Sotheby's New York
6:30 PM, May 16, 2018
Sale 9858
Lot 1, "Speak Birdman," by Mark Bradford, mixed media on canvas, 59 1/2 by 70 1/2 inches, 2018
The May 16, 2018 Contemporary Art Evening Auction at Sotheby's New York begins with several works consigned to benefit the Studio Museum of Harlem and also is highlighted by several fine works by Bacon, Basquiat, Hockney, Pollock, Kline and Diebenkorn.
The auction's finest work is "Speak Birdman," a mixed-media on canvas by Mark Bradford (b. 1961) that measues 59 1/2 by 70 1/2 inches. It was painted in 2018.
Bradford is not only the first artist of the five that lead off the Studio Museum of Harlem section of the auction, but he may well be the finest contemporary artist.
Detail of Lot 1
Celebrated as amongst the most influential artists of his generation, Bradford credits the breakthrough moment in his career to Thelma Golden when, in 2000, the then newly-installed deputy director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem first visited the artist in Los Angeles. Of the visit, Calvin Tompkins wrote in an article in The New York June 22, 2015 that Golden recalled that Bradford was “a fully mature artist at that point," adding that "he had an incredible sense of himself as an artist, and an enormous ability to understand art history - its possibilities and its limits. I knew I was going to work with him for the rest of my life.”
Another
detail of Lot 1
The catalogue entry provides the additional commentary:
"Immediately upon encountering Bradford’s searing large-scale canvases, Golden invited the artist to participate in the critically-acclaimed 2001 group show Freestyle. In the years following Freestyle, which launched the artist’s meteoric rise to widespread recognition, Bradford’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at such renowned international institutions as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the SFMOMA, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Boston, amongst others. Testifying to the artist’s significance upon an international stage, Bradford was most recently featured in the US Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, where his impactful exhibition Tomorrow is Another Day was met with widespread critical and public acclaim....
The lot has an estimate of $2,000,000 to $3,000,000. It sold for $6,776,200 including the buyer's premium as do all results mentioned in this article.
The sale total was $284,542,500.
Lot 27, "Visible Giant," by Mark Bradford, mixed media on canvas, 84 1/4 by 108 1/4 inches, 2014
Detail of Lot 27
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
"An exquisite example of Mark Bradford’s abstract practice, Visible Giant from 2014 merges complex layers of social, historical, and personal significance in a powerful investigation of the contemporary urban experience. Emerging from the silvery aluminum ground, an intricate network of shadowy ridges and furrows coalesces to form a mesmerizing cartographic structure; shimmering within this shadowy grid, prismatic ribbons of turquoise blue and bright scarlet absorb the viewer in a mesmerizing vision of kaleidoscopic hue. Throughout his fundamentally groundbreaking career, Bradford has continued to pursue new frontiers of abstraction, creating a corpus of truly stunning works integrally connected to such varied sources as the histories of abstraction, cartography, and urban design. Created through a pioneering and labor-intensive process of continual addition and subtraction, Visible Giant courses with a stunning vitality that evinces the complex evolution of its phenomenally variegated surface; reverberating with the contextual significance of a Rauschenberg Combine, the procedural ingenuity of a Richter Abstraktes Bild, and meditative abstraction of a Kusama Infinity Net, Visible Giant encapsulates the artist’s inimitable response to the urban networks and topographies that are absolutely integral to who he is and what he creates.
"Executed on an impressive scale, Visible Giant is part of a 2014 series in which Bradford, known for his abstract explorations of the modern metropolis, embarked upon an investigation of contemporary structures of power and politics in Hong Kong, the world’s most densely populated city. Within Bradford’s practice, formal abstraction is deftly weaponized as a means for potent social commentary; in the artist’s own words, “I may pull the raw material from a very specific place, culturally from a particular place, but then I abstract it. I’m only really interested in abstraction; but social abstraction, not just the 1950s abstraction. The painting practice will always be a painting practice but we’re living in a post-studio world, and this has to do with the relationship with things that are going on outside." (The artist cited in Exh. Cat., London, White Cube, Through Darkest America by Truck and Tank, 2013-2014, p. 83) Originating with the architectural floor plans of Hong Kong’s sprawling public housing complexes, Bradford abstracts their formal, grid-like lines by layering and fusing the blueprints with dense swaths of the varied printed material that fills city streets. Through an extraordinary method of collage and décollage, Bradford first combines the found remnants of billboard posters, newsprint, and digitally-printed color sheets, then laboriously excavates and sands away segments to reveal an undulating landscape of labyrinthine grids and shimmering texture below. Within this multidimensional surface, an intricate maze of meandering squares returns the viewer to the artist’s original point of departure; as each small rectangle is divided, subdivided and partitioned into even smaller cage-like units, Bradford highlights the crisis in the lack of affordable living space in modern metropolitan centers. Coursing through this burnished framework, swaths of bright green, yellow and red invoke the characteristics of thermal imaging, subtly referencing the high global and environmental cost of such rampant urban sprawl. Achieving a captivating fusion of such opposing forces as construction and excavation, abstraction and representation, reflection and transformation, Visible Giant firmly encapsulates Bradford’s own description of his unique artistic project: "The conversations I was interested in were about community, fluidity, about a merchant dynamic, and the details that point to a genus of change. The species I use sometimes are racial, sexual, cultural, stereotypical. But the genus I’m always interested in is change." (The artist cited in “Market>Place,” Art21, PBS, November 2011)."
