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Extraordinary Highlights from the New York Sales
Now on view in Sotheby’s New York galleries, The New York Sales feature hundreds of works spanning three centuries of art.
F all’s biggest auctions, Sotheby’s New York Sales are now on view. Exhibited in Sotheby’s galleries 8-20 November, six auctions feature hundreds of works of art spanning the 19th-21st centuries. Read on for just a slice of what’s on offer this year.
On 18-19 November, two auctions dedicated to the collection of Sydell Miller will headline Sotheby’s marquee sales.
Monet, Picasso, Kandinsky and More: Sydell Miller's Legacy of Beauty
Known to many as the “queen of the beauty industry,” Miller was guided in every aspect of her life by her family’s mantra: “Think, Believe, Dream, Dare.” From her very first forays into fashion and the beauty business, to her innumerable philanthropic endeavors, and the collection of fine art and design that she surrounded herself with, Miller lived a life of beauty, both inside and out.
Approximately 100 works will be presented together in a landmark Evening Auction on 18 November and Day Auction on 19 November, with additional works offered in sales throughout this fall.
Highlights from the Collection of Sydell Miller
The evening of sales continues on 18 November with a dedicated auction of Modern art.
The Modern Evening Auction will feature masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti and more.
Pablo Picasso’s ‘Buste de femme’
Buste de femme by Pablo Picasso | Françoise Gilot’s Legacy
Executed at the height of Pablo Picasso’s relationship with his partner, fellow artist and mother of his children Françoise Gilot, Buste de femme is an emblematic portrait of one of the most iconic figures in his life. Executed on 24 March 1949, the present work belongs to a celebrated yet limited group of portraits Picasso created over the course of a year depicting Gilot in labyrinthine contours and rich jewel tones.
Leonora Carrington’s ‘La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman)’
Explore the Divine Femininity of 'La Grande Dame' by Leonora Carrington
Imposing in scale and lyrical in form, Leonora Carrington’s La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman) is a towering embodiment of her pioneering and fantastical creative vision. One of the finest sculptures the artist ever executed, it represents the pinnacle of her sculptural production and offers a rare opportunity to enter physically into her world. Its daunting height belies the warmth of its presence; La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman) is vividly adorned with a host of hybrid creatures and lush dreamscapes and evokes a lasting sense of awe.
Alexander Calder’s ‘Mauvaises herbes’
Alexander Calder, Mauvaises herbes
In composition and manner of execution, Mauvaises herbes is a remarkable example of Alexander Calder’s career-long, transformative exploration of sculptural abstracted forms. Composed of 15 elements arranged along a central axis in a tapered cascade, the present work is brought to life through Calder’s mastery in creating balance among varied forms and color. Mauvaises herbes is invigorated through its tensions – between the geometric and the organic, the structural and the fluid and between spatial and volumetric weight. It is precisely this dynamism for which Calder's mobiles garnered their widespread acclaim and which has made his sculptures some of the most recognizable of the 20th century.
Alberto Giacometti’s ‘Buste (Tête tranchante) (Diego)’
Alberto Giacometti, Buste (Tête tranchante) (Diego)
Perhaps nowhere is Alberto Giacometti’s influence more recognizable than in the bronze heads of his brother Diego. Giacometti pushed, pulled, pinched and manipulated plaster and clay countless times in the form of his brother’s visage, from quite realist modelings to those that were increasingly abstracted and imbued with the sensation of Diego rather than his literal representation. It is these more manipulated forms that take on characteristics such as that of the “knife-blade” that stand out as masterpieces within Giacometti’s oeuvre. Buste (Tête tranchante) (Diego) belongs to a small grouping of these so-called “knife-blade heads” that, alongside Grande Tête mince (Grande tête de Diego) and Buste d’homme (Diego au blouson) take pride of place in his production from the early 1950s.
