Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction

 

 

Led by Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of George Dyer

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Featuring:

Magnificent Gestures: Masterworks from 

the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Collection

&

To Live with Art: Property from the Collection of Jerome & Ellen Stern

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60+ Works Making Their Auction Debuts, Including:

Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of George Dyer | 

Roy Lichtenstein’s Female Head

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Cabra | Alberto Burri’s Nero Plastica L.A.

Louise Bourgeois’s Spider IV

 

 

 

NEW YORK, 2 November 2017 – Sotheby’s is delighted to share the full offerings of the Contemporary Art Evening Auction. Taking place in New York at 6:30pm on 16 November, the sale features signature paintings and sculptures by some of the art world’s most recognizable artists – including Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Jean Dubuffet, Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat and  Louise Bourgeois – many of them coming to auction for the first time. The multi-floor exhibition opens to the public on 3 November alongside Impressionist, Modern, American and Latin American art.

 

MAGNIFICENT GESTURES: MASTERWORKS FROM THE DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL COLLECTION

 

“Two New York collectors who have embraced drawings, sketches, pastels and watercolours are Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel and Carl Spielvogel. Over time and with a rare devotion to the art form, the couple has meticulously built unprecedented holdings of masterworks on paper.”

Peter Aspden

 

An unprecedented collection of masterworks on paper, offering unique insight into the creative spirit and personality of 20^th and 21^st century artists, the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Collection is a study in quality and rarity. From intensely-worked pastels to elemental pen and ink drawings, the offerings this November are diverse in technique as well as the impressive array of artists represented. The collection is distinguished further by the incredible depth in which the Spielvogels collected a number of artists, such as seven works by Jasper Johns, which capture many of his signature images and techniques, including the American flag and numbers.

 

Mark Rothko’s Untitled acrylic on paper mounted on canvas from 1968 leads the Contemporary offerings (estimate $5/7 million). A rare and ethereal example of the artist’s mature work, the work evokes all of the hallmarks of Rothko’s most iconic vernacular, bearing three distinct zones of sumptuous color and richly-expressive brushwork. Luminescent and serene, this work is a testament to Rothko’s singular mastery of light, color, and form in his revered corpus of works on paper. A second highlight from the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Collection is Jackson Pollock’s Untitled from 1951 (estimate $3/4 million). Notable for the density of its soaked color in vibrant ambers, yellow and rich blacks, the painting captures the artist working through a major stylistic development.

 

Full proceeds from the sale of works from the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Collection will benefit a charitable foundation of the same name, which was established to support causes that the Spielvogels have actively championed throughout their lives, including: science & medicine, educational reform & innovation, and cultural projects. (separate release available)

 

TO LIVE WITH ART: THE JEROME & ELLEN STERN COLLECTION

 

Driven by passion, curiosity and knowledge, Jerome & Ellen Stern compiled a unique collection over the course of 60 years, building friendships with artists, gallerists and the art world along the way. The resulting curation, of which over 60 lots are being offered at Sotheby’s in November, is particularly robust in Contemporary art and is led by David Smith’s Voltri-Bolton X, which was acquired in 1969, after Jerome Stern drove several hours to Bolton Landing and personally selected the present work (estimate $6/8 million). Additional highlights include Marlene Dumas’s Magdalena (Underwear and Bedtime Stories) (estimate $3/4 million), David Hammons’s Untitled (estimate $350/450,000), Wangechi Mutu’s A Dragon Kiss Always Ends in Ashes (estimate $150/200,000), Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s The Hours Behind You (estimate $250/350,000), and Joseph Cornell’s Untitled (Game Box) (estimate $350/450,000). (separate release available)

 

PROPERTY FROM VARIOUS OWNERS

 

Appearing in public for the first time in 50 years is Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of George Dyer, a tour-de-force of painterly expression (estimate $35/45 million). Painted during his passionate and frenzied relationship with George Dyer – a cornerstone of his personal and private life between the initial meeting in 1963 and Dyer’s death in 1969 – the triptych is one of five of this intimate scale completed during this time period; of the five, two are in museums and the other two have been offered at auction in recent years. The present example from 1966 has been exhibited only once before, shortly after its execution, and will make its auction debut on 16 November in New York. (separate release available)

 

Andy Warhol’s monumental Mao, painted in 1972 and exhibited in Berlin, Turin and Paris soon thereafter, returns to the world stage after remaining out of public view since 1974 (estimate $30/40 million). One of only 11 works in this 82-by-60-inch format, this remarkable portrait juxtaposes the deified image of the Chinese leader with an art form that fetishizes consumerist objects. Each of the other ten Mao paintings of this size are held in prestigious public and private collections worldwide, including the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, and the Brand Foundation, Greenwich, among others. One of the most iconic images of the 20th century, Warhol’s Mao manifests the same commanding presence as the state portrait that inspired it, and remains as powerful today as it was in 1972.

