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Sotheby’s Has Rare Complete Johns Cicada Print Set

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Starting on Sunday, October 14, Sotheby’s will have the highlights of its Prints and Multiples sales to be held in four auction sessions from October 18 to 22nd. The sales feature more than 450 works, including this rare complete set of Jasper Johns screenprints (above) from the collection of David Teiger. Cicada is estimated to sell for $300/500,000. The last time another example of this set was offered was 21 years ago during the Ganz Collection sale. Here’s what Sotheby’s has to say about the highlights:

The Collection of David Teiger

Ranging from works by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso to Christopher Wool, David Hockney and Olafur Eliasson, the selection of 21 prints on offer from the Collection of David Teiger is led by a complete set of Jasper Johns’s beautiful Cicada (ULAE 215) from 1981 (estimate $300/500,000), which illustrates the artist’s iconic crosshatch motif across an array of complementary colors. In both its imagery and technique, the work demonstrates Johns’ passion for printmaking, with each screenprint employing 19 screens to achieve depth and texture – in the process exploring the boundaries of the medium. The present set is one of two printer’s proofs from an edition of only seven. A complete set of Cicada has not appeared at auction since 1997, when one sold from the famed Ganz Collection.

David Teiger had a strong commitment to collecting and supporting works by female artists, and the selection of prints from his collection features a group of figural nudes by Marlene Dumas as well as portraits by Elizabeth Peyton, including Flower Ben from 2003 (estimate $5/7,000).

Andy Warhol Icons

A strong selection of works by Andy Warhol are highlighted by three complete sets of the artist’s prints, highlighted by Ten Portraits of the Jews of the Twentieth Century (F. & S. II.226-235) from 1980 (estimate $250/350,000). The portraits are a testament to the achievements of Sarah Bernhardt, Louis Brandeis, Martin Buber, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, George Gershwin, Franz Kafka, the Marx Brothers, Golda Meir, and Gertrude Stein. Other iconic subjects by Warhol include unique trial proofs of Paramount and Dracula, a screenprint of Superman from the Myths portfolio, and nine screenprints from the Flowers portfolio – each sold individually.

Richard Diebenkorn’s Monumental Green

Considered an icon of postwar printmaking in America, Richard Diebenkorn’s Green is a showcase of the artist’s achievement in the field (estimate $400/600,000). Its monumental size – measuring 45 inches tall – balanced composition, layers of abstraction and brilliant color all factor into this work’s label as the artist’s largest and most important print.

A Survey of Pablo Picasso Prints

Next week’s sale includes an extensive range of over 60 prints by Pablo Picasso. Spanning the artist’s career and mastery of nearly every print medium, highlights range from an impression of the artist’s first masterwork in etching, Le Repas frugal (B. 1; BA. 2) (estimate $50/70,000), to some of the strongest images from the Vollard Suite and numerous linoleum cuts from the 1960s – including Portrait de Jacqueline de face, II (Tête de femme) (B. 1063; BA. 1280) (estimate $80/120,000), one of three portraits of the artist’s wife and muse, Jacqueline Roque.

Lincoln Center Editions

The Prints & Multiples auction will close on 22 October with a session dedicated to a selection of 79 prints from Lincoln Center Editions, with works by a diverse group of artists including Vija Celmins, Chuck Close, Jim Dine and Karen Kilimnik. The Proceeds from their sale of these prints continue to benefit Lincoln Center’s innovative cultural programming and education.

Lincoln Center Editions is a component of the Vera List Art Project, which was launched at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1962 by philanthropist and art collector, Vera List. A pioneer in the fields of contemporary patronage and art education, Vera was committed to helping develop Lincoln Center into an intersection of the visual and performing arts.

