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Contemporary Art Evening Auction

Sotheby's New York


May 12, 2021


Basquiat venus medici

Lot 105, "Versus Medici," by Jean-Michel Basquiat, acrylic, oilstick and paper collage on three joined canvases, 84 1/4 by 54 1/4 inches, 1982

By Carter B. Horsley

The May 12. 2021 auction of 21st Century Art at Sotheby's New York is highlighted by a very fine, large, three-part  work by Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) and a great large work by Anselm Kiefer (1945).

The Basquiat has an estimate of $35,000000 to $50,000,000.

Sotheby's provided no catalogue for the auction, but its website provided the  following commentary about the lot:
 
"Urgent, arresting, and replete with potent symbolism, Versus Medici is a magnificent crystallization of the tremendous graphic force and intricate iconography that have come to define Jean-Michel Basquiat’s revolutionary career. Executed in the crucial year of 1982, when Basquiat was only 22 years old, the present work is among Basquiat’s most emphatic visual challenges to the hegemony of the Western canon. Within the searing figure of the present work, the young artist boldly crowns himself as both successor to and worthy adversary of the artistic legacy of the masters of the Italian Renaissance. Having remained in the same distinguished private collection for over 30 years, Versus Medici is an exceptional and rare example of the artist’s most celebrated motif: the single, warrior-like figure. Pulsing with the energy of his unique and coveted pictorial lexicon, Versus Medici is positioned in the top tier of Basquiat’s immensely impactful cycle of grand-scale male figures from 1981 and 1982, and is undoubtedly one of the most striking and dramatic works of that period. Through a radical approach to figuration borne of his fascination with anatomy, Basquiat breaks down the dichotomy between the external and internal, revealing the cacophonous innermost aspects of psychic life with breathtaking vitality. Befitting its importance, the work has been included in several major exhibitions worldwide, including Intuition at the Palazzo Fortuny during the 2017 Venice Biennale, and most recently, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Made in Japan, the artist’s first comprehensive survey exhibition in Japan. Spectacularly forged in an array of oilstick, acrylic, and paper collage, this painting brings the haptic urgency of Basquiat’s art to life. It is challenging, dissonant, and alluring, as explosive in its execution as it is erudite in its conception. 

"Though maintaining the spontaneity of graffiti in its paroxysmal execution, by the time this work was created in 1982, Basquiat's had fully transitioned from street to studio. Completed shortly after his breakthrough exhibition at PS1 in 1981, New York New Wave, this work was executed once Basquiat had attained the crucial support of Annina Nosei and was able to focus his efforts on monumental canvas painting. Testifying to the significance of the present work, Versus Medici was previously in the collection of esteemed Belgian collector Stéphane Janssen, who was an early champion of Basquiat and acquired it following a visit to Basquiat’s studio shortly after it was painted. Originally one of several monumental standing Black figure paintings that formed the core of Janssen’s storied collection, Versus Medici stands out as one of Basquiat’s most assured early masterworks, and was acquired by the present owners in 1990, where it has remained ever since.

"At once intensely autobiographical and yet deeply rooted in a wider knowledge and appreciation of the past, Basquiat’s work was shaped by his insatiable curiosity and determination to command his own space within the art historical canon. Born to a Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother, the artist was acutely aware of the exclusion of artists based on race from institutional and critical consideration, and often expressed feelings of racialized otherness in a white-dominated art world. With Versus Medici, Basquiat confronts a key cornerstone of Western art history: the Italian Renaissance, a period characterized by great achievements in painting, architecture, philosophy, and culture, nowhere more centralized than in Florence under the patronage and rule of the House of Medici. The movement represents a bastion of art history that through its inherent power structure is exclusionary of the Black body and Black creator; it is an archetypally white and Eurocentric ideal of visual culture which still serves as a model for the visual arts. Ever the iconographic alchemist, here Basquiat absorbs the legacy of Western art history and reshapes it to his own purposes. Within the present work, the Medici become a stand-in for the power systems of the art world at large, as figureheads for a powerful system of art patronage that was echoed in the power structures of Basquiat’s own art world in 1980s New York. Versus Medici presents a searing and heroic figure to oppose that narrative: a monumental Black figure, seven feet in height, stands triumphant as warrior, champion, and king, ordained with the famous three-pointed crown. The anatomical detail of the figure and the intricacy of the body echo the work of Italian virtuosos like Leonardo and Michelangelo, while the radical reimagining clearly stages a battle against the power of their influence. Executed on three joined canvases, the very structure of Versus Medici draws upon Basquiat’s extraordinary familiarity with centuries of tradition by echoing the time-honored format of the tripartite altarpiece, and references the religious and political powers that were associated with them. this gladiator, Basquiat asserts the strength of his African American culture and identity, ambitiously demanding a reckoning with the history of art, and not only claims his own place within this history, but crowns himself as almighty successor to the Renaissance masters.

