NEW YORK, 2 November 2016 – Sotheby’s New York is thrilled to announce the 17 November Contemporary Art Evening Auction. The sale commences with a selection of works from The Triumph of Painting: The Steven & Ann Ames Collection, a spectacular single-owner sequence comprised of masterworks of recent art history. In addition to superlative examples from titans of the 20th Century including Gerhard Richter, Willem de Kooning, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, the auction will also offer extraordinary works by leading voices of the 21st Century such as Rudolf Stingel, Christopher Wool, Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Mark Bradford. The exhibition opens to the public 4 November 2016, alongside Impressionist & Modern Art and BERTOIA – Featuring Masterworks from the Kaare Berntsen Collection.

THE TRIUMPH OF PAINTING: THE STEVEN & ANN AMES COLLECTION
The Contemporary Art Evening Auction on 17 November will begin with 25 works from The Triumph of Painting: the Steven & Ann Ames Collection.

The unparalleled quality and depth of the Ames Collection is best represented by a selection of outstanding paintings from every decade in Gerhard Richter and Willem de Kooning’s respective careers. Richter’s unparalleled genius for abstraction, and his ability to compose, combine and balance color, is beautifully illustrated in A.B., Still from 1986 (estimate $20/30 million*) and A.B., St. James from 1988 (estimate $20/30 million) while de Kooning’s mastery and contribution to Abstract Expressionism is showcased in his Untitled oil on canvas from 1976-77 (above right, estimate $8/12 million). In addition to the 12 paintings by Richter and de Kooning, The Triumph of Painting also features works by Philip Guston, Robert Ryman, Sigmar Polke and Anselm Kiefer among many others. 55 works from the collection will be offered in the Contemporary Art Day Auction on 18 November 2016.

Following the opening sequence from The Triumph of Painting, the various-owner part of the sale will offer a rare and important work by “The Radiant Child” of the art world, Jean-Michel Basquiat. Composed by the artist in 1983, at the height of his career, Brother’s Sausage is a frieze of six panels. Infused with themes of inequality, prejudice, wealth and corporate greed, the artwork incorporates many of the artist’s signature details – poetic expression and extensive layering. Featured on the cover of Basquiat’s catalogue raisonné, and formerly hung in the Parisian home of Enrico Navarra, publisher of the catalogue raisonné and champion of the artist, Brother’s Sausage comes to auction this November with a pre-sale estimate of $15/20 million.

Measuring 72 by 144 inches, Woldgate Woods, 24, 25, and 26 October 2006 is a monumental work by a pillar of post-war British art, David Hockney. Making use of six canvases, Woldgate Woods beautifully captures the light and color of the Yorkshire landscape. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in the 2012 blockbuster exhibition, David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, the sale of this large-scale painting comes ten years after Sotheby’s redefined the market for the artist with The Splash. With an estimate of $9/12 million, Sotheby’s is once again set to establish a new record for Hockney at auction.

From what has been called one of the most important series of his career, Andy Warhol’s Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) is an iconic and enduring image of the artist, captured just months prior to his untimely death in February 1987 (estimate $20/30 million). Among the last works ever produced by Warhol, Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) is also striking for its monumental scale, monochromatic elegance and unmatched sharpness of its silkscreened image.

Marking the birth of appropriation as an art form, Johns Flag launched Sturtevant’s career in the 1960’s (estimate $3/4 million). Critical to the artist’s oeuvre, as demonstrated by its placement in her catalogue raisonné – on the cover, and as the second numbered work in the compendium – this collage also marks a significant event in Contemporary Art history. Exhibited in the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York, the work was included alongside a selection of the artist’s other appropriations of works by Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist and Claes Oldenburg, and is one of only two from that legendary original group that survives.

Rudolf Stingel’s Untitled is an exemplary work from the Carpet painting series, in which the artist explores the relationship between ornamentation and industrialization. In this particular work, the artist duplicates and fragments the carpet, referencing the repeatability of readymade stencils and the intricate craftsmanship of Italian Baroque and French Rococo styles. Estimated at $2/3 million, Untitled is a striking and intriguing commentary on decorative art, the space it occupies and the public’s interaction with it in its various forms.

Following the success of Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s auction debut this past September at Sotheby’s New York, in which Untitled achieved over three times its high estimate, Crosby returns to the auction floor with Drown. The acrylic, colored pencil and solvent transfer on paper is representative of this young artist’s best work, which combines collage, drawing, painting, printmaking and photo transfer. In her first evening sale, this large-scale work of art, previously exhibited at Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery in Luxembourg, carries a pre-sale estimate of $200/300,000.

Please find the Contemporary Art Evening Auction and The Triumph of Painting: The Steven & Ann Ames Collection press releases attached. High-resolution images are available upon request.