Christie’s 20th/21st Century: Evening Sale Including Thinking Italian, London Is Now Online for Browsing 15 October 2021

• Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Because it Hurts the Lungs will lead the sale and is inspired by Leonardo da Vinci (1986, estimate: £7,000,000-10,000,000)
• David Hockney’s Guest House Garden will be offered at auction for the first time (2000, estimate: £5,000,000-7,000,000)
• Works by Louise Bourgeois, Cecily Brown, Julie Curtiss, Shara Hughes, Yayoi Kusama, Hilary Pecis, Paula Rego, Bridget Riley, Emily Mae Smith and Claire Tabouret form a survey of women artists over the last 50 years
• Banksy’s Girl with Balloon (2005, estimate: £2,500,000-3,500,000) is a vision of innocence and hope
• Cecily Brown’s There’ll be bluebirds (2019, estimate: £500,000-700,000) is being offered as part of Artists for ClientEarth: a landmark new collaborative initiative between Christie’s and the Gallery Climate Coalition, designed to propel the art world in the fight against climate change
• Hurvin Anderson’s Audition(1998, estimate: £1,000,00-1,500,00) is presented alongside Peter Doig’s Hill Houses (Green Version) (1991, estimate: £3,500,000-4,500,000), demonstrating the strength of British painting
• An exceptional, clean red laser beams Bored Ape, along with its corresponding M1 and M2 Mutants, will be offered as a group lot
• Following the successful format of Christie’s internationally focused Evening Sales in March and June of 2021, Thinking Italian will be presented as a key element of the 20^th/ 21^st Century: Evening Sale, London
• Christie’s 20^th / 21^st Century: Evening Sale Including Thinking Italian, London will incorporate the Hong Kong and New York sale rooms, taking place on 15 October 2021

Christie’s 20^th / 21^st Century: Evening Sale Including Thinking Italian, London, coinciding with Frieze Week, brings together iconic works by artists from the 20th century whose defining influence can be seen on the artists and artistic movements that subsequently followed in the 21^st Century. Together, across the two centuries, these artists radicalised artistic practice, challenging what had come before to continually diversify the trajectory of art throughout the last 140 years.

Katharine Arnold, Co-Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie’s, Europe: “Frieze week is a time when London celebrates the best of 20th and 21st century art and we are delighted to be welcoming collectors back in person to the city and to Christie’s. In our galleries, we will be showcasing more than 70 years of art history, headlined by our 20th / 21st Century: Evening Sale Including Thinking Italian. The auction kicks off with Cecily Brown’s There’ll be bluebirds, 2019, fresh from her Blenheim Palace show and being offered as part of Artists for ClientEarth: a landmark new collaborative initiative between Christie’s and the Gallery Climate Coalition, designed to propel the art world in the fight against climate change. The sale continues with the fresh talent of Julie Curtiss, Shara Hughes, Hilary Pecis, Emily Mae Smith and Claire Tabouret. It also features three important British paintings by David Hockney, Peter Doig and Hurvin Anderson. These are placed alongside Italian masters Lucio Fontana, Alighiero Boetti, Alberto Burri and Piero Manzoni. Alongside our Day Sale and First Open auctions, we will also be presenting No Regrets: The Collectors’ Edition, an online sale with works starting at £100, making contemporary art fun and accessible to everyone. At the same time as our auctions, we are hosting a series of collaborative exhibitions: Aindrea Emelife has curated ‘Bold, Black & British’, a survey of Black British artists, spanning the 1980s through to recent graduates; Christine Eyene presents 1-54: Redefining the Trend – Histories in the Making, providing visitors with an overview of contemporary African art practise and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and artist Stanley Donwood offer an immersive experience at Christie’s with paintings, lyrics and digital artworks based on the album artwork from Kid A. It will be an exciting start to October and we look forward to welcoming everyone back to King Street.”

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT’S DIALOGUE WITH LEONARDO DA VINCI

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Because it Hurts the Lungs (1986, estimate: £7,000,000-10,000,000) is a multimedia work depicting a life-size green figure with a russet, cyclopean skull against a white ground. Basquiat has applied sheets of his own drawings and text to the background, among them a cryptic extract from the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci that lends the work its title: “Why the thunderbolt kills a [man and] does not wound him, and if the man blew his nose he would not die. Because it hurts the lungs.” Further collage and pigment adorn two boxes that protrude from the surface, including a drawing of the Lester Young Quartet’s 1944 jazz record Afternoon Of A Basie-ite, Japanese script, snatches of dialogue from Sophocles’ Greek tragedy Ajax, and a grinning, eyeless black head wearing a mitre-like crown.

DAVID HOCKNEY’S DEEPLY PERSONAL VISION

David Hockney’s Guest House Garden (2000, estimate: £5,000,000-7,000,000) originates from L’art à fleur de peau Collection, with more than 100 works being offered in Paris in a dedicated sale on 13 October 2021. Guest House Garden belongs to a small group of paintings and drawings depicting the artist’s garden, which he began during the summer of 2000 in London while exhibiting at the National Gallery, and continued back in Los Angeles.

A SURVEY OF FEMALE ARTISTS: 1972 – 2019

Halcyon 2 (1972, estimate: £1,500,000-2,000,000, illustrated page two, left) by Bridget Riley is a vibrant, hallucinogenic work, unseen in public for almost half a century. A glowing large-scale example of Paula Rego’s celebrated pastels, Portrait of FB is an exquisite tribute to the artist’s friendship with writer and curator Fiona Bradley. Executed in 1997 (estimate; £250,000-350,000), it marks the year that Bradley co-curated Rego’s acclaimed retrospective at Tate Liverpool. A compelling, enigmatic sculptural presence, Untitled (2002, estimate: £500,000-700,000) exemplifies the material and psychological power that defines Louise Bourgeois’ practice.