 

From the most-celebrated series of her career, Louise Bourgeois’s Spider IV, the largest of the wall-mounted spiders, will make its auction debut on 16 November with a pre-sale estimate of $10/15 million. While spiders are prevalent in Bourgeois’s oeuvre, and arguably the artist’s signature theme, the present spider with its dynamic and complex configuration is perhaps the most recognizable iteration: it is Spider IV that is pictured in the iconic portrait by Peter Bellamy of Louise Bourgeois, in which Bourgeois wraps her arms around two of the arachnid’s legs.

 

Jean Dubuffet’s Maison Fondée from 1961 is a vibrant and joyous depiction of the streets of Paris that vibrantly encapsulates the pinnacle of Dubuffet’s iconic and influential artistic practice (estimate $12/18 million). Maison Fondée is one of the first works from the celebrated series of Paris Circus paintings, other examples of which hang in some of the world’s most prestigious institutions including the Tate Museum in London, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Inspired by the frenetic urban bustle and vibrancy of post-war Paris, Maison Fondée captures the joie-de-vivre of a rejuvenated city, evident in the painting’s variegated surface and tangible vitality.

 

Acquired just months after it was painted, and cherished in a private New York collection for 40 years, Roy Lichtenstein’s Female Head is a superb example of the artist’s most iconic subject matter (estimate $10/15 million). Lichtenstein’s iconography and technique, including the signature blonde, the Ben-Day dots, the brushstroke, the mirror and the picture frame, weave together Cubism, Surrealism and Pop with unparalleled energy and imagination. (separate release available)

 

Jean-Michel Basquiat is represented by a number of works in the auction, most notably Cabra and Flash in Naples. Emerging from the collection of Ms. Yoko Ono, with a portion of the proceeds from the sale benefiting the Spirit Foundations, Cabra celebrates Muhammad Ali’s historic triumph over undefeated heavyweight boxer Oscar “The Bull” Bonavena in December 1970 and, more broadly, pays tribute to the black athlete’s heroic ascent to power. Acquired from Tony Shafrazi Gallery in 1993, the painting will make its auction debut on 16 November with a pre-sale estimate of $9/12 million (separate release available). Flash in Naples is also archetypal of the artist. Inspired by cartoons and comics, the present work depicts the Flash, a popular superhero in the 1960s and 1970s, whom the artist considered to be one of his personal heroes. Remarkable for its rarity, chromatic brilliance and painterly surface, Flash in Naples carries an estimate of $7/10 million.

 

Hailing from the Edwin & Cherie Silver Collection – distinguished collectors of non-Western art whose selection of  African, Oceanic, Pre-Columbian, and American Indian Art will be offered in a dedicated sale on 13 November – Alexander Calder’s Untitled is a superb example of the artist’s signature hanging mobiles (estimate $3/4 million). Measuring 91 inches in wingspan, this monumental work is an artistic triumph that balances 13 components of organic, triangular and crescent shapes in bright primary colors along a vibrant red wire. Acquired from the Earl Stendahl Gallery in 1973, Untitled has been dutifully cared for in the Silver Collection for over 40 years.

 

Exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in its acclaimed retrospective, Alberto Burri: The Trauma of Painting, Nero Plastica L.A. will also be offered at auction for the first time (estimate upon request). The largest work from the series ever to come to market, Nero Plastica L.A. is comparable to examples in or promised to international museums including Galleria Nazionale d’Arte, Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri, Collezione dei Premi Marzotto and the Museum of Modern Art. (separate release available)

 

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER’S AWARD-WINNING FERRARI

 

The Evening Auction will also include Michael Schumacher’s Grand Prix-Winning Ferrari – the first time a collector car will be offered at a Sotheby’s art auction (estimate $4/5.5 million).  Curated by RM Sotheby’s, the Ferrari F2001, chassis no. 211 is the most important modern Formula 1 race car and is amongst the most significant and most valuable competition cars in any collection worldwide, having been piloted to victory by the greatest-of-all-time driver – Michael Schumacher, at the most important and prestigious automobile race in the world – the Grand Prix de Monaco.