Sotheby’s London To Offer Landmark Masterworks In Its Contemporary Art Evening Auction On 26th June 2013

7/28/2019 Sothebys London To Offer Landmark Masterworks In Its Contemporary Art Evening Auction On 26th June 2013

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For Immediate ReleasePress Release London

London | +44 (0)20 7293 6000 |Leyla Daybelge | [email protected]

Mitzi Mina | [email protected]

SOTHEBYS LONDON TO OFFER

LANDMARK MASTERWORKS

IN ITS CONTEMPORARY ART EVENING

AUCTION ON 26TH JUNE 2013

Top Lots Include Seminal Works by Francis Bacon,

David Hockney, Bridget Riley and Andreas Gursky

Three Studies of Isabel Rawsthorne, oil on canvas, 1966, est. 10-15 million*

On 26thJune, Sothebys London will offer a remarkable selection of works which

articulate key moments in the careers of many giants of Contemporary Art.

Alongside a strong selection of Post-War European Masters, the sale has a

particularly strong showing of major British names. At its heart are two keypaintings by Francis Bacon one a work from his legendary first commercial show

at the Hanover Gallery in 1949 the other, an outstanding triptych portrait of his

closest female friend, muse and lover, the artist Isabel Rawsthorne. Other highlights

include David Hockneys paean to his home country, Double East Yorkshire and

Bridget Rileys powerful op art masterpiece of 1964, Stretch. The cover lot of the

auction is the most important collection of Andreas Gursky Stock Exchange

photographs in private or public hands. Created over 20 years, these monumental

and dynamic images of trading floors, distil the socio-economic topography of our

age. Many fresh to the market and with distinguished exhibition histories, the salecomprises 69 works with a combined estimate in excess of 66 million.


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Alex Branczik, Head of Sothebys Contemporary Art Department, said:

Contemporary collectors in search of prize works, should find a great deal to excite them in

our Evening Sale. It is very much an auction of historic firsts. We are offering the first

work that Francis Bacon ever sold, from his first show at a commercial gallery, in which for

the first time he depicts the human form. We have the first David Hockney landscape toappear at auction since the hugely successful 2012 Royal Academy show; a 1964 Bridget

Riley shown in the first ever exhibition of Op Art in New York in 1965 and Andreas

Gurskys first Stock Exchange photograph of 1990, part of an unparalleled collection of his

iconic series of trading floor studies.

1949 was a seminal year for Francis Bacon,

from which Head III, estimated at 5-7

million, was a seminal work. This was the

year of Bacons first one man exhibition at theHanover Gallery, in which the extraordinary

and historically important group of six paint-

encrusted, starkly monochromatic Heads

powerfully proclaimed his critical arrival.

Significantly, Head III embodies the first

irrefutable human likeness in Bacons

professional career. Pre-empting the gaping-

mouthed shriek of Head IV, this painting is the

first explicit occasion in which his obsessively

quoted broken glasses or pince nez fully

appear (which Bacon lifted from Eisensteins

1925 cinematic masterpiece Battleship Potemkin). The work was first owned by the

notable Californian collector Wright S. Ludington (1900-1992), who bought it in

advance of the Hanover Gallery show in November 1949 for 150. Since then, this

key work has been exhibited in some of the most important museum shows of

Bacons career and with its history, rich provenance and evocative subject, holds a

place of utmost importance in Bacon scholarship. Other works from this seminal

exhibition are held by the Arts Council, Tate, Ulster Museum, Met, Chicago MoCA

and National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

In 1949, the artist Isabel Rawsthorne, also held her first solo exhibition at the

Hanover Gallery and it was in preparing for their respective shows that she and

Francis Bacon met. One of the great muses of the Twentieth century, she occupies a

unique position in Bacons art. Of all his female subjects and many friends, she was

the woman to whom he felt closest and who inspired the greatest number of his

small portrait canvases. Her feline grace and striking features made her an attractive

subject for an artist and she was variously mistress and model to Andr Derain,

Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti. Three Studies of Isabel Rawsthorne(illustrated page one) was painted in 1966, during the second great artistic peak in


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Bacons career, when he broke with the male-dominated paintings of the 1940s and

50s and began depicting members of his Soho clique. The triptych illustrates the

seismic shift in Bacons work as he masterfully navigated the threshold of

abstraction and figuration. Nearly 50 years after its creation, this important work is

estimated to realise 10-15 million. A dedicated press release on the Francis Baconworks is available.

Offered at auction for the first time, David Hockneys Double East Yorkshire -

estimated at 2-3 million - is a key painting in the artists mature oeuvre. The

monumental work was exhibited in the highly important survey of Hockneys

landscapes at the Royal Academy in 2012, as well as the Espace/Paysage show at the

Pompidou Centre in Paris in 1999. Painted in California in 1998, it is one of the

artists most evocative depictions of his home county an epic homage to the

landscape he discovered during his teens. During the late 1990s a poignant

combination of a friends ill health and his mothers advancing years drew him

increasingly back to Yorkshire. He returned every three months to take her for long

drives across the Wolds and make daily visits to his gravely-ill friend Jonathan

Silver. These journeys through the gently undulating hills of the Wolds imprinted

every contour of the landscape on Hockneys memory. The luminescent colours

which seem to emanate from the canvas are redolent of Hockneys earlier

Californian landscapes, and engender a uniquely personal evocation of his

surroundings. Hockneys Californian pool scene, A Small Sunbatherof 1967, from

the legendary collection of the late Stanley J.