The
lot has an estimate of $4,000,000 to $6,000,000. It sold for $4.631,000.
Lot 2, "Conjured parts (Dresden), ink and acrylic on canvas, by Julie Mehretu, 84 by 96 inches, 2017
Lot 2 is a large ink and acrylic on canvas by Julie Mehretu that measurs 84 by 96 inches and was painted in 2017. It is entitled "Conjured parts (Dresden).
"Known for her highly ambitious, wonderfully dizzying and intricate masterpieces, Julie Mehretru has distinguished herself as one of the leading artists of her generation. Mehretu's outpout has become instantly recognizable for its complex compositions and mythical worlds that toe the land between the real, virtual, and imagined....In more recent works, the same art historical depth comes to play even was the architecture gives way to freer, bolder, spirited mark-making'; an evolved vocabulary of abstraction that merges with ardent gestural cadence to make works at once epic and intimate."
The artist will be the subject of a retrospective next year at the Los Angeles Museum of Art. Her work is related somewhat to that of Mark Bradford in its intricate layering.
The lot has an estimate of $1,000,000 to $1,500,000. It sold for $3,375,000.
Lot 5, "Bush Babies," is acrylic, transfers, colored pencil and collage on paper by Njideka Akungyili Crosby. It measures 72 by 60 inches and was executed in 1917.
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
"In the last several years, Crosby's intricate depictions of domestic scenes, created by metricularlou selected pragments of personal photographs, Nigerian lifestyle magazines and the Internet, have become someof the most highly-sought after works byprivate and public collections alike."
The lot has an estimate of $600,000 to $800,000. It sold for $3,375,000.
Lot 6, "Past Times," by Kerry James Marshall, acrylic and collage on canvas, 108 1/4 by 157 inches, unframed, 1997
While the works of Bradford and Mehretu are exceptionally original and distinguished, some of the other works benefitting the Studio Museum of Harlem in this auction are more conventional and unexciting although not without theiir followers.
Lot 6, for example, was entered to late to be included in the auction's large catalogue and Sotheby's published a separate, large, 14-page brochure on it. Interestingly, Sotheby's also did not reproduce the Studio Museum's selections in the catalogue but only in a small guide that excluded the extensive essays and pictorial material.
This large painting was included in the 1997 Whitney Biennial and in the 2017 retrospective on the artist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the museums of Contemporary Art in Chicago and Los Angeles.
The catalogue entry said that the painting "thunderously declares the arrival of Marshall’s mature artistic project: the utter and indisputable mastery of traditional art historical modes to counter the glaring absence of the black figure within the canon of Western painting....Hung beside other pivotal masterworks from the artist’s oeuvre, the panoramic vista of Past Times testifies to Marshall’s status, both as virtuosic renegade of canonical reform, and as one of the greatest history painters of our time....Drifting from the upturned stereos on the picnic blanket, an undulating Motown melody from The Temptations croons It was just my imagination running away with me, while Snoop Dogg’s ritualistic mantra Got my mind on my money and my money on my mind escapes its counterpart to frame the figure of the boy; without interrupting the idyll of Marshall’s scene, these fragments indicate African American musical movements that were subverted and appropriated by white suburbia, reminding the viewer of the urgent issues of authorship and identity which lie at the core of the present work. Unfurling above this sublime scene, a partially legible banner reads “Who plays…all of heart and….skill / Will also work with heart and will,” ironically invoking the age-old promise of leisurely prosperity through hard work long-suggested by the so-called American Dream, and long withheld for innumerable black Americans...."
The building has an ambitious estimate of $8,000,000 to $12,000,000. It sold for an astounding $21,114,500. The new owner was subsequently reported to Sean Combs.