Her vision was realized in a publishing program that commissioned artists to create images inspired by Lincoln Center and published in limited editions to commemorate its events, from film screenings to operas. Cultural icons such as Chuck Close, Helen Frankenthaler, Barbara Kruger, Sol Lewitt and Andy Warhol each created stellar editions that were offered for sale to benefit education and performance programs at Lincoln Center. To date, the highly-respected program has published more than 150 limited edition prints. Today, Lincoln Center Editions continues to collaborate with contemporary artists in the spirit of Vera List. Artists such as John Baldessari, Angel Otero, Robin Rhode and Carlos Rolón/Dzine have most recently contributed editions.

Christie’s $40m Fresh-to-Auction Van Gogh

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On view now in Japan, this van Gogh from 1887 will appear at auction for the first time in November during the Impressionist and Modern Evening sale at Christie’s. The work has an unpublished estimate but the whisper number the auction house hopes to achieve is in the region of $40m:

On 11 November Christie’s will offer the painting that marked the moment Vincent Van Gogh ‘crossed the divide into contemporary art,’ Coin de jardin avec papillons, 1887 (estimate on request).

Presented at auction for the first time, Coin de jardin avec papillons possesses a sweeping exhibition history. Most recently, it was exhibited as a focal point of ‘Van Gogh & Japan,’ a travelling exhibition that explored the artist’s fascination with Japonism, and the significant impact it had on his work. ‘Van Gogh and Japan’ was made possible by a collaborative effort between Hokkaido Shimbun Press and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art in Sapporo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and The National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, traveling to all four museums throughout 2017 and 2018. Van Gogh’s Coin de jardin avec papillons will return to Japan once again for a pre-sale exhibition at Christie’s Tokyo from 10-11 October.

David Kleiweg de Zwaan, Senior Specialist, Impressionist and Modern Art, Christie’s, remarked: “The two years that Van Gogh spent in Paris, from March 1886 until February 1888, represent a pivotal period in his career, during which he assimilated a host of diverse artistic currents and forged a deeply personal style. With its range of creative influences, from pointillism to Japanese prints, the present painting exemplifies the experimental zeal of the era. Van Gogh’s Coin de jardin avec papillons is a key example of his innovative and radical style.”

‘What people demand in art nowadays is something very much alive, with strong colour and great intensity,’ wrote an exhilarated Van Gogh to his sister Wil in the summer of 1887. The cause of the Dutch painter’s excitement was the discovery of a groundbreaking new art movement that had exploded onto the Parisian art scene in the 1870s. ‘In Antwerp I did not even know what the Impressionists were,’ he wrote to a friend. ‘Now I have seen them and though not being one of their club yet I have admired certain Impressionist pictures.’

Out went the earthy tones and studied gravity and in came a series of richly-coloured landscapes and still lifes alive with the spontaneity of plein air painting, and the stylistic influence of Japanese wood block prints. As he studied the colour theories and gestures promoted by artists like Georges Seurat, his brushstrokes became looser and his palette became brighter.

Executed between May and June 1887, Coin de jardin avec papillons marks this crucial turning point in the artist’s career. Painted at a time when experiments in photography were pushing the boundaries of pictorial conventions, it is nature in close-up — a profound departure from the traditional landscape. At its centre, six butterflies dart between the foliage, their wings iridescent spots of white and red.

Interestingly, the park Van Gogh used for Coin de jardin avec papillons was in Asnières, a small Paris suburb on the banks of the Seine, which in the mid-1800s became a popular destination with day-trippers. Here, Van Gogh became acquainted with many of the younger Impressionists, including Emile Bernard and Paul Signac. They inspired him to adopt some of their experimental techniques, particularly Pointillism, which Van Gogh had first encountered at the eighth Impressionist exhibition in 1886.

Yet Van Gogh was never one for structure or rules. Under his brush, Seurat’s neatly ordered dots were willfully slackened and applied with a furious intensity. What Seurat thought of Van Gogh’s very personal twist on his invention is not known, but it did not seem to bother Signac, who became a friend of Van Gogh’s and was intrigued by his feverish passions.

As the summer came to an end, Van Gogh’s attention turned south, toward Arles. Coin de jardin avec papillons anticipates the garden paintings he would make in the asylum at St Rémy in 1888 following a mental breakdown, and the butterflies are a fitting metaphor for the fragility of his own life.

