London's summer auction week began last night with Sotheby's Modern and Contemporary Evening Sale that pulled in £85.2 million (around US$107.8 million).
Across the 51 lots on offer, 46 found new homes, resulting in a sell-through rate of 90%. The overall bidding atmosphere, though, lacked the anticipated sparks, pretty much like England's performance in the UEFA European Championship held later in the evening.
The highest-selling piece of the auction was blue-chip artist Jean-Michel Basquiat's 1982 triptych on wood panels, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict, which sold for £16 million (around US$20.3 million) with fees after a bidding war that lasted for less than a minute. Notably, the work last appeared on the market two years ago when it was withdrawn before the sale at Christie's New York. At the time, the work carried an estimate of US$30 million.
The only other lot that crossed the £10 million mark was Pablo Picasso's Cubist work, Guitare sur un tapis rouge (1922), hammering below its estimate and selling for £10.73 million (around US$13.6 million).
Lot 18 | Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) | Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict, Oil, oil stick, and acrylic on wood and metal
Executed in 1982
203.2 x 208.3 cm
Provenance:
- Fun Gallery, New York
- Galerie Jacques Mostini, Paris
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £15,000,000 - 20,000,000
Hammer Price: £15,000,000
Sold: £16,016,832 (around US$20.3 million)
Bidding for Basquiat's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict (1982) opened at £13.5 million; after two stray bids, it was hammered for £15 million to a buyer on the phone with Grégoire Billault, Sotheby’s chairman of contemporary art, with paddle number 22 and presumably the third-party backer.
It is universally acknowledged that 1982 was the most significant year in Basquiat's tragically short yet enduringly prolific career – it marked the 21-year-old artist's definitive entrance from living on the street into the international art world.
In March of that year, Annina Nosei, the New York gallerist who discovered Basquiat and gave him a studio space beneath her gallery, staged his debut solo show in New York, and it was an overnight sensation. Just three months later, he became the youngest artist ever to be invited to participate in the landmark Documenta VII exhibition in Germany, spreading his reputation across the Atlantic to the rest of Europe.
As he rocketed to art world stardom, however, the young artist faced criticism which argued his fame and ties to SoHo galleries were causing his work to lose its edge. A rebel to the core, Basquiat decided to dismantle traditional canvas painting, instead crafting his own stretchers and frames out of a whole host of found materials on the street, such as carpet tacks, wooden beams, and slats.
These "stretcher bar" canvases, as they have come to be known, were unveiled at his landmark Fun Gallery exhibition in November of that year and have become some of the most iconic works of his career, with examples housed in major museums such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and The Menil Collection in Houston. The Arnault family, owner of LVMH, also reportedly owns a robin's egg-color one titled Equals pi, featured in a Tiffany & Co. campaign in 2021.
Jean-Michel Basquiat at Fun Gallery in November 1982
Jean-Michel Basquiat | A Panel of Experts (1982) | Collection of Montreal Museum of Art
Tiffany & Co.'s "About Love" campaign in 2021 featured Beyoncé and Jay-Z with Basquiat's Equals pi as a backdrop
Executed in 1982 for that Fun Gallery show, Portrait of the Artist as a Yong Derelict is like those examples, being constructed from discarded scraps; yet unlike them, the shape of the picture support appears utterly irregular and unique, reminiscent of a Renaissance altarpiece in its triptych format.
At the center of the three found panels joined with hinges is a domestic door – an object that Basquiat cited as one of his earliest painted surfaces prior to his commercial success. He noted how "the first paintings" he ever made were on the ad-hoc surfaces of doors and windows: "I used the window shape as a frame and I just put the painting on the glass part and on doors I found on the street."
With a variety of sources and materials collaged onto the wooden panels, the present work undoubtedly references his earlier involvement in graffiti culture, evoking the frenetic strata of stimuli that characterized the metropolitan cacophony of Basquiat’s New York surrounds.
The present lot is assembled from found materials, including a once-functional door
Within the work, Basquiat’s most iconic words and signature symbols are incorporated alongside fresh materials and influences in the form of language:
Crown: The artist’s signature three-pointed crown. The simple symbol has become a visual representation of the artist that appears in many of his most important works. On a foundational layer of black paint, adorned by Pollock-like drips of white, Basquiat’s crown emerges out of a tumultuous swirl of gray paint, hinting at Basquiat’s ascendancy as a black teenager into a white-dominated art world.
S: The Cool S sign, a reference to graffiti iconography which Basquiat used heavily in his paintings in 1982
Salt: An important word within Basquiat’s lexicon, alluding to the historical significance of salt as a crucial commodity. It contributed to the Atlantic slave trade, and wars were fought over salt taxes and trade policies.
Ankle: Anatomical drawings were a touchstone for the artist, a fascination sparked by his childhood readings of Gray's Anatomy.
HICE[ST]REX: A Latin phrase for "Here is the King," directly referring to the crucifixion of Jesus in the New Testament. The bracketed “[ST]” – a classic abbreviation – reinforces Basquiat’s self-proclamation as King of the Street.
