Press | Phillips

NEW YORK – 1 NOVEMBER 2024 – Phillips is pleased to present highlights from its forthcoming Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, taking place 20 November 2024 at its New York headquarters. The Day Sale’s Morning Session will begin at 10am ET, followed by the Afternoon Session at 2pm ET. Comprised of nearly 250 lots, the public exhibition will be available for viewing from 9-19 November, with further details accessible here for the Morning Session, and here for the Afternoon Session.

Annie Dolan and Patrizia Koenig, Co-Heads of the New York Day Sale of Modern & Contemporary Art, said, “We are thrilled to welcome collectors to our New York galleries for the November Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale. With offerings ranging from early American Modernism to mid-century Surrealism, from West Coast abstraction to East Village Art and the Pictures Generation, we are confident in the carefully selected offering of works from the most recognized names in 20th- and 21st-century art, including Dorothea Tanning, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring, as well as that of important living artists, such as Christopher Wool and Elizabeth Peyton. Phillips is the industry leader in the ultra-contemporary market, and we have secured a number of exciting, sought-after works by artists such as Joseph Yaeger—following his successful auction debut at Phillips London’s Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in October—and Antonio Obá. We are also pleased to present works from the distinguished Estate of John Githens and Ingeborg ten Haeff, including rare works by Kurt Seligmann, Herbert Bayer, and Hedda Sterne, as well as continuing our offerings from the Collection of Marcel Brient with Peyton’s Alex (Alex Katz) Winter 2012.”

Morning Session

Following successful results last spring, Phillips is pleased to kick off the sale with another example of Indigenous painter Emmi Whitehorse’s abstracted landscapes, as well late Ojibwe artist George Morrison’s first work at auction after David Zwirner’s recent presentation in Los Angeles (closing 2 November). The sale also features several rediscovered Bay Area abstractionists, including Lawrence Calcagno, Sonia Gechtoff, and Maija Peeples-Bright. Other female abstract painters featured prominently include Elaine de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, and Judith Rothschild.

The sale’s top lot belongs to Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Arteries of the Left Arm, 1983. This five-foot-tall canvas with paper collage was completed in February 1983 during a stay in St. Moritz with Bruno Bischofberger, Basquiat’s art dealer and the figure responsible for introducing him to Andy Warhol. Arteries of the Left Arm is a strong example of Basquiat’s interrogation of “high” and “low” art, his fascination with human anatomy that persisted since childhood, and the lexicon of symbols that became emblematic of his practice. In March 1983, one month after completing Arteries of the Left Arm, Basquiat became the youngest artist ever included in the Whitney Biennale. This work was acquired from Bischofberger in 1989 and has remained in the same esteemed private collection since.

Phillip Guston

Roman Sky, 1972

Estimate: $400,000 - 600,000

Ernie Barnes

My First Dunk, 1978

Estimate: $250,000 - 350,000

Another large-scale work, Ed Ruscha’s Howl, 1986, is an exceptional example of the artist’s Silhouette paintings. Here, Ruscha employed an airbrush to create soft, atmospheric edges, allowing the central image of a lone wolf to emerge slowly from the background. Howl has been in the same Los Angeles private collection since 1986 and has been exhibited widely across the United States and Europe, most notably in the artist’s survey at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. in 2002, and at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm in 2010.

Philip Guston’s Roman Sky, 1972, is one of dozens of paintings on paper inspired by his three extended visits to Rome beginning in 1971, many of which are housed in esteemed collections, both public and private, such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Roman Sky has never been presented publicly, remaining in the same collection since its acquisition in the 1970s when the family of the present owner acquired the work directly from the artist after a visit to his studio.

Ernie Barnes’ My First Dunk, 1978, executed in his signature neo-Mannerist style, was originally in the esteemed collection of Richard Roundtree. When Roundtree discovered that Barnes lived down the street from him in Los Angeles, he walked to Barnes’ home to meet with him and ended up purchasing My First Dunk from the artist directly in 1979. Phillips successfully sold two works from Roundtree’s collection in November 2022, including another basketball painting for more than $600,000.

