Provenance
Vrej Baghoomian, Inc., New York
Private Collection, New York
Phillips de Pury, New York, May 13, 2004, lot 22
Private Collection, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Exhibited
St. Louis, Washington University Gallery of Art, Art of the 80's: Modern and Postmodern, January 23 - April 5, 1998 (illustrated on the cover of the brochure)
Mexico City, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Jean-Michel Basquiat, October 5 - December 19, 2004, p. 73
Bali, Darga Gallery, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 2005, p. 41
Valencià, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern, Fire Under Ashes, May 5 - August 28, 2005
Literature
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Appendix, Galerie Enrico Navarra, Paris, 2010, 3rd ed., no. 2, pp. 24-25, 42-43 (illustrated)
Catalogue Essay
Painted in 1987, just a year prior to his untimely death, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (Devil’s head) exhibits the artist’s distinct aesthetic vision and characteristic subject matter: the skull. In the present lot, Basquiat offers two mirrored skulls in black, white and blazing red, one echoing the other in asymmetric balance. In their rendering, these bare-teethed skulls, executed in the artist’s characteristic, active brushwork, interplay against a lustrous metallic background. Conceived at the end of his career, this work occupies a unique space as the millennium neared, provoking us to reflect on the changed nature that Basquiat’s work took towards the end of his practice. Indeed Untitled (Devil’s head) pulls from the same themes evident in the artist’s very last painting, created just a year later in 1988, Riding with Death. In 1987, the artist had just witnessed the death of his dear friend and contemporary Andy Warhol, and was just a year from his own. The darkness in his life that prevailed might explain the meditative backgrounds of both of these late works, and the motifs of death and the devil.

Aesthetically, the present lot reflects the artist’s two key influences pulled from throughout his oeuvre. The skull harkens back to one of Basquiat’s first sources, a book on anatomy given to him by his mother in 1968 after surviving an almost-fatal car accident. While abstract, Basquiat’s skulls are rendered with a semblance of scientific accuracy in their structure and emphasis on the individual parts that make up the body, evident here in his rendering of the teeth and nasal cavities. Like Francis Bacon, there exists a psychological pulse in the stylized way that this anatomical influence was expressed, belonging to the unique intersection of abstraction and figuration. In Untitled (Devil’s head), Basquiat also harkens back to the art historical canon with which he was so fascinated, not only in the tribal motifs exhibited in the contours of the skulls’ heads and the arrow-like lines framing the composition, but also in the metallic surface of the background, which recalls Renaissance compositions and Byzantine mosaics.

The amalgamation of influences Basquiat refers to are, in typical fashion, infused with the urbanization of 1980s New York City, however they appear to be distinctly different from the frenetic canvases of Basquiat’s early works. Here, Basquiat rejects background noise of text and music for sublime reflection. As such, the composition of open-mouthed devils reflects not only the artist’s inspirations, but also speaks to the autobiographical nature of his work, perhaps acting as a metaphor for the artist’s late life. As Phoebe Hoban explains, “In Basquiat's paintings, boys never become men, they become skeletons and skulls. Presence is expressed as absence--whether it's in the spectral bodies and disembodied skulls he paints or the words he crosses out…His work is the ultimate expression of a profound sense of "no there there," a deep hole in the soul.” (Pheobe Hoban, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art, London, 1998)
Artist Biography
Jean-Michel Basquiat
American • 1960 - 1988
One of the most famous American artists of all time, Jean-Michel Basquiat first gained notoriety as a subversive graffiti-artist and street poet in the late 1970s. Operating under the pseudonym SAMO, he emblazoned the abandoned walls of the city with his unique blend of enigmatic symbols, icons and aphorisms. A voracious autodidact, by 1980, at 22-years of age, Basquiat began to direct his extraordinary talent towards painting and drawing. His powerful works brilliantly captured the zeitgeist of the 1980s New York underground scene and catapulted Basquiat on a dizzying meteoric ascent to international stardom that would only be put to a halt by his untimely death in 1988.
Basquiat's iconoclastic oeuvre revolves around the human figure. Exploiting the creative potential of free association and past experience, he created deeply personal, often autobiographical, images by drawing liberally from such disparate fields as urban street culture, music, poetry, Christian iconography, African-American and Aztec cultural histories and a broad range of art historical sources.
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24

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Untitled (Devil's head)

initialed and dated "JMB '87" on the overlap
acrylic on canvas
48 x 40 in. (121.9 x 101.6 cm.)
Executed in 1987.