"Emblematic of this struggle between the Black artist and the dominant white-centric power structure, Basquiat utilizes iconography borrowed from the boxing ring. Having recognized from an early age the absence of Blackness from many realms including the arts, he sought heroes in the world of athletics, where he saw Black figures could be successful and celebrated. Boxing became one of his favorite arenas, and stars like Cassius Clay, Jack Johnson, and Joe Lewis feature in numerous paintings, with gloves abstracted into blunt roundels and arms thrust triumphantly in the air. Indeed, even the defiant posture of the raised fist as seen in Versus Medici had huge significance in this context. It is wholly redolent of the Black Power salute, first made famous in the sporting arena by Juan Carlos and Tommie Smith, who protested racial oppression at the Mexico City Olympic Games by raising their fists in defiance of the U.S. National Anthem. In the present work, Basquiat employs the language of the fight – “versus” – and the victorious raised fist to convey the war against repression and racism, his central figure conquering the invisible oppressor within the space of the painting.  In the lower register of the painting, the subject’s body is rendered in an abstracted V-shaped formation, alluding to the way in which mummified Pharaonic kings are typically depicted. This powerful stance is eloquently captured in Basquiat’s repeated calligraphic scrawl of the word “Aopkehsks,” which could refer to the Hellenization of the Egyptian pharaoh Akenhaten, a prominent and idealized king, or to apotheosis, the elevation of the human to the realms of the divine which was widely represented in Renaissance painting. As art historian Robert Farris Thompson has described, “Jean-Michel was turning into art notes taken during a massive and ongoing self-education, not unlike the famous ‘homemade education’ Malcolm X pursued… Basquiat thrilled to the pleasures of the world, and thrilled to the pleasures of the image, and he built a brilliant career upon the two.” (Robert Farris Thomson, “Three Works By Basquiat,” in: Exh. Cat., New Orleans, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Basquiat and the Bayou, 2014, pp. 31-32) However the viewer chooses to interpret these signs and symbols, Basquiat positions his ferocious figure as a vessel of divine will. Read alongside the symbol of the three-pointed crown – one of Basquiat’s defining and most recognizable motifs – there is little doubt the figure in the painting is depicted as an avenging hero of art history. With these myriad references to ancient depictions of power, Basquiat again aligns himself with almighty royalty, standing defiant against a system that would marginalize him. 

"Further underlining Basquiat’s view of his own position as an outsider in the dominant art world is his revolutionary redefining of figuration. The son of immigrants and the African diaspora, he spent his tragically short career wrestling with a way to convey his own ancestry and the space of Black Atlantic modernity, which was subjected and subjugated by a Western Eurocentric discourse. It is in works like Versus Medici that he is most successful; his remarkable absorption and appropriation of references from history, pop culture, religion, science, folk art and more produce an iconographic language that moves beyond the pictorial values of Western representation. Scholar Marc Mayer explains: “Basquiat speaks articulately while dodging the full impact of clarity like a matador...[his] relationship to the meaning of his references and quotations is less to the point than is his understanding of the pictorial use-value of that meaning." (Marc Mayer, “Basquiat In History,” in: Exh. Cat., New York, Brooklyn Museum (and traveling), Jean-Michel Basquiat, 2005, p. 50) While some external features are described, such as the insinuation of dreaded hair, in other places the form is viewed as if through X-ray, with outlines of internal organs or sinews evoking a favored tome from the artist’s childhood, Gray’s Anatomy. These simultaneous views of external body and internal makeup offer a potent metaphor for the Black experience, eliding the distinction between how a body is perceived and the reality of the individual inhabiting it. By presenting his figure in this way, Basquiat is boldly claiming a new space for the Black body within the white Western artistic tradition.

"Versus Medici exemplifies the artist’s magnificently heroic presentation of the isolated human form, and in this vein can be seen to advance a venerable tradition epitomized by Pablo Picasso’s famed portraits and Willem de Kooning’s corporeally provocative series of Women. Working with an almost vertiginous speed, the tactile qualities of his paintwork – at times scrawled, at others dripped, smudged, or seemingly sprayed – retain and exalt the vital immediacy of graffiti art. Exemplifying the artist’s singular talent as a master colorist, the surface is ignited in a blaze of undiluted yellow, red, pink and blue, which clash and effervesce with the bravura of a firework display. Considering Basquiat’s heady palette, curator Marc Mayer notes, “With direct and theatrically ham-fisted brushwork, he uses unmixed color structurally, like a seasoned abstractionist, but in the service of a figurative and narrative agenda. Basquiat deployed his color architecturally, at times like so much tinted mortar to bind a composition, at other times like opaque plaster to embody it. Color holds his pictures together, and through it they command a room” (Marc Mayer, ibid., p. 46). Basquiat’s paintings are rich in art historical allusion, and the combustive colors and expressive style employed in the present work are greatly indebted to de Kooning’s revolutionary use of color and abstracted facture. Further, the figure’s face, mask-like in its construction, reveals emaciated, scarified eyes and clenched jaw, hinting at the artist's Haitian heritage and a spiritual, Shaman-like figure. Unequivocally inspired by the Cubism of his great hero Picasso, the figure also looks back to the Spanish master’s own inspiration drawn from African art, itself a validation of Basquiat's own cultural heritage. In particular, Basquiat's figure, with the haptic emphasis on the eyes and teeth, bears striking similarities to African tribal sculptures. For Picasso, primitivism was an antidote to the conservatism of the academies; similarly, Basquiat finds in his own recourse to primitivism a corrective to the chaste intellectual coolness of late modernism and a powerful mode of expressing overtly contemporary angst. With references to these two modern masters, Basquiat again underlines his own position as rightful heir to their artistic throne.