Franz Marc’s ‘Das Lange Gelbe Pferd (The Long Yellow Horse)’
Franz Marc, Das Lange Gelbe Pferd (The Long Yellow Horse)
In Franz Marc’s brief but illustrious career, there is no more celebrated motif than the horse. Executed in 1913, Das Lange Gelbe Pferd (The Long Yellow Horse) marks one of the artist’s last concerted explorations into his best-known and most beloved subject. The present canvas epitomizes the apogee of Marc’s investigation into the animal motif as a vehicle for communicating greater truths about the human world. Painted just before the onset of World War I, Das Lange Galbe Pferd (The Long Yellow Horse) is imbued with enormous symbolic potency. Works of this quality by Franz Marc rarely come to auction. Held in the collection of Harry Frank Guggenheim since the 1950s, Das Lange Gelbe Pferd exemplifies Marc’s limited and coveted oeuvre.
Paul Signac’s ‘Antibes. La Pointe de Bacon’
Paul Signac, Antibes. La Pointe de Bacon
In 1913, Paul Signac and his partner, painter Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange, settled together in Antibes. Signac’s departure from his villa in Saint-Tropez marked the beginning of what would become a prolonged wartime sojourn on the northern Riviera. The works from this period, though few in number, are among the artist’s greatest mature compositions. Executed in 1917, Antibes. La Pointe de Bacon exemplifies the chromatic richness and compositional harmony which characterize this intense period of artistic growth.
René Magritte’s ‘Les Grâces naturelles’
René Magritte, Les Grâces naturelles
One of only eight sculptures René Magritte ever created, the present work takes the “leaf-bird” as its theme. In 1929, an iris gave way to a clouded sky in Magritte’s Le Faux mirroir; in the 1930s and 40s, a mountain peak first merged with an eagle’s head in Le Domaine d’Arnheim; and in the 1950s, tables and fruit turned to stone in his Souvenir de voyage. Such thematic amalgams would recur in whole or part throughout much of Magritte’s oeuvre, often bearing the same title yet adapted and recontextualized within new and ever inventive settings. It was within this conceptual framework in the early 1940s that the image of the “leaf-bird” first appeared in Magritte’s work. This new motif, as seen in Les Grâces naturelles, expanded upon his larger-than-life “leaf-trees” from the prior decade, further dynamizing the vegetal theme.
Henri Matisse’s ‘Torse de jeune fille’
Henri Matisse, Torse de jeune fille
Conjuring a beguiling vision of opulence, Torse de jeune fille of 1921-22 typifies Henri Matisse’s greatest achievements as a painter and colorist. Aglow in the dazzling light of the Le Midi, the costumed nude form, resplendent red of the patterned textile and the soft warmth of the walls come together to create a richly evocative reverie. As the artist wrote to his wife Amélie in 1921, “An hour ago I finished my canvas with the Ibrahim Arab window. I’m very happy, it is very delicious. It gave me trouble but I think it’s there.” The Odalisque, so beautifully depicted in Torse de jeune fille, is Matisse’s most famed subject; works of this quality are predominantly found in Museum collections.
Sotheby’s presentation of modern art continues with a day auction on 19 November.
The Modern Day Auction will feature more than 200 works drawing together a century of painting, drawing and sculpture across Europe and the Americas.
Charles Angrand’s ‘Coin du Parc Monceau’
Executed in 1888, Charles Angrand’s Coin du Parc Monceau is a sparkling depiction of the eponymous Parisian locale. Tucked away on a secluded path and set off by her vibrant red parasol, a lone lady strolls through lush, sunlit greenery, escaping for a moment the bustle of Belle Époque Paris. Here, Angrand expertly articulates the play of light and shadow in a quintessentially Pointillist manner, which he understood as “the division of tone – [which] allows easy and routine application of the physical laws of vision: laws of contrast and reaction.” The resulting chromatic sensation is one of both energy and languor, capturing not only the heat of the day, but also the possibility of respite within its shaded passages.
Four Works by Leonora Carrington
A selection of works by the celebrated Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington includes Tower of Nagas, The Law of Briah, Phoenix Rides Beetle (from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of modern Mexican art) and three masks made for the play Opus Siniestrus.