Painted on a summer residency in Vejby, Denmark in 2009, Me Me Me (estimate: £100,000-150,000) is a vivid example of the complex, playful interior scenes that first propelled Shara Hughes to worldwide acclaim. An ethereal, monumental vision bathed in otherworldly light, Les Madones (2014, estimate; £250,000-350,000) is a lyrical example of Claire Tabouret’s distinctive figurative language. A blazing constellation of red dots bound together by an intricate painterly web, Infinity-Nets (GKT) (2015, estimate: £800,000-1,200,000) is a vivid example of Yayoi Kusama’s celebrated ‘Infinity Nets’. Paint While Screaming (2017, estimate: £20,000-30,000, illustrated below, right) is a witty self-portrait: the stick-like character is Smith’s personal avatar, adapted from the anthropomorphised broom in ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ sequence in Disney’s Fantasia (1940). Julie Curtiss’ Hairy Hat (2017, estimate: £150,000-200,000, illustrated below, left) conjures a range of surreal precedents, from Méret Oppenheim’s fur teacup to Domenico Gnoli’s fetishistic close-ups of fabric and coiffure. Meticulously rendered with vivid, hyper-real clarity, Kaba on a Chair (2019, estimate: £40,000-60,000) captures Hilary Pecis’ debt to the aesthetics of Fauvism and Pop Art, as well as the bright, luminous world of Los Angeles where she currently lives and works. Created for Cecily Brown’s ground-breaking 2020 installation at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, There’ll be bluebirds (2019, estimate: £500,000-700,000, illustrated page two, right) is an explosion of bold colour and elusive, unstable form in the artist’s signature abstract-figurative idiom.

BANKSY’S GIRL WITH BALLOON

A poignant two-part version of what is perhaps Banksy’s most iconic image, Girl with Balloon (Diptych) (2005, estimate: £2,500,000-3,500,000) is a vision of innocence and hope. The work consists of two canvases, each on an intimate 30 x 30 cm scale. In one stands a small girl, stencilled in black against the white background, with her hand upraised; in the other, a red, heart-shaped balloon drifts away into the sky.

BORED APES: FIRST NFT TO BE OFFERED BY CHRISTIE’S IN EUROPE

Christie’s will offer an exceptional, clean red laser beams Bored Ape along with its corresponding M1 and M2 Mutants as a group lot in the Evening Sale, the first time that Christie’s will offer an NFT in Europe. The estimate is currently unknown.

HURVIN ANDERSON AND PETER DOIG:

Peter Doig’s Hill Houses (Green Version) (1991, estimate: £3,500,000-4,500,000), an early exploration of the artist’s celebrated cabin motif, is being sold by the Estate of Donald R. Sobey. Proceeds of the sale will support the promotion and exhibition of contemporary indigenous art from Canada around the world. Painted in 1998, and unseen in public since its acquisition the following year, Audition (estimate: £1,000,00-1,500,00) is a rare and remarkable rediscovery that captures the virtuosic flourishing of Hurvin Anderson’s early practice. Audition is a vast, cinematic panorama viewed from an elevated vantage point, offering a glistening depiction of a public swimming pool, its waters alive with human activity. 

CECILY BROWN: ARTISTS FOR CLIENTEARTH

In partnership with the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC), and environmental charity ClientEarth, Christie’s are launching a new collaborative initiative, Artists for ClientEarth, designed to propel the art world in the fight against climate change. Exceptional works by major international artists, including Cecily Brown’s There’ll be bluebirds (2019, estimate: £500,000-700,000, illustrated page two, right), will be offered in a series of sales. 

THINKING ITALIAN

Having remained in the same collection since 1973, Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale, Attese (1964-65, estimate: £3,000,000-5,000,000) is an impressive white example of the artist’s concetti spaziali. Its radiant surface is punctured by an exceptionally high number of ten cuts, each opening onto a void of darkness beyond. Mappa (1988-89, estimate: £1,200,000-1,800,000) by Alighiero Boetti sees the continents adrift in striking pale blue ocean, framed by a multi-coloured border. Piero Manzoni created his ‘Achromes’ by dipping creased canvas in kaolin, a white china clay, and allowing it to dry; producing works that were free from narrative and representation. Achromes (1958, estimate: £1,200,000-1,800,000) is an early example. Superficie rigata (1962, estimate: £350,000-500,000) is from Enrico Castellani’s distinctive series of shaped striped canvases, one of only seven works using found commercial material that he pulled over a wooden scaffold. Held in the same private collection for more than six decades, Ferro (1959, estimate: £250,000-350,000) is a powerful creation from Alberto Burri’s celebrated series of ‘Ferri’ (‘Irons’), in which he manipulated sheets of cold-rolled steel straight from the mill. The group is completed by Giorgio de Chirico, and Jannis Kounellis.

EXHIBITIONS AT CHRISTIE’S

Bold, Black & British: Until 21 October 2021

Christie’s, in partnership with visionary curator Aindrea Emelife, will showcase the legacy and influence of Black, British artists in a new exhibition

1-54: Redefining the Trend – Histories in the Making: 9-15 October 2021

Art historian, critic and curator Christine Eyene has curated a special exhibition, which will explore how new artistic practices from Africa and the diaspora contribute to the definition of present aesthetics, discourses, and creative processes while opening new chapters in the continent’s art history

How to Disappear Completely: Stanley Donwood x Thom Yorke, 9-15 October 2021

Christie’s will partner with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke to present artworks by Stanley Donwood, created for the album Kid A, First Open, 5-19 October 2021

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