Lot 25 | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) | Guitare sur un tapis rouge, Oil on canvas
Executed in 1922
80.7 x 116.3 cm
Provenance (Consolidated by The Value):
- Galerie Paul Rosenberg, Paris (acquired from the artist)
- Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., New York
- Paul Willert, Paris, New York and London (acquired by 1939 and until at least 1971)
- Private Collection, London
- Christie’s, London, 2 February 2004, lot 40 (Sold: £1,797,250)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £10,000,000 - 15,000,000
Hammer Price: £9,300,000
Sold: £10,730,000 (around US$13.6 million)
The night's second-most expensive lot, Picasso's Guitare sur un tapis rouge (1922) attracted two interested bidders against an opening bid of £8 million. With tepid bidding though, it ultimately hammered for £9.3 million, falling short of its pre-sale low estimate of £10 million. After fees, the piece went for £10.7 million (around US$13.6 million) to a buyer with paddle number 84, represented by Simon Stock (Senior Specialist, Impressionist & Modern Art, Europe and Asia).
Guitar had been a favored motif of Picasso as early as 1903, but it was not until he began experimenting with Cubism that he transformed this everyday object into flattened forms.
Linked to his Spanish ancestry and endowed with an inherent sensuality, the guitar offers a versatile subject for Picasso’s interpretations from his Blue Period to the end of his impressive career – and throughout the guitar paintings, one could witness the master's artistic changes over the years.
Man Ray | Picasso in His Studio on the Rue de la Boétie, Paris (1922) | Collection of Philadelphia Museum of Art
Pablo Picasso | The Old Guitarist (1903-04) | Collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Pablo Picasso | Man with a Guitar (1912) | Collection of Philadelphia Museum of Art
Painted in 1922, the present work exemplifies Picasso's daring stylistic evolution in the years following the First World War, when the Cubist pioneer, along with many of his contemporaries, began to channel his energies on classical subjects and compositions that emphasized balance and order.
While adapting the radical visual language of Cubism to this new style, Picasso's interrogation of pictorial space is not compromised in the present work. Although depth is eradicated in favor of rigid two-dimensionality, the naturalistic nature of flat elements forces the eye to establish perspective. This is realized through the red rug placed under the guitar and achieves the effect of transforming the entirely flat yellow and orange forms behind into a tabletop.
Pablo Picasso | Guitare sur une table (1919) | Sold: US$37,092,500, Sotheby's New York, 2022
Pablo Picasso | The Guitarist (1965) | Collection of Dallas Museum of Art
The work was first acquired directly from Picasso by the celebrated dealer and collector Paul Rosenberg, who played a major role in promoting European Modernism in the United States. The next owner of it was Walter P. Chrysler Jr., son of the founder of the Chrysler Corporation. After changing hands twice more, it returned to Europe.
The above two lots were the only ones in the sale carrying an eight-figure estimate. The evening's third-highest estimated work, Tamara de Lepicka's Nu adossé I (1925), was withdrawn before the sale began.
Other highlight lots:
Lot 22 | Tamara de Lempicka | Nu adossé I, Oil on canvas
Executed in 1925
81 x 54 cm
Estimate: £6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Withdrawn
Note: the present lot's provenance has been removed from Sotheby's official website as of the time of publishing
Lot 37 | Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) | Bouquet de lilas, Oil on canvas
Executed in 1878
65.4 x 53.8 cm
Provenance:
- Paul Bérard, Château de Wargemont, Derchigny (acquired from the artist in 1878)
- Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 8-9 May 1905, lot 32 (consigned by the above)
- M. Beau, Paris (acquired from the above sale)
- Maurice Masson, Paris
- Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 22 June 1911, lot 33 (consigned by the above)
- Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the above)
- Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the above on 1 July 1912)
- Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York (transferred from the above)
- Mrs Nelson Robinson, New York (acquired from the above in 1912)
- G. Louise Robinson, New York (acquired by descent from the above by 1937)
- Private Collection, Europe
- Sotheby's, New York, 11 May 1987, lot 25 (consigned by the above)
- Lionel Pissarro, Paris
- Private Collection, USA (acquired from the above in 2000)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2019
Estimate: £2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Hammer Price: £5,800,000
Sold: £6,880,000
Lot 17 | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) | Nu assis, Oil on canvas
Exectued on 23 April 1960
100 x 81 cm
Provenance:
- Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
- Galerie Beyeler, Basel (acquired from the above in 1968)
- Private Collection, Milan (acquired from the above through Galleria Levi, Milan in 1973)
- Thence by descent to the present owners
Estimate: £3,500,000 - 5,000,000
Hammer Price: £4,800,000
Sold: £5,760,000
Lot 29 | Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) | Concetto spaziale, attese, Waterpaint on canvas
Executed in 1966
100.5 x 81 cm
Provenance:
- Galerie Müller, Cologne
- Hans and Ursula Hahn, Gerolstein (acquired from the above circa 1966)
- Simon Dickinson, London (acquired from the above in 2011)
- Private Collection (acquired from the above in 2011)
- Christie’s, London, 11 October 2012, lot 83 (consigned by the above)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Hammer Price: £3,400,000
Sold: £4,080,000
Lot 30 | Piero Manzoni (1933-1963) | Achrome, Kaolin on canvas
Executed in 1958-59
100.4 x 70 cm
Provenance:
- Galleria II Punto, Turin
- Private Collection, Turin
- Private Collection
- Sotheby's, London, 7 February 2007, lot 18 (consigned by the above)
- Private Collection, Europe (acquired from the above)
- Sotheby's, New York, 18 November 2021, lot 123 (consigned by the above)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £2,800,000 - 3,500,000
Hammer Price: £2,650,000
Sold: £3,180,000
Auction Details:
Auction House: Sotheby's London
Sale: Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction, including the Ralph I. Goldenberg Collection
Date: 25 June 2024
Number of Lots: 51
Sold: 46
Unsold: 5
Sale Rate: 90%
Sale Total: £85,118,832