Sotheby’s announced today that they will be selling this $6-8m Richter work from the mid-1960s:

An important painting by Gerhard Richter from 1966, Matrosen (Sailors), will be among the highlights of Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York, to be held on 9 November 2010.  The painting is being offered on behalf of the Weserburg | Museum für moderne Kunst in Bremen, Germany.  The Museum will also sell Franz Gertsch’s Portrait of Luciano, from 1975-76 within the next year.  Works by the Swiss photorealist artist are exceedingly rare and the present work is the most important work ever to appear at auction.

The Director of the Museum, Carsten Ahrens, held a press conference in Bremen, Germany today: “we have decided to sell two works with Sotheby’s, which will allow us to secure the future of the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst.  We are gratified that the benefactor, who had so generously donated these works to us in 2004, agreed with our plans. With the exception of these two works, all the  other works of the former Roselius-Foundation (51 works, among them works by Schumacher, Uecker, Piene, Mack, Opalka) remain in Bremen at the Kunsthalle Bremen, thanks to the generous support of  the Karin and Uwe Hollweg Stiftung”.