Lot 15, "Green Cross," by Franz Kline, oil on canvas, 69 3/4 by 106 inches, 1956
The best work in the auction is Lot 15, "Green Cross," a large abstraction by Franz Kline (1910-1962) that was painted in 1956. It measures 69 3/4 by 106 inches. It is a monumental but simplified abstraction by Kline that is very painterly and substitutes a lovely dark blue green hue for his tranditional deep black. It is property from the Baltimore Museum of Art, which is wrong for selling such a marvelous work. It was included in the 1979 Kline exhibition at the Phillips Collection in Washington, The Institute for the Arts at Rice University, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Seattle Art Museum.
The catalogue entry provides the following commentary:
"Vigorously executed across an immense canvas, the energy of Franz Kline's Green Cross builds into an urgent and arresting paradigm of Abstract Expressionism, culminating in a visual declaration of gestural force."
The entry describes the lot as "{a commanding masterpiece."
It has a modest estimate of $6,500,000 to $7,500,000. It sold for $5,195,600.
Lot 46, "Burst II," by Adolph Gottlieb, oil and acrylic on canvas, 90 by 60 inches, 1972
Another
striking masterpiece is Lot 46, "Burst II," by Adolph Gottlieb
(1903-1974). An oil and acrylic on canvas, it measures 90 by 69
inches and was painted in 1972. It was included in the 1981-3 Gottlieb
retrospective at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Tampa
Museum of Art, the Toledo Museum, the Arthur M. Huntington Art Gallery
in Austin at the University of Texas, the Flint Institute of Art, the
Indianapolis Museum. the Los Angles County Museum of Art, the
Albright-Know Art Gallery in Buffalo and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
It
has a modest estimate of $1,200,000 to $1,800,000. It sold for $1,995,000.
Lot 14, Number 32, 1949, by Jackson Pollock, oil, enamel and aluminum paint on paper mounted on masonite, 31 by 22 1/2 inches
Lot 14 is a 1949 "drip" painting by Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) that measures 31 by 22 1/2 inches. It is an oil, enamel and aluminum paint on paper mounted on masonite. The lot is the cover illustration of the auction catalogue. It has an estimate of $30,000 to $40,000,000. It sold for $34.098,000.
Lot 36,"Triad," by Jackson Pollock, oil and enamel on paper mounted on board, 20 3/8 by 25 7/8 inches, 1948
Lot
36, "Triad," is a nice black and white oil and enamel on paper mounted
on board by Pollock. It measures 20 3/8 by 25 7/8 inches.
It was painted in 1948. It was included in the Pollock show at
the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Gallery in London in
1998-9. It has an estimate of $1,500,000 to $2,000,000. It sold for $2,055,000.
Lot
21, "Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica," by David Hockney, oil on
canvas, 78 by 120 inches, 1990
Lot 21 is a large and very colorful
landscape oil on canvas by David Hockney (b. 1937). It is
entitled "Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica." It measures 78
by 120 inches and was painted in 1990. It was included in last
year's Hockney show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the
Tate Britain in London and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
It is a grandiose imaginative work of his landscape memory imbibed with
Fauvist and Matissean liquors. It has an estimate of $20,000,000
to $30,000,000. It sold for
$28,453,000.
Lot 11, "Piscine de Medianoche (Paper Pool 30)," by Hockney, colored and pressed paper pulp, 72 by 85 1/2 inches, 1978
Lot 24, "Flesh and Spirit,' by Jean-Michel Basquiat, oil stick, gesso, acrylic and paper on canvas in two panels, each 72 1/2 by 145 inches, 1982-3
Lot 24 is a very large work by Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) entitled "Flesh and Spirit." An oil stick, gesso, acrylic and paper on canvas in two panels, each 72 1/2 by 145 inches, it was painted in 1982-3. It is from the estate of Dorothy Ormandy Newman, art dealer and daughter of Eugene Ormandy, the conductor. She acquired the work in 1983 and was an early supporter of grafitti art. The lot has an estimate on request. It sold for $30,711,000.
Lot
18,"Ocean Park #55," by Richard Diebenkorn, oil and charcoal on canvas,
78 by 78 1/8 inches, 1972
Lot
18 is a large oil and charcoal on canvas that is #55 of Richard
Diebenkorn's famous "Ocean Park series. It measures 78 by 78 1/8
inches and was painted in 1972. It has an estimate of $7,000,000
to $10,000,000. It sold for
$10,9853,000.
Lot 16, "Abstrakes Bild," by Gerhard Richter, oil on canvas, 78 3/4 inches square, 1991
Lot 16 is a large, red abstract oil on canvas by Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) (see The City Review article on the artist). It is 78 3/4 inches square and was painted in 1991. It has an estimate of $15,000,000 to $20,000,000. It sold for $16,563,000.