In the Van Gogh & Japan exhibition catalogue, art historian Cornelia Homburg describes Coin de jardin avec papillons, stating: “There are no other fully fledged works from Paris that show a similarly concentrated focus and attention to detail as in this extraordinary canvas.”

Originally held in the collections of Theo van Gogh and his descendants, Coin de jardin avec papillons also belonged to Joseph Reinach, the 19th-century French journalist and politician best known as the public champion of artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus.

$10m Kerry James Marshall Work Announced by Christie’s to Benefit Chicago Libraries

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Christie’s announced today that they will have a $10m Kerry James Marshall work for the Contemporary art sales in New York. The work has been in hanging in a Chicago public library for the last 23 years.

On October 1, Rahm Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago, announced that Kerry James Marshall’s tour de force, Knowledge and Wonder, 1995 (estimate: $10,000,000-15,000,000) will be sold to benefit the City of Chicago’s public art fund and libraries program. One of the largest and most expansive paintings in the artist’s oeuvre, this work will be a centerpiece of the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale at Christie’s in November in New York.

Commissioned by the City of Chicago in 1995, Knowledge and Wonder has been exhibited at Chicago’s Legler Branch Library ever since and, with its sale, this extraordinary work will enrich the future of its original home for generations to come. The auction proceeds will be used to expand the Legler Library from a branch location to a West Side regional library with major upgrades in capabilities akin to current regional libraries. Additionally, proceeds will be used to augment the public art fund for the acquisition and development of new work.

“Kerry James Marshall’s iconic works are part and parcel of Chicago’s public art portfolio, and we will always honor the home Knowledge & Wonder had on the West Side,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “I want to thank Christie’s Auction House for handling the sale of this remarkable piece of contemporary art, which will in turn help transform the lives of residents across Chicago for generations to come.”

Knowledge and Wonder is from a key period of Marshall’s widely celebrated body of work including the Garden Project series of 1994-1995. This exemplary painting speaks to the artist’s cultural and art historical narrative, which has made him one of the leading American artists working today. His figurative paintings have become some of the most powerful images in a generation. Measuring nearly 10 feet in height by over 23 feet in length, Knowledge and Wonder is a monumental achievement from a prime moment in the artist’s career. Marshall depicts a community of people not normally represented in art history as more than a dozen African American children and adults are shown looking up in awe at the universe, its elements and the world beyond.

Alexis Klein, Senior Specialist, Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie’s: “It is an honor for us to share in this uniquely Chicago story and to have the opportunity to offer Knowledge and Wonder, a stunning painting by Kerry James Marshall, to benefit the people of the City of Chicago. In Knowledge and Wonder, Kerry James Marshall realizes an iconic modern-day history painting rife with layered meaning and symbols of inspiration. In this seminal masterpiece, the artist opens up the art historical canon to a new generation, promoting knowledge and learning as the tools necessary for social change. It is truly a painting for our time.”

Working on such a significant scale, Marshall places Knowledge and Wonder in a tradition of history painting and in the process, gives a voice to those who have often gone unheard. “I think it’s important for a black artist to create black figure paintings in the grand tradition,” the artist has said. “Artworks you encounter in museums by black people are often modest in scale. They don’t immediately call attention to themselves. I started out using history painting as a model because I wanted to claim the right to operate at that level.” Marshall’s skillful execution of Knowledge and Wonder in ambitious proportions immediately brings to mind the large scale figurative work of French Post-Impressionist masters such as Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse or the revered oversized murals of Diego Rivera.

The City of Chicago has a long-standing history of deep engagement in education and the arts. Christie’s sale of Knowledge and Wonder represents the City’s commitment to future generations of Chicago citizens by ensuring their access to lifelong learning and the art of their time. This sentiment is paralleled by Kerry James Marshall’s longtime dedication to Chicago, his chosen city of over three decades. Marshall’s influence can be seen throughout Chicago. This is perhaps most notable at the Chicago Cultural Center, where in 2017 Marshall unveiled his 132 by 100-foot mural, Rushmore, which honors 20 women who have shaped the city’s cultural landscape.

