Lot 8. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Muhammad Ali, inscribed ‘I certify that this is an original painting by Andy Warhol completed by him in 1978 Frederick Hughes’ (on the overlap); signed by Muhammed Ali (on the reverse), acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 40 x 40in. (101.6 x 101.6cm.). Estimate GBP 3,000,000 - GBP 5,000,000 (USD 3,936,000 - USD 6,560,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

LONDON.- Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction will take place on 12 February 2020, continuing ‘20th Century at Christie’s’. From the collection of Richard L. Weisman, Andy Warhol’s ‘Athletes’, comprised of ten 40-by-40-inch multicoloured portraits of athletes, is highlighted by Muhammad Ali (1977, estimate: £3,000,000-5,000,000). This follows the successful sale of works from the collection at Christie’s in New York in November 2019. The seminal series is presented alongside Flowers (1964, estimate: £1,000,000-1,500,000), which is offered as part of ‘Art for Future: Selected Works from the UniCredit Group’. A further focus on Andy Warhol includes Knives (1982, estimate: £2,500,000-3,500,000), a razor-sharp chorus of beauty and menace, and Brillo Soap Pads Box (1964, estimate: £300,000-500,000) which was originally held in the collection of Leo Castelli. Three works by Jean Dubuffet from the 1950s, 60s and 70s not only trace the artistic development throughout the artist’s career but culminate in Panorama (1978, estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000), from the final decade of the artist’s life where he employs the pictorial devices seen in his works since the 1940s. Albert Oehlen’s Mission Rohrfrei (1996, estimate: £1,800,000-2,500,000) is among the most abstract and explosive of Oehlen’s ‘Remixes’, displaying the artist in freewheeling improvisatory flow. Coinciding with a survey of contemporary painters at London’s Whitechapel Gallery, ‘Radical Figures’, a group of works by Dana Schutz, Tschabalala Self and Cecily Brown showcase new directions in expressionism as artists tackle subjects of political and social significance. Jordan Casteel’s Mom (2013, estimate: £180,000-250,000) is a poignant tribute to the artist’s mother, Lauren Young Casteel.

The Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Auction will take place on 13 February while First Open: Post-War and Contemporary Art Online, a dedicated online-only auction, will be open for bidding from 7 to 18 February. Selected works will be on view from 8 to 13 February with viewing by request from 14 to 18 February. The works from the Evening and Day Auctions will be on view in the King Street galleries from 8 to 12 February 2020.

Andy Warhol
In 1977, the collector Richard L. Weisman approached Andy Warhol with an idea. He believed there was a new breed of superstar ripe for the artist’s inimitable gaze: the athlete. The prospect of a new pool of celebrity subjects was hugely exciting for Warhol. Thus, the Athletes series was born. Described as ‘truly iconic’ by The New York Times, Andy Warhol’s legendary depiction of Muhammad Ali captures a meeting of giants. The group also includes Pelé (estimate: £300,000-500,000), Chris Evert (estimate: £200,000-300,000), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (estimate: £220,000-280,000), Tom Seaver (estimate: £120,000-180,000), O.J. Simpson (estimate: £200,000-300,000), Jack Nicklaus (£150,000-200,000), Rod Gilbert (£200,000-300,000), Willie Shoemaker (estimate: £250,000-350,000) and Dorothy Hamill (estimate: £200,000-300,000). Knives (1982, estimate: £2,500,000-3,500,000) is a monumental work from one of Andy Warhol’s most important late series. A trio of kitchen knives is silkscreened nine times in vibrant colour against a deep, black ground. Violet, green, lilac, orange, turquoise, yellow, blue and a vivid, bloody red light up the blades like fireworks in a night sky. Further works from the Weisman Collection saw excellent results when they were sold at Christie’s, New York in November 2019. 

