A detail of Jean-Michel Basquiat's Untitled (Head), 1982, oil stick, ink, and acrylic. Courtesy of Sotheby's

Text size

Sothebys will offer Jean-Michel Basquiat Untitled (Head), 1982an oil stick, ink, and acrylic drawingas a highlight of its live-streamed New York contemporary evening auction on June 29.

The work, which Sothebys describes as one of Basquiats most exceptional renderings of a head, is estimated to sell for between US$9 million and US$12 million. Basquiats heads are among his most recognizable imagery, and, according to Sothebys, were a key conceptual anchor for the artist throughout his career.

Untitled (Head), which Basquiat held until his death at age 27 in 1988, is being sold by a private collection, and is among the last highlights of the June 29 sale to be revealed.

Other previously announced highlights of the auction (originally scheduled for May) include Francis Bacon Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus, 1981, estimated in the range of US$60 million; Roy Lichstein White Brushstroke I, 1965, with an estimate between US$20 million and US$30 million; and Clyfford Stills 1947-Y-No. 1, estimated between US$25 million and US$35 million.

Basquiats brightly colored drawing on paper bears echoes of Untitled, 1981, a nearly 7-foot high acrylic and oil stick painting on canvas in the collection of the Broad museum in Los Angeles, Sothebys said. It was originally sold in 1990 by the Robert Miller Gallery, which held a major exhibition of Basquiat drawings that year, and has been held in four private collections since.

Also newly on offer at Sothebys evening auction will be Vija Celmins Night Sky #7, 1995, an oil on canvas representing a dark, starlit night. The work is expected to fetch between US$6 million and US$8 million, which would be a world auction record for the Latvian-American artist, age 81.

Night Sky was exhibited at a major retrospective of Celmins workwhich often takes nature as a subject in paintings, drawings, sculpture, and printsat the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York last September. Most of Celmins Night Sky paintings are in museums, Sothebys said in a news release.

Another new highlight is American minimalist artist Donald Judd Untitled (DSS 25), 1962his first three-dimensional wall relief. The work, made with light cadmium red oil and sand, black and white oil, galvanized iron, and nails on wood, according to the catalog entry, marks the artists radical shift into dimensionality. Its estimated to sell for between US$4 million and US$6 million.

Lewis V. Winter bought the wall hanging originally in 1963 from the Green Gallery, owned by Richard Bellamy and its been in his family since. In a press release, Laura Paulson president of Gagosian Art Advisory, which is representing the Winter family, said the collector was drawn to art that was radical for its time and continues to be important and influential.

Read the original:

Sothebys Adds Basquiats Head Drawing to New York Sale - Barron's