SEEING CLEARLY: THE COLLECTION OF JUDITH E. NEISSER
Across several decades, Chicago-based collector Judith Neisser amassed an extraordinary collection of Contemporary art that is widely acclaimed for its special emphasis on Minimalist and Conceptual Art. The thematically-cohesive collection is distinguished by its explorations of the monochrome, seriality, and minimalist abstraction, and stands as a testament to Judith Neisser’s remarkable taste, prodigious scholarship, and patronage of the arts.

Sotheby’s will offer works from Judith Neisser’s collection across our Evening and Day Auctions of Contemporary Art this November. The Evening Auction features: Robert Ryman’s 1961 Untitled, an important example of the artist’s early work that has remained in her collection since 1997 (pictured right, estimate $1.8/2.5 million); Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale, executed in metallic gold and epitomizing the essence of the artist’s iconic career (estimate $1.5/2 million); Donald Judd’s Untitled, an exceptional work composed entirely of galvanized iron and executed during Judd’s most transformative period (estimate $1.5/2 million); and Cy Twombly’s Untitled, painted in 1970 during the apex of the artist’s celebrated Blackboard works (estimate $2.5/3.5 million).

A CELEBRATED MASTERPIECE BY HANS HOFMANN
Combining a devoted study of color and a dedication to compositions with a reverberating vitality, Leise zieht durch mein Gemüt liebliches Geläute (Mellow Sound of Bells Rings Gently through My Mind) emphatically testifies to Hans Hofmann’s distinctive status as both a pioneering colorist and preeminent abstractionist (estimate $5/7 million). Executed in 1961, when the artist was 81 years old, the present work perfectly captures the essential genius of Hofmann’s enduringly influential oeuvre. The painting bears an illustrious exhibition history that includes both the artist’s first retrospective exhibition in 1976-1977 – illustrated on the show’s catalogue cover – and the second major survey of his work in 1990. Leise zieht durch mein Gemüt liebliches Geläute (Mellow Sound of Bells Rings Gently through My Mind) has remained in the same American collection since 1973.

A ROTHKO PAINTING ON PAPER
A rare example of Mark Rothko’s large-scale painting on paper, Untitled, comes to auction from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (estimate $5/7 million), sold to benefit the institution’s Acquisitions Fund. Executed just a year before the artist’s death in 1970, Rothko experienced a period of intense creativity in the last two years of his life, during which he produced some of his most profound works. Characterized by its lustrous, radiating blackness, impressive scale and mysticism, Untitled encapsulates the spiritual complexity of Rothko’s mature style.

LICHTENSTEIN’S SURREALIST LANDSCAPE
An enigmatic landscape of psychological complexity and peerless formal execution, Figures from 1977 dates from the inaugural year of Roy Lichtenstein’s brief and highly acclaimed ‘Surrealist’ period between 1977 and 1979, during which the artist created his most visually and conceptually complex paintings to date (estimate $6/8 million). A testament to Lichtenstein’s enduring engagement with the nature of art, Figures integrates into its landscape images gleaned from comic books, Lichtenstein’s own oeuvre, and the full scope of art history, most notably Surrealism and Cubism.

FRANK STELLA’S MONUMENTAL SIGHT GAG
The evening auction will offer Frank Stella’s Sight Gag, a monumental work from 1974 (estimate $5.5/7.5 million). Displaying a mesmerizing sequence of black, gray, and white lines, the present painting is one of only two such monumental grayscale works within Stella’s Diderot series – Sotheby’s sold its sister painting, Pratfall, for $8.9 million in 2016. Standing a stunning 129-inches in height, this work also numbers among the largest-format examples of the artist’s beloved Concentric Squares. Notably selected for prominent inclusion in Stella’s widely-acclaimed travelling survey Frank Stella, organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1987, Sight Gag has also been exhibited in major shows at the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others.