"By absorbing and deploying a multitude of references to the greatest creative geniuses of the past—from Leonardo to Picasso, Michelangelo to de Kooning—Basquiat declares himself the ultimate successor not only to the legacy of the Renaissance, but to all of art history. And yet, by appropriating the hallmarks of those masters into his own unique language and style, he maintains his stance in opposition to the exclusionary systems and demands of that same tradition. He engages without ever ceding to the demands of the institution; as described by scholar Robert Farris Thompson, “There was a kind of deliberate roughness to his paintings, as if to say: I remain a warrior of the streets; behold the world as seen through vernacular eyes.” (Robert Farris Thompson, op. cit., pp. 31-32) To issue such a challenge to centuries of historic tradition – at only 22 years old—is extraordinary, yet the passionate and assertive spirit of Versus Medici stands as irrefutable testament to his triumphant success. Nearly 40 years later, there can be no doubt that Basquiat stands amongst the ultimate modern masters: a Leonardo da Vinci for the contemporary age. Standing before Versus Medici, curator and critic Glenn O’Brien’s succinct summation of Basquiat’s unique brilliance is more potent than ever: “He was the once-in-a-lifetime real deal: artist as prophet.” (Glenn O’Brien, “Greatest Hits,” in: Exh. Cat., Art Gallery of Ontario, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now’s The Time, 2015, p. 18)...

"In the lower register of the painting, the subject’s body is rendered in an abstracted V-shaped formation, alluding to the way in which mummified Pharaonic kings are typically depicted. This powerful stance is eloquently captured in Basquiat’s repeated calligraphic scrawl of the word “Aopkehsks,” which could refer to the Hellenization of the Egyptian pharaoh Akenhaten, a prominent and idealized king, or to apotheosis, the elevation of the human to the realms of the divine which was widely represented in Renaissance painting. As art historian Robert Farris Thompson has described, “Jean-Michel was turning into art notes taken during a massive and ongoing self-education, not unlike the famous ‘homemade education’ Malcolm X pursued… Basquiat thrilled to the pleasures of the world, and thrilled to the pleasures of the image, and he built a brilliant career upon the two.” (Robert Farris Thomson, “Three Works By Basquiat,” in: Exh. Cat., New Orleans, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Basquiat and the Bayou, 2014, pp. 31-32) However the viewer chooses to interpret these signs and symbols, Basquiat positions his ferocious figure as a vessel of divine will. Read alongside the symbol of the three-pointed crown – one of Basquiat’s defining and most recognizable motifs – there is little doubt the figure in the painting is depicted as an avenging hero of art history. With these myriad references to ancient depictions of power, Basquiat again aligns himself with almighty royalty, standing defiant against a system that would marginalize him.

"Further underlining Basquiat’s view of his own position as an outsider in the dominant art world is his revolutionary redefining of figuration. The son of immigrants and the African diaspora, he spent his tragically short career wrestling with a way to convey his own ancestry and the space of Black Atlantic modernity, which was subjected and subjugated by a Western Eurocentric discourse. It is in works like Versus Medici that he is most successful; his remarkable absorption and appropriation of references from history, pop culture, religion, science, folk art and more produce an iconographic language that moves beyond the pictorial values of Western representation. Scholar Marc Mayer explains: “Basquiat speaks articulately while dodging the full impact of clarity like a matador...[his] relationship to the meaning of his references and quotations is less to the point than is his understanding of the pictorial use-value of that meaning." (Marc Mayer, “Basquiat In History,” in: Exh. Cat., New York, Brooklyn Museum (and traveling), Jean-Michel Basquiat, 2005, p. 50) While some external features are described, such as the insinuation of dreaded hair, in other places the form is viewed as if through X-ray, with outlines of internal organs or sinews evoking a favored tome from the artist’s childhood, Gray’s Anatomy. These simultaneous views of external body and internal makeup offer a potent metaphor for the Black experience, eliding the distinction between how a body is perceived and the reality of the individual inhabiting it. By presenting his figure in this way, Basquiat is boldly claiming a new space for the Black body within the white Western artistic tradition.