Lot 28, "Dancers on a Plane," by Jasper Johns, oil on canvas, 29 7/8 by 23 3/4 inches, 1981
Lot 28, "Dancers on a Plane," is an oil on canvas by Jasper Johns (b. 1930). It measures 29 7/8 by 23 3/4 inches. It was painted in 1981 and once belonged to Merce Cunningham. It was a gift from the artist to Merce Cunningham, and is from the Collection of John Cage and Merce Cunningham (sold to benefit the Merce Cunningham Trust), Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg worked with Cage and Cunningham and collaborated with them as art advisors to the Cunningham Dance Company. Lot 3, "Dancers on a Plane, Merce Cunningham," (estimate $1,500,000 to $2,000,000) was not only a gift to Cunningham, but inspired by the dance troupe and a tribute to the Company. It sold at Christie's New York November 10, 2009 for $4,338,500. At this auction, it has an estimate of $6,000,000 to $8,000,000. It sold for $8,695,000.
Lot 25, "Day of the Idol," by George Condo, acrylic, charcoal and pastel on linen, 68 by 66 inches, 2011
Lot
25 is an excellent acrylic, charcoal and pastel on linen by George
Condo (b. 1957) entitled "Day of the Idol." It measures 68 by 66
inches and was painted in 2011. It has an estimate of $1,500,000
to $2,000,000. It sold for
$2,775,000.
Lot 9, "Untitled (Bolego)," by Rudolf Stingel, oil on canvas, 15 by 20 1/2 inches, 2006
Lot
9 is a small oil on canvas by Rudolf Stingel (b. 1956) entitled
"Untitled (Bolego)." It measures 15 by 20 1/2 inches and was
painted in 2006. It was included in the 2007 exhibition on the
artist at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. It has an
estimate of $1,800,000 to $2,500,000. It sold for $4,518,200.
Lot 45, "Untitled," by Stingel, oil and enamel on canvas, 95 by 76 inches, 2011
Lot 45 is an untitled oil and enamel on canvas by Stingel in his series of "carpet" paintings. It measures 95 by 76 inches and was painted in 2011. It has an estimate of $1,500,000 to $2,000,000. It sold for $1,815,000.
Lot 39, "Source of the Loue," by Mark Tansey, oil on canvas, 65 by 81 inches, 1988
Lot
39 is a large oil on canvas by Mark Tansey (b. 1949) entitled "Source
of the Loue." It measures 65 by 81 inches and was painted in
1988. It has an estimate of $2,500,000 to $3,500,000. It sold for $7,453,600.
Lot 35, "Galaxy," by Barnett Newman, oil on canvas, 24 1/2 by 20 1/8 inches, 1949
Lot 35 is an oil on
canvas entitled "Galaxy" by Barnett Newman (1905-1970). It
measures 24 1/2 by 20 1/8 inches and was painted in 1949. It was
included in the 1971-2 exhibition on the artist at the Museum of Modern
Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London and the Stedelijk Museum in
Amsterdam. It has an estimate of $9,000,000 to $12,000,000.
It sold for $9,963,200.
See The City Review article on the Spring 2017 Contemporary Art evening auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2017 Contemporary Art evening auction at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2016 Contemporary Art evening auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2016 Contemporary Art evening auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2015 Contemporary Art evening auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2015 Contemporary Art evening auction at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2015 Contemporary Art evening auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2015 Looking Forward to The Past auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2015 Impressionist and Modern Art auction at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Looking Forward to the Past auction May 11, 2015 at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2014 Impressionist & Modern Art auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2014 Impressionist & Modern Art auction at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2014 Impressionist & Modern Art auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2013 Impressionist & Modern Art auction at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2013 Impressionist & Modern Art auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2013 Impressionist & Modern Art evening auction at Sotheby's New York
See
The City Review article on the
Fall 2012 Impressionist & Modern
Art auction at Sotheby's New York
See The
City
Review article on the Fall 2012 Impressionist & Modern Art day
auction at Sotheby's New York
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2012 Impressionist & Modern
Art auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2012 Impressionist & Modern
Art auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2011 Impressionist & Modern Art
auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2011 Impressionist & Modern Art
auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2011 Impressionist & Modern
Art auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2011 Impressionist & Modern
Art auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2010 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2010 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2010 Impressionist & Modern
Art evening auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2010 Impressionist & Modern
Art evening auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2009 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2009 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Christie's
See The
City
Review article on the Spring 2009 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2009 Impressionist & Modern
Art evening auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2008 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2008 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Sotheby's
See The City Review article on the Christie's evening sale of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Art May 8, 2000
See The City Review article on the Christie's evening sale of Twentieth Century Art May 9, 2000