Seeger is also offered in the sale, with an

estimate of 300,000-500,000.

Bridget Rileys Stretch of 1964, is one of the

most important works by the artist to appear at

auction. Estimated at 1-1.5 million, the

painting was included in the ground-breaking

op art exhibition, The Responsive Eye at the

Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965,which launched Rileys international career.


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The striking black and white palette is a defining hallmark of her earliest works: she

did not introduce colour tones until 1967. Stretch is remarkable for its distinctive

format. Projecting out of the wall with an almost sculptural force, its curved sides

intensify the effect of strobing movement. The painting has been in the same private

collection since it was acquired in 1967.

Making its auction debut, Pierre Soulages

magisterial Peinture, 21 Novembre 1959 is

estimated at 2-3 million. Painted during one of

the most significant periods of his career, the

work, which exemplifies the artists fascination

with form over illusion, has a distinguished

exhibition history, having featured in major

international shows including at the Galerie deFrance (1960) and the Muse National dArt

Moderne (1967) in Paris. Soulages paintings of

the 1950s are imbued with a growing luminosity

and dominated by increasingly powerful sweeps

of paint. He was strongly influenced by the

rugged rock carvings and menhirs near his

birthplace of Rodez in Southern France. The

dramatic arcs of the brushstrokes in this work

are suggestive of these primeval geological

formations.

The sale features three important works by

Lucio Fontana. Appearing at auction for the

first time, Concetto Spaziale, le Chiese de

Venezia of 1961 (right), is expected to realise

4-6 million. An abstract masterpiece inspired

by a birds-eye map of Venice and the golden

vaulted ceiling of the basilica San Marco, the

painting has been exhibited in that city at the

Peggy Guggenheim Collection and Palazzo

Grassi as well as touring Japan in the 1986

retrospective of the artists work. Concetto

Spaziale Attese was executed in 1965, at the

height of Fontanas ground-breaking

conceptual dialogue. Estimated at 3.3-4.5 million, the imposing scale of the work,

which is unusually preserved within the original artists frame, confronts the viewer

with a spectacular interplay between pure white tableau and the six vertical blackslashes that pierce through the monochrome expanse. Concetto Spaziale, Teatrino,


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spanning nearly two meters in height and two metres across is among the largest

and most elegant works from Fontanas oeuvre. From the teatrini (little theatres)

series, the work was executed during a period of intense production between 1964

and 1966. Estimated to realise 800,000-1.2 million, only one teatrino is larger and

resides in the permanent collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

More than any artist of his

generation, Andreas

Gurskys photographic eye

identifies the subjects of

our contemporary

landscape which most

acutely define the way we

live today. His StockExchange series, ten

images made over 20 years

on three continents, chart

the history of our modern

age of globalisation. The

sale will offer an

unprecedented five exchanges the most significant collection in private or public

hands. The Tokyo Stock Exchange of 1990 (est. 500,000-700,000), the first of

Gurskys pantheon of trading floors, set the blueprint and structure for his future

practice. It is presented alongside Hong Kong Stock Exchange of 1994, (300,000-

400,000), Chicago Board of Trade, 1997, (700,000-900,000, left), Chicago Board of

Trade III, 1999-2009 (600,000-800,000) and Kuwait Stock Exchange II (400,000-

600,000). Visitors to Sothebys exhibition prior to the sale, will have the unique

opportunity of seeing the largest group of works from the Stock Exchange series

ever shown together. A separate press release on the Gursky Stock Exchanges is

available.

John Currin,

Untitled, 1998

600,000-800,000


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Sothebys has been uniting collectors with world-class works of art since1744. Sothebys became thefirst international auction house when it expanded from London to New York (1955), the first toconduct sales in Hong Kong (1973) and France (2001), and the first international fine art auction

house in China (2012). Today, Sothebys presents auctions in 10 different salesrooms, includingNew

York,London,Hong KongandParis, and SothebysBidNowprogram allows visitors to view allauctions live online and place bids from anywhere in the world. Sothebys offers collectors the

resources ofSothebys Financial Services,the worlds only full-service art financing company, aswell asprivate saleopportunities in more than 70 categories, includingS|2, the gallery arm ofSotheby's Contemporary Art department, and two retail businesses,Sothebys DiamondsandSothebys Wine.Sothebys has aglobal networkof 90 offices in 40 countries and is the oldest

company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (BID).

*Estimates do not include buyers premium and prices achieved include the hammer price plus

buyers premium.
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Sotheby’s London To Offer Landmark Masterworks In Its Contemporary Art Evening Auction On 26th June 2013