Artists from New York’s downtown art scene are well-represented in the sale. Martin Wong’s El Caribe, 1988, presents two figures on motorcycles, one visible head-on, with the other’s back to the viewer, donning a Suzuki jacket emblazoned with the titular “CARIBE” above dueling American and Puerto Rican flags. By framing this work in a found antique-style construction—one which resembles the mirrors found in Old Master paintings—Wong seeks to recontextualize not only the subject, perhaps the artist’s alter ego, but also the viewer who might be staring back at their own reflection in the mirror. Keith Haring, another fixture of 1980s downtown New York is also featured in the sale with his large-scale painting on paper, Untitled, circa 1980. This work has been exhibited widely, most recently at The Walker Art Center in September of this year.

Alongside the Post-War material are several early 20th-century works from esteemed private collections, including Dorothea Tanning’s Status Quo, 1965, and American Modernist Oscar Bluemner’s masterwork, Black by Gold, 1934, both of which have undoubtedly inspired contemporary artists like Cecily Brown and Hernan Bas in their Surrealist figurative compositions and dream-like landscapes.

Martin Wong

El Caribe, 1988

Estimate: $400,000 - 600,000

Keith Haring

Untitled, circa 1980

Estimate: $300,000 – 500,000

Afternoon Session

Georg Baselitz

Der Brief von der

Front (Laktionov), 1998

Estimate: $400,000 - 600,000

The Day Sale will resume with its Afternoon Session at 2pm ET, beginning with Antonio Obá’s Cura, 2020, and Joseph Yaeger’s We are constantly on trial, 2020, followed by Sahara Longe’s Loneliness, 2022; Lauren Halsey’s Folk, 2019; and Derek Fordjour’s Sunset on York Boulevard, 2018, among others. In addition to works by sought-after emerging artists such as Stefanie Heinze, Reggie Burrows Hodges, Issy Wood, Christopher Hartmann, Hayley Barker, Geroge Rouy, and auction debuts by Robert Zehnder and Guimi You, the sale also includes works by established artists such as Stanley Whitney, Denyse Thomasos, Pat Steir, and Cecily Brown.

The Afternoon Session is led by Rudolf Stingel’s Untitled, 2014. Rendered in an exquisite, glistening gold, Untitled is a stunning example of the artist’s paintings of ornamented carpets and wallpaper, an extension of the ideas explored in his landmark solo exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi at the 2013 Venice Biennale, where he covered the space with a digital facsimile of a weathered, traditional Ottoman carpet.

Georg Baselitz’s Der Brief von der Front (Laktionov) is another important highlight in the sale. Executed in 1998, the widely exhibited painting features an upside-down figure, the seminal pictorial device Baselitz has become synonymous with since introducing it in the 1960s. The work reflects the looser gestural style and more luminous color palette characteristic of Baselitz’s mature practice, and notably belongs to the series that set the foundation for his acclaimed Remix paintings.

KAWS

BETTER KNOWING, 2013

Estimate: $500,000 - 700,000

The global success of KAWS is a testament to the artist’s cross-cultural appeal and relevancy in contemporary culture. The sculpture BETTER KNOWING, 2013, realizes KAWS’ signature figure at a monumental scale. Taking the form of a highly stylized Pinocchio, the artist’s widely celebrated COMPANION character sits in a contemplative posture, holding his nose in his hand. Another example of BETTER KNOWING was exhibited in KAWS’ major 2016–2017 solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art Fort Worth, which then traveled to the Luz Museum Shanghai, while a bronze iteration of the figure was exhibited in front of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam in 2015. Takashi Murakami’s Together with the Flower Parent and Child, 2021-22, similarly fuses popular culture with high art. Springing into three dimensions with the artist’s signature flower motif, the large-scale sculpture offers a tongue-in-cheek reprisal of the traditional mother and child subject.

The Afternoon Session also features a strong grouping of works by American blue-chip artists from the 1980s and beyond. Executed in 1990, Christopher Wool’s Fear, is a domestically scaled example of the artist’s Word Paintings, his most iconic and sought-after series. Jeff Koon’s bronze Snorkel (generic), 1985, comes from the artist’s pivotal Equilibrium series, while Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (Your Devotion Has the Look of a Lunatic Sport), 1981-1983, is emblematic of the artist’s photo-text constructions from the early 1980s and was notably exhibited at the 40th Venice Biennale in 1982. Richard Prince’s artistic range is exemplified in Are You Kidding?, 1988; Untitled (de Kooning), 2006-07; and Nurse, 2007.