Works by Kerry James Marshall are in the collections of major institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Picasso’s Guitar Leads Christie’s Avant-Garde Sale for FIAC

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Christie’s wants to remind us all that they’ve got a special FIAC auction coming up in mid-October. We’re all used to the international auctions in London to take advantage of the art collector presence around the Frieze fairs. Christie’s wants to see if something similar can happen around FIAC even though it is so close to Frieze. Featured in the Avant-Garde sale is a work by Pablo Picasso, Guitar (above) offered with a €2m low estimate:

Christie’s is pleased to present an exceptional work of art by Picasso in the upcoming Avant-Garde auction which will be organised on 17 October. Guitare, bouteille et compotier (€2,000,000-3,000,000) realised by the Spanish master in 1922 represents the peak of Picasso’s pursuit of purity and modernity which characterised his own contribution to the prevailing movement of the time: the Rappel à l’ordre.

Adrien Meyer, Co-Chairman, Impressionist and Modern art department: “Formerly in the personal collection of Marina Picasso, this monumental painting, the largest of the series, is a statement in Picasso’s oeuvre, re-exploring cubism and flirting with abstraction. It will be presented at auction for the very first time alongside the International Contemporary Art Fair (FIAC)”.

This movement was born at the end of First World War when most of the major artists, affected by the chaos of the war, returned to reason and order resulting in very modern compositions. This painting represents the new form of cubism Picasso reached after his long period of search for modernity.

The composition possesses a syncopated energy, delivered through a highly-sophisticated sense of order and rhythm, with two dimensional forms and colours overlapping to create a geometrically constructed image. At the center of the composition lies a guitar, a recurrent motif throughout Picasso’s work of the 1910s and 1920s; the guitar for Picasso was an emblematic symbol employed to recall his Spanish homeland.

Sotheby’s Goes (RED) Again at Art Basel in Miami

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http://www.juliancassady.com

Ten years after the first (RED) auction was organized at Sotheby’s by Bono and Damien Hirst, the band is getting back together. This time, Theaster Gates and Sir David Adjaye are the organizers bringing in artists like Teresity Fernandez, Sean Scully, Marilyn Minter, Wangechi Mutu and Jeff Koons:

Theaster Gates and Sir David Adjaye will collaborate with Bono to curate the third (RED)Auction to support the fight against AIDS.

Centered on the theme of light and the color red, the collection of contemporary art and design will be auctioned by Sotheby’s during Art Basel in Miami Beach and Design Miami/ on the evening of 5 December 2018 – including global bidding that will be available live online and by phone. The auction will be preceded by a public exhibition presented by Gagosian at the famed Moore Building, which will open on World AIDS Day (1 December).

Artists donating works to the auction include Jeff Koons, Ai Weiwei, Wangechi Mutu, Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson (who curated the second (RED) Auction), Christo, Sean Scully, Marilyn Minter, Frank Gehry, Guillermo Kuitca and Teresita Fernández, among others. In addition, Sir David Adjaye and Theaster Gates will create unique pieces for the sale.

The December event follows two previous (RED) Auctions conducted by Sotheby’s, which together raised $68 million. The first, organized by Bono and Damien Hirst in February 2008, featured works donated by Hirst, Banksy, Anish Kapoor, Marc Quinn, Georg Baselitz and Howard Hodgkin, among others, and established 17 new auction records. The second, curated by Jony Ive and Marc Newson in 2013, offered important 20th– and 21st-century design, and attracted matching funds for the AIDS fight from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

To date, (RED) has generated more than $500 million for the Global Fund to support lifesaving HIV/AIDS programs in Africa. Proceeds from this year’s auction will continue to support community-based programs in Africa through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, while also providing assistance to the HIV fight through community-strengthening programs in Chicago with the Rebuild Foundation – an organization championed by Theaster Gates.

