Sothebys Sale of Richter, Warhol And Freud To Make £35 Million

 

February Contemporary Art Sale will include works by Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Bridget Riley, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Takashi Murakami, Alighiero Boetti, Alberto Burri, and Leon Kossoff

With 2011 being Sotheby’s 3rd most successful year of all time for Contemporary Art, – totalling at an incredible $1.17 billion – the auction house is about stage a remarkably star-studded Contemporary Art sale, off-loading the works of artists like Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Bridget Riley, for an estimated £35.8 million! Taking place on February 15th, 2012, other featured artists include Jean-Michel Basquiat, Takashi Murakami, Alighiero Boetti, Alberto Burri, and Leon Kossoff.

In the words of Sotheby’s Chairman of Contemporary Art Europe, Cheyenne Westphal: ‘With the outstanding total of $1.17 billion achieved for Sotheby’s global sales of Contemporary Art in 2011, Sotheby’s leads the market in this field. Attesting to last year’s successes, the Evening Auction we have been able to assemble this winter will be led by numerous desirable and fresh-to-market artworks by internationally collected blue-chip artists such as Gerhard Richter, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francis Bacon, Takashi Murakami, Andy Warhol and Lucian Freud, among others, and the sale carries a pre-sale low estimate of £35 million which is in-line with the various-owners Contemporary Art Evening Auctions we staged in February and June last year.

Highlights include:

Gerhard Richter’s 1981 Eis (‘Ice’), a quintessential example of the artist’s landscape paintings, depicting a frozen seascape, but universally interpreted as a reflection of Richter’s psyche, estimated to sell for £2–3 million. 

Gerhard Richter’s 1991 Abstraktes Bild (‘Rot’), an exemplary piece of his abstract work, estimated at £2.5-3.5 million.

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 Orange Sports Figure, an extremely rare work to come to auction The work, estimated at £3-4 million.

Francis Bacon’s 1951 Figure with Monkey, an early work of great art-historical significance depicting a suited man reaching towards a caged monkey, estimated at £1.8-2.5 million.

A group of works on paper by Lucian Freud, estimated to realise in excess of £1.5 million, and Freud’s Lord Goodman estimated at £400,000–600,000. 

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