Norman Rockwell’s ‘Before the Date: Girl’ & ‘Before the Date: Cowboy’
Imbued with a rich sense of narrative, Rockwell’s brightly rendered Before the Date: Girl & Cowboy of 1949 possesses a charming symmetry. Alluring in subject yet gestural in quality, the present work at once offers the quintessential qualities of Rockwell’s work while providing a spontaneity rarely seen in the artist’s hyper-realist oeuvre. One of only two diptych compositions the artist produced for The Saturday Evening Post, the work is the only known set of paintings that retains Rockwell’s initial artistic vision for the composition, as elements of the final version were redacted by the magazine without the artist’s consent before it went to print.
Henry Moore’s ‘Mother with Child on Lap’
The theme of maternity was pivotal in Henry Moore’s oeuvre, with the depiction of the mother and child figuring among his very first sculptures executed in 1922. Created in 1982, when Moore had just become a grandfather, Mother with Child on Lap marks one of Moore’s final explorations of this motif, representing the culmination of his lifelong engagement with one of humanity’s most profound subjects. In Mother with Child on Lap, Moore intricately weaves together his personal narrative with universal themes, highlighting the timeless and enduring nature of maternal bonds. Presenting a seated mother tenderly cradling her baby, the block-like form and pyramidal pose harken back to ancient representations of mother and child.
Frida Kahlo’s ‘Máscaras (Carma I)’
Máscaras (Carma I) is an exploration of Frida Kahlo’s layered identity as a Mexican woman artist experiencing chronic illness. Executed in 1946, Kahlo utilizes the mask motif as a means of hiding pain or creating multiple facets of herself. This work has particular autobiographical significance within Kahlo’s oeuvre as it was created during a period of convalescence after a major surgery that fused four vertebrae in Kahlo’s spine, rendering her immobile for two months. During this time, Kahlo continued to create, producing a series of drawings that serve as projections of her subconscious mind. These drawings delve deeply into themes of personal suffering, resilience and her intimate experiences with physical and psychological pain.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s ‘Roses dans un vase vert’
From Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s earliest artistic endeavors, the still life genre served as an outlet for pure creative freedom. Having begun his career at age 13 painting flowers on porcelain for the Sèvres workshop as an apprentice, by the late 1860s his masterful still-life practice had evolved into prismatic depictions of floral arrangements which are among his most expressive and formally innovative works. As embodied by Roses dans un vase vert, Renoir felt that the painting of flowers afforded him certain formal and theoretical freedoms, declaring, “what seems to me most significant about our movement [Impressionism] is that we have freed painting from the importance of the subject. I am at liberty to paint flowers and call them flowers, without their needing to tell a story.”
The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction will present masterworks from the latter half of the 20th century through to the present in a unified platform.
On 20 November, The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction will feature works by Maurizio Cattelan, Ed Ruscha, Yayoi Kusama and more.
Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Mushroom’
Yayoi Kusama, Mushroom
Executed on an immersive scale and endowed with a monumental presence, Yayoi Kusama’s Mushroom of 1980 is an exceptional example of the artist’s paradigmatic style. Black dots and polygons applied with punctilious care pulsate and dance across a canvas of rich scarlet. The mesmerizing, almost hypnotic mark-making converges in kaleidoscopic clusters, resulting in a mushroom humming with visual and psychological intensity. Featuring the iconic polka dots that have come to define the artist’s prodigious interrogation of her own personal history, Mushroom underscores Kusama’s acute ability to profoundly contemplate her own experience, which has solidified her status as one of the most iconic artists of the 20th and 21st century.
Ed Ruscha’s ‘Georges’ Flag’
Ed Ruscha’s American Georges’ Flag
The American flag billows against an extraordinarily vermilion sky in Georges’ Flag from 1999, an operatic ode to Ed Ruscha’s career-long commitment to Pop, conceptualism and his distinctly West Coast sensibility. A vast and epic painting of historic significance, Georges’ Flag deploys the intellectually loaded image of the national banner so aptly appropriated in the most seminal works by Ruscha’s peers – Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg – and now stands as a testament to the artist’s longstanding interest in the American West.