Christie’s Middle Eastern Art Comes to London with El Gazzar

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Abdel Hadi El Gazzar, An Ear of Mud, an Ear of Paste (£350450k)

Christie’s is getting more bullish on Middle Eastern Modern and Contemporary art since they moved the sales to London.  The firm is gearing up for its October 24th sale where the lead work will be Abdel Hadi El Gazzar’s An Ear of Mud, an Ear of Paste from 1951.

Christie’s release has details of the several artists like Parviz Tanavoli, Sohrab Sepehri, Monir Farmanfarmaian and Mohammed Ehsai from Iran or Hamed Ewais from Egypt and Syrian artist Marwan:Continue Reading

Phillips Frieze Sale Tests Mitchell Market Feaver

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Philips will enter the Joan Mitchell sweepstakes next week with a lower value work that still tests the levels of Mitchell market fever. Here is Phillips release for the Evening sale along with some details on a range of works from an important Arnaldo Pomodoro sculpture. Although an early work less recognizably his own, the bronze work will take advantage of the market momentum Pomodoro has seen over a number of years.

Coming to the market at a moment of marked celebration of Joan Mitchell’s work, Perch and Twirl, executed in 1973, exemplifies the artist’s oeuvre of this period with its vivid energy and bold color. Perch and Twirl came immediately after the artist’s first major solo exhibition at the Everson Museum of Art entitled My Five Years in the Country, 1972, and shortly before an eponymous show at the Whitney in 1974.

The Evening Sale will offer an important group of Italian artists, including Agostino Bonalumi, Enrico Castellani, Lucio Fontana, and Arnaldo Pomodoro with Grande Tavola Della Memoria. Executed in 1959-65, this formative sculpture became a cornerstone for the subsequent spherical and columnar bodies of work that went on to define Pomodoro’s career. Stretching approximately two meters in height and over three meters in length, the colossal bronze panels are engraved with a myriad of glyphs that reflect the artist’s lifelong fascination with the codes and markings that define the human condition. Another cast from the edition was included in Pomodoro’s one room installation at the 1988 Venice Biennale; that example is still in the artist’s collection and the other is in the collection of the municipality of Darmstadt.

Concetto spaziale, Attese, 1963 is an emblematic expression of Lucio Fontana’s preoccupation with universal and spiritual concepts. The cuts crossing the surface indicate a symbolic transcendence of space and time. Additional highlights of Italian Post-War art include Enrico Castellani’s Superficie Gialla Tokyo no. 2, 1967, that captures the artist’s iconic mastery of the inclinations of light and space (estimate: £250,000-350,000). Superficie Gialla Tokyo no. 2 was included in Castellani’s exhibition at Toyko Gallery in 1968, and has been in the same private collection ever since.

The Evening Sale champions a rich diversity of international names from the contemporary scene, including Ali Banisadr’s Nowhere, 2010. The composition of Nowhere hangs between figuration and abstraction; glimpses of forms, figures, flora and fauna emerge from the multitude of intricate brushstrokes that cultivate the surface of the canvas. Also on offer is Untitled, 2006 by Amy Sillman, who is soon to be celebrated at the Camden Arts Centre, London, in her forthcoming 2018 solo exhibition (estimate: £150,000-200,000). Other works include Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Marble, 2010 (estimate: £150,000-200,000), Avery Singer’s Ihole, 2011 (estimate: £40,000-60,000), and Cheyney Thompson’s Chronochrome set 1, 2010 (estimate: £150,000-250,000).

In partnership with Yorkshire Sculpture Park Phillips is pleased to announce that the 20th Century & Contemporary October Sales will include works sold to raise money in support of emerging artists. Renowned artists and their representatives, including Joan Miró, Henry Moore, David Nash, KAWS and George Rickey, are supporting this initiative by donating works of art to be sold across the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales.

