Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale
On 9 November 2011 the Contemporary Art Evening Sale at Sotheby’s New York will be led by masterpieces by Clyfford Still, Gerhard Richter, Francis Bacon and Mark Rothko, among others. Four paintings by the celebrated American Abstract Expressionist Clyfford Still come from the Estate of Patricia Still and are being sold by the City and County of Denver to further support the endowment of the new Clyfford Still Museum, which is scheduled to open to the public in Denver on 18 November 2011. Abstraction-Figuration: A Private Collection includes one of the most important groups of works by Gerhard Richter ever to appear at auction along with important works by other artists that thrive in the fertile space between abstraction and figuration. A further highlight is Three Studies for a Self Portrait by Francis Bacon (est. $15/20 million). This 1967 painting is believed to be the artist’s first self-portrait triptych and has been in the same collection since it was purchased from the Marlborough Gallery exhibition of Bacon’s recent work in London that same year
The pre-sale exhibition opens on 5 November with selected highlights on view from this Friday, 28 October.