With the London autumn the dances of the enchantments of twentieth century and contemporary art begin. Precisely in the days when Frieze, the fair focused exclusively on the creativity of living artists, takes place in the setting of Regent’s Park, auction houses also take to the field, finally aimed at an audience even physically present in the hall. The first will be Sotheby’s, which on 14 October, next to the small Banksy of Love is in the bin (estimate 4.7-7 million euros) which has already had extensive media exposure, plays the card of a triad of Richter’s paintings from captivating chromatic melange. These are SD, estimated at 8.2-10.6 million, and two Abstraktes Bild valued at 5.9-8.2 million each, made in 1985 and coming from an important German private collection, that of Helga and Walther Lauffs. For the Italian art Sotheby’s focuses on a few but selected works, fresh for the market, purchased between the end of the 60s and the early 80s directly from the artists or galleries of the time. In particular, Map by Alighiero Boetti stands out, one of the first in the series, dated 1978, (2.1-2.6 million), and in the context of the informal Enrico Castellani, whose market is currently far from the peaks of 2014-2016 , of which Surface White of 1968 (410-530mila) and Surface White No.33 of ’66 (700-940mila) are presented, the latter exhibited at the Venice Biennale of the same year. There is also Piero Manzoni with an Achrome from 1961-62 from a European private collection (350-470 thousand) and a sculpture by Fausto Melotti, La Bestia veliero, (176-235 thousand) from 1971, which combines lyricism and technical excellence in the definition of forms. Of the 44 lots in the catalog, there are also numerous names of emerging figures, starting with Avery Singer, whose rapidly rising prices led her to beat her personal best three times in 2021 and for which an Untitled is proposed, (176 -235 thousand) and still young people between the ages of twenty and thirty such as Salman Toor, Hilary Pecis, Mickalene Thomas, Cinga Samson, Flora Yukhnovic, Oli Epp with estimates ranging between 30 and 175 thousand euros.
The Christie’s catalog for the October 15th auction, which also includes the Thinking Italian section, is richer than the big ones. Leading the 1986 sale Because it hurts the lung by Jean-Michel Basquiat (8.2-11.7 million). A personal vision of nature and then offered by David Hockney with Guest House Garden of 2000 (5.9-8.2 million), which is part of a small series of paintings and drawings depicting the artist’s garden. Nature is still the protagonist also in Hill Houses (Green version), a 1991 canvas by Peter Doig (4.1-5.3 million) and in the tumultuous sign of Cecily Brown in There’ll be bluebirds of 2019 (588-822mila), work i whose proceeds will benefit ClientEarth, a charity committed against climate change.
As for the Italians, among the top lots there is Lucio Fontana with a Spatial Concept, Attese with 10 cuts on a white background, which has remained in the same collection since 1973 (3.5-5.9 million) and also here a Map by Boetti , this time from 1988-89 (1.4-2.1 million), alongside an Achrome by Manzoni of ’58 with the same estimate, a 1962 surface by Castellani (411,000 -588,000) and an Ferro from 59 by Alberto Burri (294-411 thousand). (All rights reserved)
