Sotheby’s Highlights from the November Evening Auction of CONTEMPORARY ART

Gerhard Richter’s Monumental Abstraktes Bild * Estimated in the Region of $30 Million *

Spanning the Career of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Led by Untitled (Pollo Frito) from 1982, * Estimate in Excess of $25 Million *

An Iconic Flag by Jasper Johns * Estimate $12/18 Million *

 

NEW YORK, 1 November 2018 – Sotheby’s is pleased to share highlights from our marquee Evening Auction of Contemporary Art in New York on 14 November 2018. The auction will commence with a selection of important works from the Collection of David Teiger, followed by incredible examples by iconic artists including Gerhard Richter, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jasper Johns, Christopher Wool – and the first works by Georgia O’Keeffe to be offered in a Contemporary Art Evening Auction worldwide. The 65 lots on offer will open for public exhibition in Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries tomorrow, 2 November, as part of our signature exhibitions of Contemporary, Impressionist & Modern and American Art.

 

THE HISTORY OF NOW: THE COLLECTION OF DAVID TEIGER

 

Following our ‘white-glove’ auction of fine art from the collection of the late David Teiger at Sotheby’s London, the Evening Auction will open with 11 works from the personal collection of this visionary collector, patron and Museum of Modern Art, New York trustee. Proceeds from the collection will benefit Teiger Foundation – soon to be one of the world’s largest and most significant contemporary art foundations – which was set up to support and promote excellence in contemporary art. The upcoming offering showcases Teiger’s commitment to acquiring the best possible examples by artists he long championed, including Peter Doig, Mark Grotjahn, Elizabeth Peyton, John Currin and Dana Schutz.

 

Unfolding before the viewer with the enigmatic charisma of a half-forgotten film, Peter Doig’s bewitching dreamscape House of Pictures stands as the ultimate testament to the painterly genius that has distinguished Doig as amongst the most significant and celebrated artists of his generation (estimate $8/12 million). Executed in 2000-2002, this iconic work has been included in a number of the artist’s most important retrospective exhibitions and widely illustrated as among the most celebrated pictures of his oeuvre.  

 

Mark Grotjahn’s Untitled (Black over Red Orange “Mean as a Snake” Face 842) belongs to the artist’s series of Face paintings – an exemplary body of work that he began at the turn of the millennium, defined by his ongoing thematic preoccupation with faces and masks (estimate $6/8 million). Measuring over eight feet tall and six feet wide, the large-scale painting immerses viewers in an intricate, thickly layered labyrinth of paint, directing their eyes towards an infinite webbing of multicolored lines that simultaneously reveal and undermine their making.

 

GERHARD RICHTER’S MONUMENTAL MASTERWORKS

 

The November auction is led by a monumental, two-panel Abstraktes Bild by Gerhard Richter from 1987, estimated to sell in the region of $30 million. Together the panels measure over 102 by 157 inches – of the 18 works from this period in Richter’s career measuring over 100 inches in both height and width, only 5 remain in private hands. This painting has been held in the same private European collection since it was acquired from Galerie Liliane & Michael Durand-Dessert, Paris the year after its execution. Prior to Sotheby’s viewings this fall, the work had not been exhibited publicly for three decades, since its inclusion in the widely-acclaimed Carnegie International exhibition at the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh in 1988-1989.

 

Bursting with exuberant color, gestural dynamism and compositional complexity, Richter’s highly-expressive Schwefel (Sulphur) is another large-scale painting by the artist that will highlight the sale (estimate $12/18 million). Executed in 1985, Schwefel marks the genesis of the artist’s iconic Abstrakte Bilder series and embodies a critical period in Richter’s oeuvre, in which he shifts gears toward abstract painting and showcases his aptitude for composition and mastery of the medium. 

 

FOUR WORKS SPANNING THE CAREER OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

 

As the international art world celebrates the recent opening of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s exhibition spanning the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sotheby’s is pleased to present a group of four works by the artist emerging from the same distinguished private European collection that similarly charts his rapid rise to international acclaim throughout the 1980s.

