Contemporary Art | London
Online Auction: 3–9 December 2020 • 2:00 PM GMT • London

Contemporary Art | London 3–9 December 2020 • 2:00 PM GMT • London

T his December, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art | London Auction will offer a fantastic selection of works by leading post-war and Contemporary artists. Featuring an exciting range of works by artists such as Eddie Martinez, Julian Opie, A. R. Penck and Damien Hirst, and with estimates starting at only £400, the sale offers something for every collector, at every price level.


Featured Highlights

Eddie Martinez
Untitled
Estimate: 6,000 – 8,000 GBP
Eddie Martinez, Untitled
“His drawings and paintings both look to genre painting to enact a confrontation with tradition, negotiating a set of pictorial conventions drawn from the vocabulary of genre, yet through the modernist logic of subjective, individual style.”
João Ribas, “The Paradox of Genre”, in Eddie Martinez, 2008
Keith Haring
Chernobyl
Estimate: 4,000 – 6,000 GBP
Keith Haring, Chernobyl
“To understand and appreciate Keith Haring, it is important to recognize what was central to his driving force: the absolutely fearless and unabashedly shameless desire to run out and embrace the real world, while transgressing and crossing over boundaries and barriers of race and culture, and while experiencing and transporting the simple truths of innocence, love, friendship, upholding and expressing values and ethics that live forever in the heart of youth.”
Tony Shafrazi, ‘Keith Haring. A Great Artist, A True Friend’, in Exh. Cat., The Keith Haring Show, Milan 2005, p. 72
Tom Wesselmann
Study for Sunset Nude (1960 Judy)
Estimate: 10,000 – 15,000 GBP
Tom Wesselmann, Study for Sunset Nude (1960 Judy)
"When I made the decision in 1959 that I was not going to be an abstract painter; that I was going to be a representational painter...I only got started by doing the opposite of everything I loved. And in choosing representational painting, I decided to do, as my subject matter, the history of art: I would do nudes, still-lifes, landscapes, interiors, portraits, etc..."
Marco Livingstone, "Tom Wesselmann: Telling It Like It Is,” in Exh. Cat., Tokyo, Isetan Museum of Art, Tom Wesselmann; A Retrospective Survey 1969-1992, 1993, p. 21
A Splash of Colour

This season’s Contemporary Art | London auction offers a brilliant selection of particularly vibrant paintings and works on paper. From Peter Schuyff’s electric green grid, to Frank Stella’s intricate layering of print making techniques to Alighiero Boetti’s vivid textile work, these pieces offer a glimpse into the artists’ experimentational manipulation of colour.

A Return to Figuration

There is a strong presence of figurative work in this season’s Contemporary Art | London Auction. Artists throughout history have turned to the human figure as a source of inspiration, a narrative vehicle and even a means to flaunt their mastery of realistic depiction. From Julian Opie’s iconic simplified forms, to Tracey Emin’s emotionally charged depictions of the female nude to Tim Noble and Sue Webster’s darkly humorous sketches, these works testify to the enduring importance of figuration in contemporary art.

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