"Versus Medici exemplifies the artist’s magnificently heroic presentation of the isolated human form, and in this vein can be seen to advance a venerable tradition epitomized by Pablo Picasso’s famed portraits and Willem de Kooning’s corporeally provocative series of Women. Working with an almost vertiginous speed, the tactile qualities of his paintwork – at times scrawled, at others dripped, smudged, or seemingly sprayed – retain and exalt the vital immediacy of graffiti art. Exemplifying the artist’s singular talent as a master colorist, the surface is ignited in a blaze of undiluted yellow, red, pink and blue, which clash and effervesce with the bravura of a firework display. Considering Basquiat’s heady palette, curator Marc Mayer notes, “With direct and theatrically ham-fisted brushwork, he uses unmixed color structurally, like a seasoned abstractionist, but in the service of a figurative and narrative agenda. Basquiat deployed his color architecturally, at times like so much tinted mortar to bind a composition, at other times like opaque plaster to embody it. Color holds his pictures together, and through it they command a room” (Marc Mayer, ibid., p. 46). Basquiat’s paintings are rich in art historical allusion, and the combustive colors and expressive style employed in the present work are greatly indebted to de Kooning’s revolutionary use of color and abstracted facture. Further, the figure’s face, mask-like in its construction, reveals emaciated, scarified eyes and clenched jaw, hinting at the artist's Haitian heritage and a spiritual, Shaman-like figure. Unequivocally inspired by the Cubism of his great hero Picasso, the figure also looks back to the Spanish master’s own inspiration drawn from African art, itself a validation of Basquiat's own cultural heritage. In particular, Basquiat's figure, with the haptic emphasis on the eyes and teeth, bears striking similarities to African tribal sculptures. For Picasso, primitivism was an antidote to the conservatism of the academies; similarly, Basquiat finds in his own recourse to primitivism a corrective to the chaste intellectual coolness of late modernism and a powerful mode of expressing overtly contemporary angst. With references to these two modern masters, Basquiat again underlines his own position as rightful heir to their artistic throne.

"By absorbing and deploying a multitude of references to the greatest creative geniuses of the past—from Leonardo to Picasso, Michelangelo to de Kooning—Basquiat declares himself the ultimate successor not only to the legacy of the Renaissance, but to all of art history. And yet, by appropriating the hallmarks of those masters into his own unique language and style, he maintains his stance in opposition to the exclusionary systems and demands of that same tradition. He engages without ever ceding to the demands of the institution; as described by scholar Robert Farris Thompson, “There was a kind of deliberate roughness to his paintings, as if to say: I remain a warrior of the streets; behold the world as seen through vernacular eyes.” (Robert Farris Thompson, op. cit., pp. 31-32) To issue such a challenge to centuries of historic tradition – at only 22 years old—is extraordinary, yet the passionate and assertive spirit of Versus Medici stands as irrefutable testament to his triumphant success. Nearly 40 years later, there can be no doubt that Basquiat stands amongst the ultimate modern masters: a Leonardo da Vinci for the contemporary age. Standing before Versus Medici, curator and critic Glenn O’Brien’s succinct summation of Basquiat’s unique brilliance is more potent than ever: “He was the once-in-a-lifetime real deal: artist as prophet.” (Glenn O’Brien, “Greatest Hits,” in: Exh. Cat., Art Gallery of Ontario, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now’s The Time, 2015, p. 18) "

Condo 107 

Lot 107, "Reclining Blue  Form," by George  Condo,  oil on canvas,  78 by 74 inches,  2011


Lot 107 is a large oil on canvas by George Condo (b. 1957) that is entitled "Reclining Blue Form."  It measures 78 by 74 inches and was painted in 2011.

It hs an estimate of $2;500,000 to $3,500,000.

The catalogue entry provides the following commentary: 

"An kaleidoscope of brilliant colors and surging forms, Reclining Blue Form from 2011 powerfully captures the raw painterly dynamism and searing psychic intensity which characterize the very best of George Condo’s celebrated practice. Within the fractured realm of the present work, abstraction and figuration collide with thrilling velocity before the viewer’s eyes. As exaggerated features and disjointed body parts wildly careen across fragmented, abstract planes, we glimpse flashes of each of the artist’s most important touchstones: Old Master portraits, his own brand of ‘psychological Cubism,’ cartoon references, and a commitment to constantly pushing the boundaries that separate figurative and non-representational painting. Evincing an irresistible creative furor, the present work departs from Condo’s more carefully planned portraits and towards a liberated embrace of line, color, and form. Ultimately, Reclining Blue Form revels in the unforeseen beauty and wildly alluring chaos of Condo’s improvisational genius.

