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Gerhard Richter (b. 1932)
Abstraktes Bild (774-4) Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2014.  UPDATE: IT MADE $31,525,000

Gerhard Richter’s beautiful and luminous Abstraktes Bild (774-4), a seminal example of his multi-layered style, comes up at Christie’s in New York on November 12. Painted in 1982 and first exhibited in Rome that year, this particular example explores the stunning effect of the vertical grid.  The masterpiece from the greatest abstract painter working today is estimated at $14-18 million.

Consigned by the Linda Pace Foundation of San Antonio, Texas funds from the sale will be used to establish a board designated fund to realise an art campus that will include a David Adjaye designed building in San Antonio to exhibit the foundation’s growing collection. Linda Pace (1945-2007) was driven by the idea that art is a vital social force. She established ArtPace San Antonio in her home town. It offers artists from all over the world an environment that fosters experimentation and growth and has awarded nearly $9 million in Foundation grants to artists and contemporary arts organisations around the world.

Christie’s anticipate that the demand for this masterpiece will be global.

UPDATE: IT MADE $31,525,000

Francis Bacon (1909-1992)
Seated Figure (Red Cardinal) Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2014.  UPDATE: IT MADE $44,965,000

A major work by Francis Bacon based on his obsession with the Velazquez Portrait of Pope Innocent X will highlight Christie’s  evening sale of Post War and Contemporary art in New York on November 12.  Seated Figure (Red Cardinal) is an exceptional example of Bacon’s painterly practice and a rare outing at auction for a major painting from his Papal Series. Painted in 1960 it is estimated at $40-60 million. All of Bacon’s pope figures stem from his obsession with the 1650 portrait of Pope Innocent X by Diego Velazquez.  He is quoted as saying that he was overwhelmed by the image and by reproductions of it.

In this work Bacon presents the pope  as a tragic hero brought low by the external forces around him.

In New York last November Christie’s sold Bacon’s Three Studies for Lucian Freud for $142,405,000, setting a new world record for any work of art ever sold at auction.

UPDATE: IT MADE $44,965,000

Clamdigger – Willem de Kooning (1904-1997). Copyright credit the Willem de Kooning Foundation Artists Rights Society (ARS).

The most important sculpture of the Abstract Expressionist Movement,  Willem de Kooning’s Clamdigger, will lead Christie’s Post War and Contemporary Art sale in New York on November 12.  Part of de Kooning’s personal collection since it was created in 1972, Clamdigger is widely recognized alongside Giacometti’s Walking Man as a crowning achievement in expressive 20th century sculpture. de Kooning pushed the boundaries of what was possible in sculpture and launched a creative Renaissance of his art in the 1970’s. A rare male subject for an artist famous for his highly expressionistic depiction of monumental women, de Kooning kept this work for himself; several art historians assert it became a surrogate self-portrait, depicting with the most brutal honesty an artist in his sixties conscious of humanity and his mortality.  De Kooning would confront his Clamdigger every day, positioning it with pride of place by the entrance to his studio.

The majority of the ten casts belong to major institutions and foundations around the world, including The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Glenstone Foundation in Potomac, Maryland, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Daros Foundation in Switzerland and the Centre George Pompidou in Paris. Clamdigger was also a highlight of the highly celebrated De Kooning: A Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2011.

The sale is on behalf of the Lisa de Kooning Trust.  She was his only child and Clamdigger is being sold by his three grand daughters  to fulfil the tax obligations of their mother’s estate.  It is estimated at $25-35 million.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1828-1882) –
VENUS VERTICORDIA  UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £2,882,500

Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s most sensuous picture,  a watercolour version of Venus Verticordia, comes up at Sotheby’s  in London on December 10.  The Pre-Raphaelite artist’s obsession with luscious sensuality and female allure reached its zenith in his only major nude subject, and the picture led to the breaking of Rossetti’s friendship with John Ruskin, Victorian Britain’s leading art critic. Painted in 1868, Venus Verticordia is the epitome of Pre-Raphaelite glamour, a powerful and radical image of confident female sexuality from an age when women were supposed to be reserved and demure. Ruskin had become increasingly concerned by what he perceived to be sensuousness in Rossetti’s art. His prudishness and ambivalence towards the naked female form has been well-documented and features in the film Effie Gray, which opens this week.

Last sold at auction in 1886, the painting will be the centrepiece of Sotheby’s British & Irish Art sale, carrying an estimate of £1,000,000-1,500,000.