodicals than the subtle beauty of the source photograph.

The early 1960s was a time of dramatic innovation and veracious production for Warhol. In 1964 alone, he moved into a studio that would become his first ‘factory’, at 231 E 47th Street in Manhattan, he also exhibited his Death and Disaster series at Ileana Sonnabend’s gallery in Paris to rave reviews. In the spring and summer, he filled the Stable gallery in New York with Brillo boxes and Campbell’s soup cans and also completed his now-iconic film Empire. The juxtaposition of the everyday objects en masse in the former, and the intense—almost meditative observation—of the latter, highlighted the fact that Warhol was not merely a superficial purveyor of popular imagery but had actually tapped into the deeper concepts surrounding our relationship with commercialism as a society. By carefully and methodically choosing his subjects, the artist was able to create a personal treatise on human existence from seemingly anonymous reproductions, mass media techniques, and the appropriation of images and styles from design and advertising.

At the same time that he was creating dramatic compositions of soup, soap, and celebrities, Warhol was also looking at the darker side of American life with his images of electric chairs, race riots, and other scenes of calamity. During this time, the curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Henry Geldzahler, purportedly suggested that the artist create something with a less morbid theme. When Warhol asked him what he meant, Geldzahler remembers offering up the June 1964 issue of Modern Photography magazine opened to a page displaying a repeated color photograph of seven hibiscus flowers. The image, taken by the magazine’s editor Patricia Caulfield as an illustration for a new Kodak color processor, was repeated four times in a block with different tonal variations and seemed “ripe for Warholian plucking” (M. Lobel, “In Transition: Warhol’s Flowers,” in Andy Warhol Flowers, exh. cat., Eykyn Maclean, New York, 2012, n.p.). The artist seized upon the image as a catalyst for a new creative direction and reduced Caulfield’s original image to emphasize the four flowers on the right-hand side, while at the same time shifting the position of one of the blooms in order to more aesthetically fill the square shape of his intended composition. Next, Warhol rotated the scene and rearranged the floral centers to his liking. Lastly, in order to prepare it for the screen printing process, Warhol directed his assistant Billy Name “to run the photo repeatedly through the Factory’s new photostat machine—‘a dozen times, at least,’ said Billy, to flatten out the blossoms, removing their definition, the shadow that lent the photo its illusion of three-dimensionality. ‘He didn’t want it to look like a photo at all. He just wanted the shape, the basic outline, of the flowers’” (T. Scherman and D. Dalton, op. cit., p. 247). By altering the original in such a way, the artist converted a seemingly generic photograph into an iconic image. Through manipulation and repetition, he was able to separate the end result from its origin and create a more universal symbol.

Installation view, Andy Warhol, Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, 1964(present lot illustrated). Artwork: © 2024 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS).

The ubiquitous nature of Warhol’s floral arrangements is what makes the present work such an insightful interrogation of the way in which we consume mass media. The Flowers exist perfectly within the divide between journalistic depictions of the real world and stylized images used in logos, cartoons, and advertisements. They are both real and constructed at the same time. Warhol’s genius lies in his ability to bridge the expanse between the realm of fine art and one of deeper conceptual thought. By creating works that occupy multiple spaces at once, he problematized our relationship to images and questioned how we exist as fragile human beings in an increasingly prescribed world.

As a series, the Flowers represent a peak Warholian moment. The artist often highlighted the glamor of consumer culture, celebrity, and fame that were part and parcel of the glittering, shiny subjects favored by Pop artists. However, an ever-present darkness ran throughout Warhol’s oeuvre and often emerged in his images of skulls, celebrities, and series like his Death and Disaster paintings. While the idea of the memento mori, and a deeper conversation about human mortality is somewhat easier to pull from pieces like the Car Crashes or Skulls, it is somewhat surprising that the Flowers paintings are where Warhol actually reaches a poignant duality. “What is incredible about the best of the flower paintings,” wrote the critic John Coplans, “is that the