"Epitomized in the present work, Condo’s practice is deeply concerned with examining representations of the figure throughout art history, and the genre of portraiture is elevated to a position of tremendous importance within his creative output. Woven into the fabric of his paintings is a renewed interest in inserting art historical tropes in a playful and absurd new context that simultaneously revives, and humorously undermines, the integrity of portraiture. In its masterful contusion of abstracted bodies, Reclining Blue Form evocatively recalls Pablo Picasso’s masterful Cubist facture; yet, where Picasso radically shattered the picture plane to explore multiple viewpoints in the same moment, Condo ruptures his compositions to reveal the multifaceted and kaleidoscopic complexities of human emotion through his aptly self-termed mode of ‘psychological cubism.’ 'I try to depict a character’s train of thoughts simultaneously – hysteria, joy, sadness, desperation,” the artist explains. “If you could see these things at once that would be like what I’m trying to make you see in my art.'
"While Picasso’s fractured and distorted forms have long been a source of influence for Condo, works such as Reclining Blue Form mark new area of exploration for the artist. In the whirling abstraction and sinuous forms of the present work, the influence of artists such as Willem de Kooning and Lee Krasner is readily present. However, this is by no means a purely abstract composition. Rather, the painting teeters on the periphery of representation as a myriad of half-formed, clown-like visages and voluptuous feminine silhouettes tantalizingly emerge and recede across the picture plane. As Holland Cotter notes in his review of George Condo: Mental States at the New Museum in 2011: 'Mr. Condo is not a producer of single precious items consistent in style and long in the making… He’s an artist of variety, plentitude and multiformity. He needs to be seen in an environment that presents him not as a virtuoso soloist but as the master of the massed chorale.' (Holland Carter, 'A Mind Where Picasso Meets Looney Tunes,' The New York Times, 27 January 2011) As succinctly described by the artist himself: 'The only way for me to feel the difference between every other artist and me is to use every artist to become me.'...Crushed together in a bizarre yet resolved composition, Reclining Blue Form witnesses Condo breaking down his discrete characters, tinkering with their parts, and welding them back together in new and inventive configurations, ultimately producing a painting that, in its alluring visual chaos, serves as fitting testament to the infinite variety and complications of the modern psyche."
Twombly 110
Lot 110, "Untitled (Rome)," by Cy Twombly, oil based on house paint and wax crayon on canvas, 61 by 76 3/4 inches, 1970

Lot 11-0 is a large "Blackboard" painting by Cy Twombly (1928 - 2011) that was painted in 1970.  It is entitled "Untitled (Rome)."

The lot has an estimate for this drab work of $35,000,000 to $45,000,000.

The website provides the following commentary:

"A breathtaking union of inspired visual lyricism and explosive gestural force, Untitled (Rome) is amongst the most magnificent examples of Cy Twombly’s extraordinary abstract lexicon. Executed in 1970, at the chronological apex of the artist’s celebrated ‘Blackboard' paintings, the present work is amongst the most gesturally expressive invocations of the urgent, interrogatory mark-marking which distinguishes the very best examples of this revered series. Even within that rarified group, the present work rises to the fore: unlike those Blackboards restrained to neat rows of tightly coiled reverberations, or those which dissolve into complete frenetic abandon, the present work sees Twombly express the exact, thrilling boundary between control and anarchy, order and chaos, intention and accident. As it surges, leaps, and whirls across the canvas, Twombly’s line sears with the raw energy of a stripped wire; against the elegant sobriety of the slate-gray backdrop, the looping scrawls of Untitled (Rome) teeter on the threshold of legibility in a masterful interrogation of sign, symbol, and mark. Held in the same esteemed private collection for almost three decades, Untitled (Rome) emerges as a spectacularly realized example of the ever-present tension between legibility and abstraction, gesture and expression, signifier and signified that lies at the very heart of Twombly’s extraordinary artistic practice. 

"In Untitled (Rome), formal restraint does battle with sensuous, hedonistic mark-making as lines swell, peak, and resolve themselves with visceral urgency across canvas. Twombly’s cylindrical forms seemingly reverberate within their own echo chamber, refracting into seeming infinity whilst elegantly restrained within the parameters of the canvas. Increasing in volume and expressive abandon as they progress, the four feverish bands of lassoed lines appear to slowly cede any sense of regularity and control, resulting in thrillingly increased drips, smears, and spatters toward the bottom of the picture; against the subdued elegance of the grey ground, the oval scrawls emerge from and recede into one another in dense relief, teetering on the threshold of legibility. As eloquently described by Pierre Restany, Twombly’s abstraction is 'poetry and reporting, furtive gesture and écriture automatique, sexual catharsis and both affirmation and negation of the self. As full of ambiguity as life itself...Twombly's 'writing' has neither syntax nor logic, but quivers with life, its murmuring penetrating to the very depths of things. The marks are elusive since they instinctively make for the essential.' (Pierre Restany, The Revolution of the Sign, 1961, in: Nicola Del Roscio, ed., Writings on Cy Twombly, , Munich 2002, p. 47) Here, we see the painter leave behind any didactic meaning to his invention, abandoning the safe haven of mythological symbols in favor of a more primal usage of line as a potent transmitter of space, duration, and motion.

"Untitled (Rome) serves as eloquent testament to the profound and enduring inspiration Twombly drew from the cultural, historic, and aesthetic specificities of Rome over the course of his extraordinary career. Upon his first visit to Rome in the early 1950s, Twombly was immediately taken by ancient forms of graffiti that he saw scrawled on the exteriors of historical Roman ruins; echoed with newfound ferocity in the graffiti-like strokes of the present work, the artist notes the profound influence the iconographic legacy of classical antiquity enacted upon his practice: 'Generally speaking my art has evolved out of the interest in symbols abstracted, but never the less humanistic; formal as most arts are in their archaic and classic stages, and a deeply aesthetic sense of eroded or ancient surfaces of time.'...It was in Rome, a city saturated in the talismanic presence of myth and archaic legacy, the artist first conceived of the sparse iconography of his Blackboards.