The Pinkest of Pink Diamonds Comes to Christie’s at $30m

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Christie’s has a nearly 19ct Pink diamond for their November gem and jewelry sale in Geneva. Estimated at between $30 and $50m, the Pink Legacy comes from the Oppenheimer family and will be only the fifth diamond of this size, deep color and internal clarity to ever come to auction. The last one was a year ago which made $32m in Hong Kong:

On 13 November 2018, Christie’s Geneva will present THE PINK LEGACY, the largest and finest Fancy Vivid Pink diamond ever offered at auction by the company. Weighing just under 19 carats (18.96 carats), this exceptional rectangular-cut gem will lead Christie’s Magnificent Jewels auction, held at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva. This incomparable pink diamond has descended from the Oppenheimer Family and is estimated at US $30 to $50 million.

Rahul Kadakia, International Head of Jewellery commented: “The discovery of this previously unrecorded and remarkable diamond will cause immense excitement with collectors and connoisseurs of diamonds around the world. The Pink Legacy will be exhibited on a global tour prior to being auctioned on 13 November at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues. Its exceptional provenance will no doubt propel it into a class of its own as one of the world’s greatest diamonds.”

The Pink Legacy has been awarded the highest diamond color grading of VIVID by the Gemological Institute of America. Vivid coloured diamonds are the most strongly saturated gems, displaying the optimum hue of the stone. It is a classic rectangular cut diamond, a cut that is traditionally used for white stones, and weighs an extraordinary 18.96 carats when most pink diamonds of this colour weigh less than a carat. The Pink Legacy is also internally very pure which is extremely rare in pink diamonds where the colour is formed by pressure and slippage of the crystal lattice which typically causes imperfections in the stone.

In addition, it classifies as a Type IIa diamond, which contains little if any nitrogen and accounts for less than two percent of all gem diamonds. Type IIA stones are some of the most chemically pure diamonds, often with exceptional transparency and brilliance. One of the most celebrated pink diamonds is the “Williamson” found in the Williamson mine situated near Tanzania in 1947. It was gifted as a wedding present by Dr. John Williamson, the owner of the mine, to the Queen, then Princess Elizabeth.

In the saleroom fancy vivid pink diamonds over ten carats are virtually unheard of and only four vivid pink diamonds of over ten carats have ever been offered for sale at auction. An historic level was reached in the international diamond market in November 2017 when Christie’s Hong Kong sold ‘The Pink Promise’, an oval-shaped fancy vivid pink diamond of just under fifteen carats for US$32,480,500 (U$2,175,519 per carat), which established and remains the world auction record price per carat for any pink diamond.

Christie’s Has $3m Frankenthaler Record-Breaker

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It’s not every day that you see the New York Times, which has a deeply ingrained antipathy towards the art market, use its Op-Ed page to promote a potential art market record price. Today, Mary Gabriel writes about the booming market for Ab-Ex painters who happen to be women. In it she reveals that Christie’s has a 10-ft Helen Frankenthaler, Red Square, that is poised to break her $3m auction record set during a day sale earlier this year. The estimate is between $3 and $5m.

The proceeds of the sale will go to Frankenthaler’s alma mater, Bennington College, to fund scholarships.

Gabriel spoke to Christie’s Sarah Friedlander about the appeal of artist’s like Frankenthaler:

“From the market perspective, when you have 15 mediocre [Willem] de Koonings come to market in a season and one amazing Joan Mitchell painting come to market in a season, the market is going to gravitate toward quality,” said Sara Friedlander, international director and head of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s New York. “When the quality is really there, the market just explodes.”

Elizabeth Catlett, Hughie Lee Smith Lead Swann African-American Sale in October

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While the rest of the Contemporary art world is fixated on Frieze and the London sales accompanying the influx of art collectors to the UK, New York’s Swann Galleries will another African-American art auction. Long the pioneer in this market, Swann had it’s best sale in April making $4.5m in the category, or as much in a single sale as Swann was able to generate in three sales during the breakout year of 2015.