Estimate
$3,000,000 - 5,000,000

Sold for $3,610,000

Contact Specialist
Kate Bryan
Head of Evening Sale
New York
+ 1 212 940 1267

20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

New York Auction 16 November 5 PM EST

1
Carmen Herrera
Cerulean
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $970,000
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2
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Crimson Red and Canary Yellow Butterfly 45.93)
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $1,450,000
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3
Wade Guyton
Untitled
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,990,000
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4
Henry Taylor
He's Hear, and He's Thair
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $60,000
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5
Michaël Borremans
Sweet Disposition
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
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6
Vija Celmins
Untitled
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $2,890,000
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7
Gerhard Richter
Dϋsenjäger
Estimate $25,000,000 - 35,000,000
Sold for $25,565,000
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8
Kazuo Shiraga
T40
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $1,450,000
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9
Clyfford Still
Untitled
Estimate $12,000,000 - 18,000,000
Sold for $13,690,000
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10
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild (720-2)
Estimate $5,000,000 - 7,000,000
Sold for $6,410,000
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11
Sigmar Polke
Untitled
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,150,000
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12
David Hockney
The Gate
Estimate $6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Sold for $6,970,000
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13
Alexander Calder
Two Horizontals and Nine Verticals
Estimate $1,800,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $2,050,000
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14
Roy Lichtenstein
Ceramic Sculpture #7
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $394,000
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15
Roy Lichtenstein
Nudes in Mirror
Estimate On Request
Sold for $21,530,000
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16
Jean Dubuffet
Corps de dame, la rose incarnate
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,290,000
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17
Aristide Maillol
Baigneuse accroupie (Crouching woman)
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $162,500
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18
Jeff Koons
Italian Woman
Estimate $3,000,000 - 5,000,000
Sold for $3,610,000
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19No Reserve
Donald Judd
Untitled (Menziken 88-16)
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000 •
Sold for $2,410,000
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20
Yayoi Kusama
Infinity Nets (OZEH)
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,810,000
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21
Mira Schendel
Sem titulo (XII)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $970,000
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22
Andy Warhol
Cowboys and Indians
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $394,000
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23
Keith Haring
Snake and Man; Dogs and Men
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $1,102,000
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24
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled (Devil's head)
Estimate $3,000,000 - 5,000,000
Sold for $3,610,000
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25
Jean Dubuffet
Le Gommeux
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $760,000
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26
Damien Hirst
Disintegration - The Crown of Life
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,150,000
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27
George Condo
Noble Woman
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $1,006,000
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28
Richard Prince
I Went to the Doctor
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $1,570,000
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29
Ed Ruscha
Peas, Asparagus
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
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30
Joan Mitchell
Untitled
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $370,000
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31
Morris Louis
Tzadik
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $1,630,000
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32
Joe Bradley
Frankenstein
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $346,000
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33
Dan Flavin
untitled (for Leo Castelli at his gallery’s 30th anniversary) 3
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $322,000
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34
Jean Dubuffet
Femme aux Vêtements Laineux
Estimate $180,000 - 250,000
Sold for $274,000
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35
Francis Picabia
Untitled (Femme nue)
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
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36
Alexander Archipenko
Statue on Triangular Base
Estimate $350,000 - 450,000
Sold for $394,000
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37
Sigmar Polke
Untitled (Silver Painting)
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $490,000
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20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

New York Auction 16 November 5 PM EST

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Provenance

Exhibited

Literature

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

Jean-Michel Basquiat

24

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Untitled (Devil's head)

20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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