"Begun in 1966, The Blackboard works marked Twombly's abrupt abandonment of the richly colorful and expressive compositions from the first half of the 1960s known as Baroque Paintings, giving rise to works that would employ a visual language of pure austerity and sublimity. Renouncing the richer figuration and coloration of that earlier work, Twombly shifted his focus back to the restrained monochrome works that he first embarked upon in the 1950s. However, unlike the static, semi-figurative black and white paintings of Twombly's formative years, the inimitable gray works of the 1960s saw the centrifugal energy and erotic charge of Twombly's Baroque-inspired early 1960s paintings transferred into a rhythmic discourse of mood and movement. Within the Blackboards, 'Twombly tries to shatter form as well as its concomitant intellectual and narrative history in a kind of relativism, reducing it to a rationality of 'black and white' that is at the same time the structural sum of all movement.' (Heiner Bastian, ed., Cy Twombly: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Volume III 1966-1971, Munich 1994, p. 23) Here, the scrawled spirals invoke a sort of proto-handwriting: a primitive form of expression that strives toward resolution and legibility but is suspended in a perpetual territory of formal symbolism, akin to our contemporary reading of classical mark-making.

"Although Twombly’s mark-making teeters on the exhilarating border between control and pure, hedonistic abandon, the feverish line of Untitled (Rome) never bursts free from the cylindrical reverberations which contain it. Unlike Twombly’s earlier canvases, in which episodes of personal expression are scattered across the canvas, the artist here constricts his activity to a gestural framework—nevertheless, the lassoed bands give way to expressive subjectivity in their vigorously imprecise execution. The pattern of voluminous loops recalls the forced repetition of the Palmer handwriting method, in which the simple gesture of pencil to paper becomes an internalized bodily discipline.

"Twombly was himself taught to write through the Palmer method, an infamously strict method that requires pupils to repetitively practice rote drills keeping their fingers and wrists rigid while only moving their arms. Within Untitled (Rome), Twombly seemingly invokes yet denounces these punishing typological drills; far from ceding to methodical repetition, the charged strokes of the artist’s hand leap across the page with furious intensity, their rhythmic cadence and raw, kinetic energy unhampered by methodical restraint or canonical impetus. As described by scholar Robert-Pincus Witten, 'Handwriting has become for Twombly the means of beginning again, of erasing the Baroque culmination of the painting of the early 1960s… it has been drowned in a schoolmaster’s blackboard. It has been reduced to rudimentary exercises… With it, Twombly casts down all that was grandiose in his mature style, rejecting a lush manner for simple and stringent exercises.'...Indeed, the experience of the present work – begun in the upper left, and coursing across the canvas again, and again, and again – is one of increasing abandon, surging towards a fever pitch that is never completely realized. As they progress, Twombly’s loops grow in scale, density, and anarchic force, as if to reach a final point of definitive expression. Yet ultimately, as flawlessly summarized by the artist himself: 'Each line now is the actual experience with its own innate history. It does not illustrate - it is the sensation of its own realization.' (The artist cited in: Exh. Cat, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Cy Twombly: A Retrospective, 1994, p.27)"

  Kiefer 134

Lot 134, "Salz, Merkur, Sulfur," by Anselm Kiefer, mixed media and lead boat on canvas in two parts, 149 1/2 by 220 by 23 5/8 inches, 2011

Lot 134, "Salz, Merkur, Sulfur," is a huge and wonderful mixed media and lead boat on canvas in two parts by Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945).  It measires 149 1/2 by 220 by 23 5/8 inches.  It was created in 2011.

It has an estimate of $800,000 to $1,200,000.  It sold for $867,000.

The auction's website provides the following commentary about this lot:

"Viscerally charged, intellectually demanding, and visually stunning, Anselm Kiefer’s Salz, Merkur, Sulfur from 2011 endures as a distillation of the essential conceptual aims and visual gestures of Kiefer’s oeuvre. Superimposed over a bleak landscape rendered with a terrestrial impasto, the radiant colors of the artist’s palette dominate the composition, illuminating the scene, coalescing to produce a both physical and symbolic blend of mythology, history, science, and language. Suffused with a multiplicity of associations, the present work is a monumental display of Kiefer's aesthetic forged from the evisceration of the past and symptomatic of the psychological affliction of warfare. Through the transformation of quotidian constituents into something of extreme metaphorical significance, the German artist emphasizes the transformative potential of matter to become an object of intensely evocative power. The title of the present work – Salz, Merkur, Sulfur – references the alchemical trinity of principles: salt, sulfur, and mercury, which in alchemy is thought to be the basis of all matter, and into which all matter can be divided.