Willem de Kooning’s ‘Untitled XXV’
Willem de Kooning, Untitled XXV
One of the approximately 30 known paintings completed in 1982, which today stand as the best of Willem de Kooning’s 1980s compositions, Untitled XXV is particularly striking in its elegantly refined yet suggestively alluring arrangement of color and form. An apotheosis of the mature artist’s indefatigable wellspring of decisive and skillful abstractions, de Kooning’s paradoxically effortless and yet highly meditated brushwork reveals the translation of his furtive drawing practice to grander forms. Held in the estate of the artist until acquired directly by the present owner, Untitled XXV has been cherished in only one private collection for over two decades after being on extended loan to the Tate Gallery in London. With its distilled palette and painterly lyricism, Untitled XXV evokes the same powerful emotive response affected by the artist’s tableaus of the 70s.
Jeff Koons’ ‘Woman in Tub’
Woman in Tub by Jeff Koons
Their presence suggested only by an ultramarine snorkel, a wanton visitor lurking beneath the bubbles shocks the subject of Woman in Tub from 1988, a masterpiece from Jeff Koons’ Banality series, which crystallized the aims and interests of his mature artistic enterprise. Her mouth agape with either surprise or ecstasy, the partially decapitated figure clutches her breasts as she discovers an individual submerged between her legs, enacting a bawdy sexual joke. Among the most iconic images of not only the 20 works that comprise the Banality series but of Koons’ canonical oeuvre as a whole, the Woman in Tub sculpture has been included in many of the artist’s most important exhibitions, from his 1992 survey at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam to his 2014 retrospective organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Stuart Davis’ ‘Contranuities’
Contranuities by Stuart Davis | A Masterpiece by a Modern American Artist
Stuart Davis, among the 20th century’s most influential American artists, devoted six decades to refining his singular vernacular, drawing on European modernism and the rich tapestry of American culture. The final decade of his life saw a mastery of a distinct, signature style which melded the formal languages of Cubism and modern Abstraction – a period that yielded his most significant masterpieces and laid the groundwork for the Pop Movement. Executed in 1963, a year before the artist’s death, Contranuities is one of the artist’s most significant paintings, a mature testament to his lifelong commitment to exploration and reinvention that embodies its author’s enduring legacy as a quintessential figure of American modernism.
Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘Nude with Bust (Study)’
Roy Lichtenstein, Nude with Bust (Study)
Roy Lichtenstein’s Nude with Bust (Study) from 1995 constitutes the apex of the artist’s enduring engagement with the quintessential heroine of his inimitable oeuvre. The present composition is distinguished by its inclusion of one seated female nude and a female bust based on the model beside it. In this interior scene, Lichtenstein places a bust on a pedestal, perhaps implying the space as a studio, thus once again interacting with an quintessential motif of the artist portraying their studio that has pervaded the Western art historical canon. The result is a playful yet transgressive reconsideration of the art historical approach to the female nude, one that places Lichtenstein in dialogue with the weighty mantle of his artistic predecessors while cementing his own grand contribution to contemporary art.
Maurizio Cattelan’s ‘Comedian’
The Banana That Broke the Internet: Maurizio Cattelan's 'Comedian' Heads to Auction
No other artwork from the 21st century has provoked scandal, sparked imagination and upended the very definition of contemporary art like Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian, whose debut at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2019 captivated the world. Comprised of a banana fastened to a wall with duct tape, hung 160 centimeters from the floor, Comedian belongs to the rare league of artworks that needs no introduction, having quickly erupted into a viral global sensation that drew record crowds, social media inundation, landed the cover of The New York Post, and divided viewers and critics alike. Passionately debated, rhapsodically venerated, and hotly contested – and eaten not only once, but twice – the work headlined news stories shared around the world, becoming the most talked-about artwork of the century.
Marquee week will conclude on 21 November with a day sale dedicated to contemporary art.
