Sotheby’s will offer Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (One Eyed Man or Xerox Face) in its March 8 contemporary art evening auction.
The work dates to 1982, when Basquiat was at the height of his creative abilities.
It last sold in 1982 for $23,100, then one of the highest sums ever paid for the artist’s work.
The painting features a figure with its arms aloft, wearing a crown of thorns
It’s now expected to achieve £14m-18m ($17.3m-22.3m), indicating the extraordinary growth in Basquiat’s market.
It shows a male figure with arms raised, a theme repeated elsewhere in the artist’s work.
Alex Branczik, head of contemporary art at Sotheby’s Europe, says: “The hero figures in Basquiat’s paintings refer to the stars of sporting, musical and artistic worlds who, thanks to their extraordinary talents, transcended their social status to become the nation’s icons.
“Painted with their arms held aloft and wearing a crown of thorns they also reflect Basquiat’s own dramatic ascent from street artist to gallery sensation, and to his present status as one of the most valuable and talked about artists in the world.”
It wouldn’t be a high-end contemporary art sale without the inclusion of a Gerhard Richter.
His Eisberg (also from 1982) is expected to achieve around £8m-12m ($9.9m-14.9m).
It’s from the artist’s celebrated series of photo-realistic paintings, which were his top sellers until they were ousted by his abstraktes bild series in the early 2010s.
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