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A 1969 Hockney, a deeply personal painting by Tracey Emin, Gerhard Richter’s first Colour Chart and Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for a Portrait of  Henrietta Moraes are among the offerings at the October London sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s Early Morning Saint Maxime by David Hockney will highlight Christie’s 20th/21st Century evening sale on October 13.   The painting, which is radiant, is situated between his seminal Californian swimming pool art and the pioneering naturalistic double portraits and is estimated at £7 million – £9 million This is one of four paintings based on photographs taken during a trip to France with Hockney’s then partner Peter Schlesinger in autumn 1968. They became regular guests at the home of film director Tony Richardson near Saint Tropez. Richardsons home became the setting for Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)  when the relationship between Hockney and Schlesinger ended in 1971.  When this work sold for $90.3 million at Christie’s in New York in 2018 it set a then auction record for a work by a living artist.

Like a Cloud of Blood, one of the first paintings made by Tracey Emin following her cancer treatment, will be offered at the same sale with an estimate of £500,000-£700,000.  Made this year the work is an intimate vision of her recent experience and marks a return to the creative process.  The sale will raise funds for an innovative new artists studio complex in Margate set in a former bathhouse and mortuary.  TKE Studios (the name is based on an abbreviation of her full name Tracey Karima Emin) the complex aims to foster talent with 12 subsidised professional studios, two year residencies, tutorials and lectures.

Gerhard Richter’s first Colour Chart – 192 Farben (1966), will headline the season at Sotheby’s Contemporary evening auction in London on October 14. The colour charts were among the first paintings not done in black and white by this globally significant artist and marked an important turning point in his career. Long before his prices reached stratospheric levels on the Richter scale the artist Gerhard Richter became intrigued by paint chips produced on an industrial scale. Richter relates the work to Pop Art.Three Studies for Portrait of Henrietta Moraes by Francis Bacon is another highlight at Sotheby’s.  Henrietta Moraes and Bacon were close friends. One of his portraits of her made £21.3 million. in 2012. Sotheby’s has put together a stellar sale to coincide with the Frieze and Frieze Masters art fairs, when the global contemporary art world assembles in London. The sale will be preceded at Sotheby’s by the Now evening auction, a sale format established in March this year to address the outstanding demands for new and emerging artists.