Sotheby’s has announced top lots for a new sales series in Paris this October. Works will go up for sale in a new live-streamed evening sale event titled “Modernités/Contemporary”– two back-to-back sales comprising works of European modern and contemporary art. Scheduled to take place on October 21, the event will feature the same televised, remote sale model debuted in the summer auction series.

Sotheby’s European Chairman Helena Newman will lead the Paris modern evening sale portion from London’s ‘control centre’ for the first portion of the Paris auction. As seen in the summer mega-sales, the auctioneer will field bids in concert with remote colleagues in London, Paris, New York and Asia. Oliver Barker, Sotheby’s European Chairman, will then take over for the Sotheby’s fall Contemporary Art Evening auction.

Among the top lots in the Paris modern series are Pierre Soulages’s untitled 1956 painting estimated at €700,000-€1 million ($800,000-$1.2 million), Francis Picabia’s Minos (1929) estimated at €2.8-3.5 million ($3.3 million-$4.1 million), and Yves Tanguy’s Composition Surrealiste (1941) estimated at €1-1.5 million ($1.2 million-$1.8 million). Pablo Picasso’s portrait Tête d’Homme (1940), a work on paper, is another leading lot set to go up for sale with the estimate available upon request. A private collection of 25 modernist lots will highlight the sale with a total value in excess of €10 million ($12 million). Many of the works have never been on the market.

In the contemporary segment, a black and white painting by British artist Bridget Riley completed circa 1960s will go up for sale. The work is estimated at £5.5 million-7.5 million ($7 million-$9.6 million). Sotheby’s expects the work to set a new record for the artist, whose highest auction of €4 million ($4.7 million) was achieved in 2019.Continue Reading

Last week, Dallas-based Heritage auction brought in a total of $3.8 million in the first portion of a four-part auction series dedicated to sales of Comic memorabilia and original artwork. The house achieved top prices for works by Frank Frazetta and Lee Ellias alongside recognizable comic titles during the sale.

Among the leading lots of the sale was Frank Frazetta’s painting, The Princess of Mars (1970), which sold for $1.2 million. A seminal example from the artist’s illustration career of the 1970s and 1980s, another version of the work was originally made for Edgar Rice Burroughs’ publication of the same title in 1970. It is the fourth Frazetta piece sold by Heritage Auctions in the last four years to achieve over the $1 million price point.

“Frank Frazetta always felt that his art transcended genres,” said Nadia and Joe Mannarino, Co-Heads of Heritage Auctions’ East Coast Comic Books and Original Comic Art category. “This is the rare case when the second version is even better than the published one” said Barry Sandoval, Heritage Auctions’ Vice President.Continue Reading

Christie’s will offer a massive Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton this fall. Known as “Stan,” the specimen is 67 million years old. In an unexpected move, the fossil is set to hit the block during Christie’s Evening Sale of 20th Century art on October 6 and will be on public display at the house’s Rockefeller center location until October 21. It is expected to fetch between $6 million to $8 million.

Stan’s skeleton stands at 13 feet high and 40 feet long. Comprising 188 original bones, it is one of the few completely assembled skeletons of its kind. It was first unearthed in the late 1980s at Hell Creek Formation, located between South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. In 1992, commercial fossil dealers from the Black Hills Institute in Hill City, South Dakota, excavated the remaining bones. Evaluations from scientists reveal details from the animal’s life. It survived various wounds inflicted by members of its own species.

The dinosaur comes to auction from the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, a private organization headed by commercial fossil dealer and collector Pete Larson. The institute displayed and studied the specimen for the last two decades. Larson, a controversial figure in the paleontology world, is associated with the record-setting dinosaur sale of “Sue,” the 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton at Sotheby’s in 1997. With help from private and corporate funding, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago bought the skeleton for $8.4 million. It was expected to achieve $1 million.

As the case with Sue, the sale is likely to attract museum interest. Christie’s statement on the sale describes it as “a rare opportunity for a collector, institution, or museum benefactor to acquire the extraordinary fossil skeleton.”