With over 300 works, The Contemporary Day Auction will include 31 Subway Drawings by Keith Haring from the Collection of Larry Warsh alongside other critically acclaimed artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Fernando Botero’s ‘Aurora’
Fernando Botero’s Aurora challenges our aesthetic expectations for the Roman goddess of dawn, embodying the artist’s inimitable approach to the female figure. Executed in his signature “Boterismo,” the painting masterfully renders the mythological figure of Aurora in Botero’s instantly recognizable voluminous form. His exaggerated, rounded figures have become synonymous with a unique blend of humor, irony and aesthetic opulence, often challenging conventional depictions while maintaining a whimsical accessibility. The present work is a quintessential display of Botero’s whimsy and intellect, presented at a monumental scale that captivates and beguiles.
Keith Haring’s ‘Untitled (Still Alive in ’85)’
Keith Haring New York City Subway Drawings
Executed in 1985, the final year of his historic series of subway drawings, Still Alive in ’85 showcases Keith Haring at the pinnacle of his creative prowess. Brimming with movement, energy and frenetic gesture, the painting elegantly balances Haring’s unbridled artistic genius, embodying a vibrant narrative across its expansive scale. The present work pulses with life force, showcasing his ability to capture the essence of urban existence while simultaneously exuding a sense of harmony and order. From the intertwined spirits and soaring angels to dancing figures with boomboxes for heads, crawling babies and barking dogs, the imagery bursts forth from the central figure, whose head, sliced open, reveals the inner workings of the collective conscience and that of the artist.
Ed Ruscha’s ‘99% Angel, 1% Devil’
In 99% Angel, 1% Devil by Ed Ruscha, the titular phrase emerges from a fiery field of expertly rendered sfumato, charging the composition with psychological intensity and embodying the artist’s peerless style in which image, symbol and text coexist in tensile relationships. Executed in 1983, the present work is a quintessential example of Ruscha’s sunset paintings from the 1970s and early 1980s evoking the cinematic mythos of the Californian desert with its variegated streaks of paint. The expression “99% Angel, 1% Devil” evinces the artist’s enduring interest in religious subject matter, which recurs throughout his oeuvre and speaks to the deep influence that his Catholic upbringing has had on his artistic practice.
Alexander Calder’s ‘Bird of Paradise’
A symphony of form and movement, Alexander Calder’s Bird of Paradise is an outstanding example of the artist’s singular standing mobiles, which revolutionized the trajectory of 20th-century sculpture. Renowned for their beauty and craftsmanship, Calder’s standing mobiles are a testament to his technical skill, imaginative genius and talent for organic composition. In Bird of Paradise, movement and stasis are juxtaposed by design, and a perfect equilibrium is achieved through the use of miniature spars affixed to finely shaped plates of metal, balanced just-so on the tip of the three-legged base. Testament to its carefully calibrated design, Bird of Paradise is acutely responsive to its external environment, coming alive on the gentlest draft of air.
Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Abode of Love’
A vast, boundless labyrinth of undulating, organic forms unfurl across the expansive surface of Yayoi Kusama’s Abode of Love, an outstanding example of Kusama’s command over spatial abstraction and hypnotic language of mark-making. The composition is characterized by its rhythmic structure, which, when coupled with a selective palette, emphasizes the artist’s distinct aesthetic vocabulary, merging technical mastery with profound psychological depth. The structural complexity of the work is elegantly articulated through dense networks of richly textured pictorial fields, where each layer of meticulously applied paint contributes to a topographical quality that grants the surface a three-dimensional vibrancy.
George Condo’s ‘The Alpine Waitress’
George Condo’s The Alpine Waitress stands as a definitive work from his acclaimed series Existential Portraits, embodying both his radical approach to contemporary portraiture and subject-hood as well as his enduring engagement with “artificial realism.” The series as a whole endeavored to probe the depths of the human psyche by depicting fantastically hybrid figures which both materialize and heighten the tensions and contradictions between outward appearance and the internal self. Drawing on classical portraiture, cubist principles and contemporary abstraction, Condo’s distinctive approach to figuration presents a rich crossbreed of diverse art historical influences and popular culture references. This synthesis innovates the depiction of the complexities of the human form as well as highlights Condo’s unique ability to weave a resplendent tapestry of tradition and imaginative distortion into his cohesive, compelling and, above all, immediately recognizable visual language.