 

Together, the collection affords a remarkably comprehensive overview of Basquiat’s celebrated career. The group is led by his Untitled (Pollo Frito) from the critical year of 1982, when he fully ‘arrived’ on the international art scene. Comprising two panels that together span 12 feet (3.05 meters) across, Untitled (Pollo Frito) is estimated to sell for in excess of $25 million (pictured above). The collection also offers: Taxi, 45^th/Broadway, a collaboration painting with Andy Warhol from circa 1984-85 that was formerly in the collection of Gianni Versace (estimate $6/8 million); Untitledfrom 1982, a vibrant and densely-layered work on paper (estimate $1.5/2 million); and Untitled from 1988, a poignant monochromatic painting completed in the final year of Basquiat’s short life (estimate $2/4 million). Separate release available

 

JASPER JOHNS’S FLAGS

 

The November auction will offer two works depicting Jasper Johns’s iconic flag motif. Held in the same highly distinguished American collection since acquired from Leo Castelli shortly after it was painted, Flag from 1994 stands among the most elegantly-resolved embodiments of the artist’s fascination with sign and meaning (estimate $12/18 million). First rendered in the customary red, white and blue of the familiar American emblem, then veiled by the ethereal monochrome of Johns’s most favored grayscale palette, the nuanced coloration and multidimensional complexity of the presentFlag is – even within this revered series –among the most exquisite and virtuosic embodiments of Johns’s iconic motif.

 

Distinguished by its pristine provenance, Flags is an impressive watercolor acquired directly from Johns in 1971 by Betty Asher – the noted collector, contemporary art advocate and gallerist (estimate $4.5/6.5 million). The work then descended to her son Michael Asher, the Los Angeles-based artist, and was subsequently left to his namesake Foundation. Established in 2013, The Michael Asher Foundation is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to oversee, support, maintain and protect the historical accuracy and authenticity of Michael Asher’s work. Full proceeds from Flags will benefit the Foundation’s activities.

 

Flags is one of only a very small number of large-scale works on paper in which Johns, depicting this theme, painted in the critical early period of the 1960s. Bearing a nearly identical compositional format to the renowned painting Flags from 1965, which resides in the collection of the artist and has been on long-term loan to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota since 1988, the present watercolor actually postdates the larger oil paint on canvas composition – rendering it the ultimate realization and crystallization of one of the most iconic art historical motifs of the 20^thcentury.

 

THE FIRST WORKS BY GEORGIA O’KEEFFE IN A CONTEMPORARY ART EVENING AUCTION

 

Four years following our sale of Georgia O’Keeffe’s iconic flower painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, Sotheby’s is honored to announce that we will again offer important works by the artist from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico to benefit its Acquisitions Fund.

 

The 14 November sale will mark the first time that works by O’Keeffe will be presented in a Contemporary Art Evening Auction. Painted in 1926, A Street is one of the most physically imposing and psychologically penetrating works from the distinguished series of New York cityscapes that Georgia O’Keeffe created between 1925 and 1929 (pictured left, estimate $12/18 million). Critics now regard this small but powerful series of some 20 works as standing among the most satisfying, painterly, and memorable of her career. Calla Lilies on Red from 1928 is a vibrant depiction of the flower with which O’Keeffe would become synonymous (estimate $8/12 million). Between 1918 and 1932, Georgia O’Keeffe created more than 200 flower paintings. But it was arguably in the calla lily that the artist found her ideal motif – one that provided the perfect synthesis of subject and form that now defines her most celebrated work. Separate release available

 

MASTERWORKS BY CHRISTOPHER WOOL

FROM THE COLLECTION OF NORAH AND NORMAN STONE

 

The evening auction features two works that represent the very best of Christopher Wool’s text and abstract flower paintings, and which are emerging after decades in the private Bay Area collection of Norah and Norman Stone:

 

At once viscerally charged and aesthetically elusive, FUCKEM is the embodiment of Wool’s anarchic painterly enterprise (pictured right, estimate $6/8 million). Executed in 1992, the rebelliously-dismissive edict emblazoned upon the present work serves as an explosive statement of intent for Wool’s critically acclaimed artistic project, successfully disrupting and manipulating art historical precedent with exhilarating nonchalance. Monumentally scaled and intricately layered, Feet Don’t Fail Me Now from 1995 is a key touchstone of Wool’s revolutionary investigation into the genre of painting, which reverberates with the energy and dynamism of downtown counterculture in 1980s and 90s New York City (estimate $8/12 million). The work was notably included in the artist’s first major survey in the United States, Christopher Wool, which travelled to The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsbugh in 1998-1999.