Sue’s story was a dramatic one. The fossil was the subject of a custody battle between Larson with the Montana land-owner from which she was excavated. The skeleton was seized by the U.S. government from the Black Hills Institute during the lawsuit and the fossil eventually went to the land-owner, who brought it to auction. Though charges related to the Sue lawsuit were dropped, Larson was convicted separately for customs fraud and other offenses. Sue was sold at Sotheby’s New York headquarters shortly after Larson was released from prison.

Other high-profile public sales of dinosaur fossils have received significant attention at auction in the past. In June 2018, a dinosaur skeleton fetched €2.36 million ($2.8 million) at the Aguttes auction house in Paris in a controversial sale that drew criticism from scientists. The Society for Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) wrote to the French auction house calling for the sale to be canceled. The fossil ultimately went to a private French art collector. And in 2009, Samson, another nearly complete T. rex skeletons achieved at top price in a dramatic sale. It failed to meet its reserve at a Las Vegas auction, but later sold privately in-house for around $5 million (£3.8 million).

Phillips has announced that it will offer Yoshitomo Nara’s Hot House Doll, in the White Room III (1995) as a leading lot in its Hong Kong contemporary evening sale being held in collaboration with the China-based Poly Auction House on November 29. The work’s estimate is available upon request through Phillips and comes to auction with a guarantee.

Hot House Doll, in the White Room III is an example of Nara’s recognizable child-like avatar, which he developed during the early stages of his career in Germany. The year the work was completed, 1995, was a crucial year for the Japanese artist. Nara had his first show with Blum & Poe Gallery, followed by an exhibition at Tokyo’s SCAI the Bathhouse gallery, both of which brought him greater international attention.

“The painting features a full-body portrait of a little girl with a broody, mischievous sulk, along with the artist’s signature wide-open almond-shaped eyes, highlighting Nara’s fixation with the darker side of childhood innocence,” said Isaure de Viel Castel, Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Phillips Hong Kong. “The blue baby doll dress depicted in the present work is rare in the artist’s oeuvre, a motif that is only scattered sporadically throughout the 1990s.”

The present work comes to market after 12 years in a private collection. Phillips expects the work to achieve a price at least in the top three records for the artist. Nara’s three highest public auction prices range from $5 million to $25 million. Nara’s Knife Behind Back (2000) achieved a record of $24.9 million when it sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2018. The second-highest sale was Can’t Wait Til the Night Comes (2012), which went for $11.9 million in November 2019 at Christie’s Hong Kong. The next record is Not Everything but / Green House (2009), which sold for $5.1 million in October 2019 at Poly Auction in Hong Kong. Each of the works feature’s Nara’s young girl figure.
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The Dedalus Foundation has consigned a group of 60 works by Robert Motherwell to auction at Christie’s this October. The collection, which  includes paintings, prints and works on paper, will be sold across two parts. The first group will be in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on October 7 at the house’s New York headquarters. The second, prints from the Dedalus Foundation, will be offered in an online-only sale with bidding open from September 22 to October 8. The combined pre-sale estimate of both sales is $2.2 million-$2.7 million.

The works span Motherwell’s career. Highlights include an untitled 1968 green-field painting for $400,000-$600,000; Study for State II “Elegy No. 100” estimated at $250,000-$350,000; and Automatic Image No. 6 for $100,000-$150,000. All proceeds from the sales will benefit the Dedalus Foundation.

The artist’s last big moment at auction came at Phillips in April 2018. His At Five in the Afternoon (1971), a monumental painting featuring his signature black brushstroke from the coveted “Elegy to the Spanish Republic” series sold for $13 million. The price far surpassed Motherwell’s previous record price of $3.6 million.

“In his works, Motherwell showed how profound and varied the vocabulary of modern painting could be, and he did so with great vitality and integrity” said Jack Flam, President and CEO, Dedalus Foundation. Known for his “automatic” drawings and large-scale color-field paintings, Motherwell is among the leading American abstract expressionists of the New York school alongside his contemporaries Phillip Guston, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko.

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