"Rendered on a monumental scale and entirely immersing the viewer in its desolate, unearthly landscape, Salz, Merkur, Sulfur presents an overwhelming sense of decay and anguish. The lead submarine which lays stranded on the surface has begun to decay too, as crystallized formations adhere to the surface, suggesting the fragility of the boat, and symbolically condemning the futility of war. And yet, through Kiefer’s masterful use of symbolically loaded materials and imagery, Salz, Merkur, Sulfur also hints at redemption. Above the lead boat etched into the surface of the painting, the elemental symbols for Salt, Mercury, and Sulfur are presented in a triangular configuration: NaCl, Hg (atomic mass 200.59), and S (atomic number16, atomic mass 32.055). Within alchemy, Salt is the earth element, the element of non-action and stability, representing the body; Mercury the water element, the principle of fusibility and volatility, representing the spirit; and Sulphur the fire element, the principle of inflammability, representing the soul. In traditional alchemy, lead is an impure metal associated with death and also the impurities, or sins, of mankind. This reading aligns with Kiefer’s critique of war. However, when purified with fire, lead can be transmuted into gold. In this regard, lead represents the potential for the absolution of sin and rebirth. Kiefer has been fascinated by lead throughout his career as he believes it is a material capable of capturing the ambiguity of life: 'I feel closest to lead because it is like us. It is in flux. It’s changeable and has the potential to achieve a higher state' (Anselm Kiefer cited in: Exh. Cat., Fort Worth, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth, 2005, p. 37). 

"Rich layers of paint, plaster, debris, crystallized elements and other earthly materials that reference the subject of the painting introduce a sculptural element to Kiefer’s work. In the conflation of temporal specificity and the spatial perspectives of sea and sky, Kiefer delves into mystical narratives as principally emphasized by the submarine-like vessel floating at the center of the composition. The surface of the composition is activated by visually stunning crystalline formations in pink and blue. The artist’s archetypal use of lead acts as an homage to his teacher, the iconic German conceptualist Joseph Beuys, who created revolutionary sculpture using similarly symbolically charged materials. That the iconic submarine, which is a reoccurring symbol throughout Kiefer’s oeuvre, is made of lead in this work is of great significance: Kiefer frequently commented that this soft metal has a much stronger effect on him than any other material and has become itself a source of ideas. Heaving with matter and conceptual weight, Die Argonauten delivers a complex display of Kiefer's unique aesthetic."


Marilyns by Warhol

 Lot 120, "Marilyn Monroe (Feldman & Schellman II.22-31)," ten colored screenprints by Andy Warhol, numbered 100 of 250 sets plus 26 artist's proofs, 1967


Lot 120, "Marilyn Monroe (Feldman & Schellman II.22-31)," is a set of ten colored screenprints of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol (1928-1987).  It is numbered 100 of 250 sets plus 26 artist's proofs, each image 36 inches square.  It was published in 1967. The lot has an estimate of $2,000,000 to $3,000,000.  It sold for $3,045,000.


The auction's website provided the following commentary:


"Shortly after Marilyn Monroe’s tragic death, Warhol purchased a publicity still of the actress from the 1953 film, Niagara. Over the following four months, Warhol created more than twenty screenprinted canvases incorporating the found image. Warhol cropped the image, bringing Marilyn’s face into greater focus and transforming a formerly banal stock photograph into one of the most recognizable and enduring motifs of twentieth-century art....

"With the image of Marilyn, Warhol found the perfect confluence of celebrity and disaster – two themes that fascinated the artist throughout his career. Marilyn Monroe personified the cult of celebrity, beauty and Hollywood glamor – but after her untimely demise, she epitomized loneliness, tragedy and the unfulfilled promise of the American dream.

"In 1966, together with the art dealer David Whitney, Warhol began publishing print portfolios under the name Factory Additions, utilizing some of his most famous subjects, including Marilyn, Campbell’s Soup and Flowers. The artist's impetus here extended beyond the commercial—as Donna de Salvo explains, the concept of printing carried with it other ramifications: “Printing, or being ‘in print,’ represented a change in condition, a shift from a private, or inner world, to one that was external and public. It suggested desirability, that something was wanted by more than one person; or, as Warhol once proclaimed, ‘repetition adds up to reputation.’ (Donna de Salvo, "God is in the Details: The Prints of Andy Warhol," in: Freyda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann, Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1967, New York 2003, p. 19)

"Published in 1967, Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn) was the first of the Factory Additions projects and it has since remained among the most celebrated of all of Warhol’s graphic productions. The Marilyn prints were the first technically complex prints the artist made. Using the same publicity image as his earlier paintings, the set of ten works were printed in a wide variety of color combinations, from strikingly muted blacks, silvers and greys, to brilliant—at times neon—pinks, greens and yellows. The divergent hues have the effect of transforming the image of Marilyn, from 'dazzling or sedate, frazzled or assured, glamorous or gaudy.' (Roberta Bernstein, "Warhol as Printmaker," in: ibid., p. 16)
Upon close examination of the full set together, one notices slight differences in registration– at times the subject’s features are coherent and properly aligned; while in other instances they are fragmented and askew. So instead of the same form repeated over and over, Warhol exploited the possibility of finding difference in sameness. Moreover, the use of intense flat but vibrant color often printed off-register heightens the sense of artificiality even beyond what he achieved in his paintings. According to Roberta Bernstein, 'these are typical of Warhol’s portraits, which are almost always about surface appearance… they show what the public wants or needs to project onto people who become transformed into cultural symbols: people whose ‘faces seem perpetually illuminated by the afterimage of a flashbulb.’” (Ibid.) With the Marilyn portfolio, Warhol both elevated Marilyn’s iconic persona and at the same time made her more accessible to the viewer and to the public.


