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Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild at Sotheby’s. (Click on image to enlarge). 

Gerhard Richter’s 1994 oil on canvas Abstraktes Bild (809-4) from the collection of Eric Clapton will head Sotheby’s contemporary art evening auction in London on October 12.  It was produced as part of a concise series of four works numbered 809 in Richter’s Catalogue Raisonné.  The richly chromatic work ranks alongside the best Richter abstracts housed in museums.  It is estimated at £9-12 million.

Alex Branczik of Sotheby’s said: “‘Abstraktes Bild’ is one of the great abstract masterpieces by Gerhard Richter and its appearance on the market presents collectors with the unique opportunity to acquire an outstanding work by one of the greatest living painters.”

Eric Clapton bought the painting for $3.4 million at Sotheby’s in New York in 2001.

UPDATE: IT MADE £21,321,250 A NEW RECORD FOR A WORK BY A LIVING ARTIST.

Procession with Lilies by Louis le Brocquy.  UPDATE: THIS MADE 320,000

The corporate art collection of Independent News and Media, which is to be auctioned at James Adam in Dublin on September 26, goes on view at the Ava Gallery in Clandeboye from today until September 16. The sale goes on view in Dublin from September 23. The most important of 67 works is Louis le Brocquy’s Procession with Lilies, which is estimated to make as much as 250,000. It was painted in 1984-85. The Independent collection of contemporary art was put together in the 1980’s and ’90’s under the direction of the late Vincent Ferguson. The collection includes works by David Crone, Basil Blackshaw, T.P. Flanagan, Brian Ballard, Eithne Carr, Martin Mooney and many others. Prices will be from 1,000 euro or below.
The sale will include a collection of seven paintings, in both oil and watercolor by Jack B. Yeats. ‘The Boat Builder’ (1923) is estimated at up to 70,000. Sean Keating’s iconic painting ‘The Port Authority’ is estimated at 150,000. Five works by Paul Henry range from a small seascape at 15,000 to ‘The Bog at Evening’ which is expected make more than 150,000. There are fresh to market works by Gerard Dillon, George Campbell, Tony O’Malley, Cecil King, Father Jack Hanlon, Arthur Armstrong and Anne Yeats in the sale.

Jackson Pollock – Number 4, 1951 ($25-35 million).

A group of eight paintings by titans of the American Abstract Expressionist Movement will be offered by Sotheby’s in New York on November 13.  The sale of masterworks  by Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Joan Mitchell, Hans Hofmann and Adolph Gottlieb is expected to realize $80-100 million.  They are from the extensive collection of Sidney and Dorothy Kohl and were acquired predominantly in the early 1970’s.

The group is led by Number 4, 1951, a drip painting on canvas by Jackson Pollock ($25-35 million). Over the course of the last 20 years, only eight drip paintings on canvas by Pollock have appeared at auction. Executed near the beginning of 1951 it epitomizes the drama and dynamism of the 1950 masterpieces that had just been exhibited at Betty Parson’s Gallery in New York from November to December, many of which are now included in the nation’s leading museum collections.

To offer a group of true masterpieces that have remained together in the same private collection for four decades is an event nearly unheard of in the art market, Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s worldwide head of contemporary art commented.  The Kohls assembled their collection with great care and with the help of the late Jack Taylor, a gifted curator of the American Abstract Expressionist Movement. (Click on any image to enlarge).

Clyfford Still – 1948-H ($15-20 million).

Franz Kline – Shenandoah 1956 ($6.5-8.5 million).