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  • MOST IMPORTANT PAINTING BY BARNETT NEWMAN EVER AT AUCTION

    Barnett Newman Onement VI, 1953 © 2013 Barnett Newman Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

    Barnett Newman Onement VI, 1953
    © 2013 Barnett Newman Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $43,845,000.

    THE most important painting by Barnett Newman ever to appear at auction comes up at Sotheby’s  in New York on May 14.  Onement VI stands as a masterwork of the entire Abstract Expressionist movement. Of the six paintings in the series two are in the Museum of Modern Art, New York,  one is at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford and one at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio.

    The paintings of the Onement series are characterized by the distinctive stripe running down the centre of the canvas. The zip is considered a defining turning point in the artist’s practice and was formed by using tape and allowing the blue paint to bleed irregularly into the central area.  Onement VI is the most momentous of the six paintings in the series.  The vast 8½ x 10 feet canvas overwhelms the viewer with cascading washes of vibrant blue intersected by the artist’s revolutionary vertical ‘zip.’

    This is one of only two Onement works remaining in private hands. Onement VI is estimated to fetch $30/40 million. Tobias Meyer, Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s commented: “Onement VI is one of the most significant pieces of Contemporary Art I have handled in my 20 years at Sotheby’s.”

    UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $43,845,000.

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