Michell 20


 Lot 120, Untitled, by Joan Mitchell, oil on canvas, 74 3/4 by 74 7/8 inches, circa 1958

Lot 120 is a very vibrant untitled oil on canvas by Joan Mitchell (1925-1992) that measures 74 3/4 by 74 7/8 inches and was painted circas 1958. It has an estimate of $6,000,000 to $8,000,000. It sold for $7,158,000.

The auction's website provided the following commentary about this lot:

"Across the expansive surface of Untitled, exuberant ribbons of color twist and turn, writhe and skate, float and fall, slicing through the churning mass of white pigment to create a work of astounding compositional balance and beauty. Hailing from circa 1958, during what is widely considered the most formative period of the artist’s career, Untitled represents the pinnacle of Mitchell’s unique mode of Abstract Expressionism. Painted at this pivotal early moment in Mitchell’s long and varied career – a period characterized by critically lauded and commercially successful gallery shows – the present work endures as a beacon of chromatic and textural expression, played out on the canvas with sense of intimacy and urgency that is singular to the artist.

"In 1947, after attending art school at the Art Institute of Chicago, Joan Mitchell moved to New York and was immediately enraptured by the city's dynamic art scene. Mitchell was a rare female presence in the otherwise male-centric world of the New York Abstract Expressionists. She moved in the same avant-garde circles as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Hans Hofmann, both socially and professionally, and was included in the seminal Ninth Street Show in 1951. During this early point in her career, Mitchell drew influence from the vague figurations of Wassily Kandinsky, Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning, but over time she grew increasingly fascinated and challenged by the bold abstraction of Jackson Pollock. When Mitchell eventually transitioned to full-fledged abstraction in the 1950s, she channeled Pollock in her technique, applying thick layers of paint on the canvas with broad arm strokes and splashing drips from her paintbrush. Unlike Pollock, however, Mitchell maintained a firmer degree of planning and preparation, despite the fact that her abstract paintings such as Untitled seem so spontaneous compared to her early work. She methodically sketched before she started painting, and she was constantly evaluating and judging her canvases throughout her creative process. This technique rejected many elements of chance that played such an integral role in Pollock's work. Further, Mitchell never adopted Pollock's practice of laying his canvases on the floor while applying paint; instead, Mitchell stood her canvases upright, allowing gravity to influence the downward flow of paint, resulting in the smudges, drips and pools of color that lend Untitled its remarkably dynamic surface.

"In Untitled, jewellike specks of radiant purple, verdant green, and teal are tempered by strategically placed painterly elements, combining the gestural flair of Mitchell’s artistic peers with the variability and ferocity of the natural world. Anchored by bodies of concentrated line and pigment in the upper right and lower center of the composition, tendrils of color spiral outwards in controlled vortexes of pure expression, lending the painting an extraordinary dynamism and energy. Alongside this masterful command of her palette, Mitchell employs an incredible range of gestures, from weighty peaks of impasto, to carnal smears of pigment, to delicate passages of thin wash. Indeed, Mitchell’s mark-making is defined by a deep reverence and devotion to gesture – whether as calligraphic, spilled, dotted, thinned, blurred, smudged, or scraped – and its ability to convey to convey the power of memories and experiences, themes she professed as the basis of her painting.

"Beginning in 1952, with her first solo exhibition at the New Gallery, Mitchell entered the artistic discourse surrounding Abstract Expressionism as an important leading voice, described as 'one of America's most brilliant 'Action-Painters.' At a time when many young artists are withdrawing introspectively from the bold experimentation of their elders … her art expands in the wake of her generous energy.” (Irving Sandler, "“Young Moderns and Modern Masters: Joan Mitchell,"” Art News, March 1957, p. 32) This pivotal moment heralded a seminal period in Mitchell’s career, during which she moved back and forth between New York and Paris, seamlessly blending the expressive abstract machismo of the New York School with an elegant European fidelity to nature. For although Mitchell’s work reflects the gestural style and technical idiom of her male Abstract Expressionist peers, her output is simultaneously grounded in landscape and the beauty of nature, much like the European Impressionists, resulting in a unique style that invited such labels as Post-Cubism or Abstract Impressionism. Beneath her brush, the canvas of Untitled transforms into a performative arena, within which Mitchell has staged a furiously orchestrated symphony of chromatic activity. Breathtaking in its painterly bravura, Untitled constitutes a remarkable sensory engagement with nature, revealing Mitchell’s artistic fervor and personal turmoil, and providing an endlessly engrossing and dynamic visual experience."


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