 

DAVID HOCKNEY’S LOS ANGELES INTERIOR

 

David Hockney painted Montcalm Interior with 2 Dogs in 1988 – the same year as the artist’s first, critically acclaimed U.S. retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (estimate $9/12 million). Lit with the bright glow of California sunshine, the canvas captures a room within Hockney’s Montcalm Avenue home in Los Angeles, which he purchased in the summer of 1979. This home went on to inspire a number of the artist’s most iconic paintings of the late-1980s – including the sister painting to the present work, Large Interior, Los Angeles, which has been held in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1989. Montcalm Interior with 2 Dogs is on offer from the collection of television producer and writer Steven Bochco, having been purchased by the entertainment legend in 1997. Separate release available

 

SEEING CLEARLY: THE COLLECTION OF JUDITH E. NEISSER

 

Across several decades, Chicago-based collector Judith Neisser amassed an extraordinary collection of Contemporary art that is widely acclaimed for its special emphasis on Minimalist and Conceptual Art. The thematically-cohesive collection is distinguished by its explorations of the monochrome, seriality, and minimalist abstraction, and stands as a testament to Judith Neisser’s remarkable taste, prodigious scholarship, and patronage of the arts.

 

Sotheby’s will offer works from Judith Neisser’s collection across our Evening and Day Auctions of Contemporary Art this November. The Evening Auction features: Robert Ryman’s 1961 Untitled, an important example of the artist’s early work that has remained in her collection since 1997 (pictured right, estimate $1.8/2.5 million); Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale, executed in metallic gold and epitomizing the essence of the artist’s iconic career (estimate $1.5/2 million); Donald Judd’s Untitled, an exceptional work composed entirely of galvanized iron and executed during Judd’s most transformative period (estimate $1.5/2 million); and Cy Twombly’s Untitled, painted in 1970 during the apex of the artist’s celebrated Blackboard works (estimate $2.5/3.5 million).

 

A CELEBRATED MASTERPIECE BY HANS HOFMANN

 

Combining a devoted study of color and a dedication to compositions with a reverberating vitality, Leise zieht durch mein Gemüt liebliches Geläute (Mellow Sound of Bells Rings Gently through My Mind) emphatically testifies to Hans Hofmann’s distinctive status as both a pioneering colorist and preeminent abstractionist (estimate $5/7 million). Executed in 1961, when the artist was 81 years old, the present work perfectly captures the essential genius of Hofmann’s enduringly influential oeuvre. The painting bears an illustrious exhibition history that includes both the artist’s first retrospective exhibition in 1976-1977 – illustrated on the show’s catalogue cover – and the second major survey of his work in 1990. Leise zieht durch mein Gemüt liebliches Geläute (Mellow Sound of Bells Rings Gently through My Mind) has remained in the same American collection since 1973.

 

A ROTHKO PAINTING ON PAPER

 

A rare example of Mark Rothko’s large-scale painting on paper, Untitled, comes to auction from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (estimate $5/7 million), sold to benefit the institution’s Acquisitions Fund. Executed just a year before the artist’s death in 1970, Rothko experienced a period of intense creativity in the last two years of his life, during which he produced some of his most profound works. Characterized by its lustrous, radiating blackness, impressive scale and mysticism, Untitled encapsulates the spiritual complexity of Rothko’s mature style.

 

LICHTENSTEIN’S SURREALIST LANDSCAPE

 

An enigmatic landscape of psychological complexity and peerless formal execution, Figures from 1977 dates from the inaugural year of Roy Lichtenstein’s brief and highly acclaimed ‘Surrealist’ period between 1977 and 1979, during which the artist created his most visually and conceptually complex paintings to date (estimate $6/8 million). A testament to Lichtenstein’s enduring engagement with the nature of art, Figures integrates into its landscape images gleaned from comic books, Lichtenstein’s own oeuvre, and the full scope of art history, most notably Surrealism and Cubism.

 

FRANK STELLA’S MONUMENTAL SIGHT GAG

 

The evening auction will offer Frank Stella’s Sight Gag, a monumental work from 1974 (estimate $5.5/7.5 million). Displaying a mesmerizing sequence of black, gray, and white lines, the present painting is one of only two such monumental grayscale works within Stella’s Diderot series – Sotheby’s sold its sister painting, Pratfall, for $8.9 million in 2016. Standing a stunning 129-inches in height, this work also numbers among the largest-format examples of the artist’s beloved Concentric Squares. Notably selected for prominent inclusion in Stella’s widely-acclaimed travelling surveyFrank Stella, organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1987, Sight Gag has also been exhibited in major shows at the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others.