With all of the talk today about African-American artists, which undoubtedly presages a big push from Sotheby’s to make more sales of African-American Contemporary artists this November, it’s good to remember the historical category has shown great strength.

Here’s Swann’s release for the sale featuring the work of Hughie Lee Smith (above):

African-American Fine Art sales at Swann Galleries offer the opportunity to see marketplace history happen, and the October 4 auction is no exception, with a significant selection of works by Elizabeth Catlett, Eldzier Cortor and Hughie Lee-Smith, among others.

A timely run of works by Charles White features the significant and powerful Nobody Knows My Name #1, 1965, a mid-career drawing that was exhibited extensively in the late 1960s (Estimate: $100,000 to $150,000). The title was likely inspired by James Baldwin’s Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son, 1961–White’s composition shows a young African-American man’s head in a swirling, atmospheric space, a deeply symbolic response to the height of the Civil Rights movement. Prints by White includethe linoleum cuts Young Farmer (Young Worker), 1953, and Solid as a Rock (My God is Rock), 1958 ($12,000-18,000 and $20,000-30,000, respectively).

Sculptures by Elizabeth Catlett represent the beginning and end of the artist’s prolific career. Catlett’s carved Untitled (Head of a Man), circa 1943, is one of only two stone works on record from her significant 1940s period, and the earliest sculpture by the artist known to come to auction ($200,000-300,000). El Abrazo, carving in Guatemalan red mahogany of two figures embracing, is Catlett’s last sculpture: it was started by the artist in 2010 and posthumously completed by her son, David Mora Catlett, in 2017 ($150,000-250,000)

A beautiful mid-career painting by Eldzier Cortor–the most significant work by the artist to come to auction–will be offered. Sea of Time, 1945, is a haunting depiction of a female nude with rich symbolism and surreal elements, inspired by Gullah and African traditions. The oil on canvas is estimated at $200,000 to $300,000.

Other midcentury compositions include the earliest painting by Beauford Delaney to come to auction. The 1940 oil on canvas is a self-portrait of the artist in a studio-like setting with a young woman thought to be “Jessie,” a model and mutual friend of Delaney and James Baldwin ($200,000-300,000). Hughie Lee-Smith’s best-known and most widely published work, Man With Balloons, oil on canvas, 1960, will also be in the sale. A meditation on the isolation of modernity, Lee-Smith considered it an important painting: it carries an estimate of $150,000 to $250,000.

A riotous, recently rediscovered 1965 oil and charcoal on canvas by Al Loving, Variations on a Square­, gives insight into the artist’s earliest work. The artist notes, in a letter included, that it was completed for his thesis show and was one his last oil paintings, remarking on it as a “forerunner to the geometric abstractions that started my career in NY” ($80,000-120,000).

A 1983 self-portrait by Robert Colescott: Down in the Dumps: So Long Sweetheart shows the heartbroken artist seated among an overwhelming, teeming pile of debris, his head in his hands, paintbrushes at his side ($35,000-50,000). Other works from that decade include a 1980 welded steel sculpture by Melvin Edwards, Lusaka ($30,000-40,000); Sam Gilliam’s Blood Legacy, acrylic, gel medium and canvas collage, 1983 ($80,000-120,000) and Spiral artist Emma Amos’s Arched Swimmer, acrylic with glitter and fabric on canvas, circa 1987 ($10,000-15,000).

Contemporary art from the Dr. Robert H. Derden Collection brings pieces by significant, current artists to the sale, with an emphasis on photographic works. Featured lots include Rashid Johnson’s Jonathan with Hands, a Van Dyke Brown photo-emulsion print, 1997 ($7,000-10,000); Alison Saar’s Dreamer, mixed media, 1988 ($3,000-5,000); Carrie Mae Weems’s Untitled (Woman and daughter with makeup), from the Kitchen Table Series ($3,000-5,000); and a monumental photogravure with screenprint by Lorna Simpson, Counting, 1991 ($4,000-6,000).

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