Lot 27. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Pelé, signed 'Andy Warhol ©' and signed by Edson Pelé (on the reverse), acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 40 x 40in. (101.6 x 101.6cm.) Executed in 1977. Estimate GBP 300,000 - GBP 500,000 (USD 391,800 - USD 653,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 28. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Chris Evert, signed 'Andy Warhol' and signed by Chris Evert (on the overlap), acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 40 x 40in. (101.6 x 101.6cm.)  Executed in 1977. Estimate GBP 200,000 - GBP 300,000 (USD 261,200 - USD 391,800). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 29. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, signed 'Andy Warhol ©' and signed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (on the overlap), acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 40 x 40in. (101.6 x 101.6cm.)  Executed in 1977. Estimate GBP 200,000 - GBP 300,000 (USD 261,200 - USD 391,800). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 52. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Tom Seaver, signed 'Andy Warhol ©', signed by Tom Seaver, stamped with the Andy Warhol Authentication Board, Inc. stamp and numbered 'A193.101' (on the overlap), acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 40 x 40in. (101.6 x 101.6cm.)  Executed in 1977. Estimate GBP 120,000 - GBP 180,000 (USD 156,720 - USD 235,080). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 53. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), O.J. Simpson, signed 'Andy Warhol ©' and signed by O.J. Simpson (on the reverse), acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 40 x 40in. (101.6 x 101.6cm.)  Executed in 1977. Estimate GBP 200,000 - GBP 300,000 (USD 261,200 - USD 391,800). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 54. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Jack Nicklaus, inscribed ‘I certify that this is an original painting by Andy Warhol completed by him in 1978 Frederick Hughes’ (on the overlap); signed by Jack Nicklaus (on the overlap), acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 40 x 40in. (101.6 x 101.6cm.)  Executed in 1977. Estimate GBP 200,000 - GBP 300,000 (USD 261,200 - USD 391,800). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 55. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Rod Gilbert, signed 'Andy Warhol ©' and signed by Rod Gilbert (on the overlap); signed by Jack Nicklaus (on the overlap), acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 40 x 40in. (101.6 x 101.6cm.)  Executed in 1977. Estimate GBP 200,000 - GBP 300,000 (USD 261,200 - USD 391,800). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 56. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Willie Shoemaker, signed twice 'Andy Warhol © Andy Warhol', signed by Willie Shoemaker and inscribed ‘I certify that this is an original painting by Andy Warhol completed by him in 1978 Frederick Hughes’ (on the overlap), acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 40 x 40in. (101.6 x 101.6cm.)  Executed in 1977. Estimate GBP 250,000 - GBP 350,000 (USD 326,500 - USD 457,100). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 57. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Dorothy Hamill, signed 'Andy Warhol' and signed by Dorothy Hamill (on the reverse); signed ‘Andy Warhol’ (on the overlap), acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 40 x 40in. (101.6 x 101.6cm.)  Executed in 1977. Estimate GBP 200,000 - GBP 300,000 (USD 261,200 - USD 391,800). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Christie’s has been appointed by UniCredit to manage the selected sale of artworks from Austria, Germany and Italy. The proceeds will be primarily used to support the further roll-out of the group’s Social Impact Banking (SIB) initiatives. The remaining balance will be dedicated to other relevant projects, including the support of young artists. Beginning with the Post-War and Contemporary Art auctions in October 2019, a number of artworks have already been presented at various Christie’s international salerooms. Highlights have included an outstanding group of works by Gerhard Richter – led by a major Abstraktes Bild from 1984 – as well as pieces by artists such as Yves Klein, Enrico Castellani and Ernst Wilhelm Nay. Works from the bank will continue to be offered across a range of marquee week sales in 2020, and we are delighted to present Andy Warhol’s Flowers (1964, estimate: £1,000,000-1,500,000) as part of the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction this February. Held for over two decades in Leo Castelli’s personal collection before it was acquired by the present owner in 1987, Brillo Soap Pads Box (1964, estimate: £300,000-500,000) marks the moment that Andy Warhol joined forces with the supreme gallerist of the Pop era. 

 Lot 9. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Flowers, signed and dated ‘Andy Warhol 64’ (on the overlap), acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, 24 x 24in. (61 x 61cm.) Executed in 1964. Estimate GBP 1,000,000 - GBP 1,500,000 (USD 1,306,000 - USD 1,959,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 23. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Brillo Soap Pads Box, silkscreen ink and house paint on plywood, 16 ¼ x 17 x 14in. (41.3 x 43.2 x 35.7cm.) Executed in 1964. Estimate GBP 300,000 - GBP 500,000 (USD 391,800 - USD 653,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Jean Dubuffet
A joyous cacophony of figures, shapes and spaces, Panorama (1978, estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000) is a striking example of Jean Dubuffet’s ‘Théâtres de mémoire’ (‘Theatres of memory’), the reflective series created in the final decade of the artist’s life. Each component, rendered in striking monochrome, conjures the visual language of earlier series in Dubuffet’s career: there are the playful human figures that had populated his work since the 1940s, echoes of the swirling, cellular ‘Hourloupe’ language he conceived in 1962, and snatches of the scribbled ‘Parachiffres’ of 1974. Painted on 4 September 1961, La robe à boutons (estimate: £1,200,000-1,800,000) is the first and largest in a sequence of five distinct character portraits that punctuate Dubuffet’s legendary ‘Paris Circus’ series. With its raw painterly terrain spiked with jewelled flashes of red and green, Alentour la maison (estimate: £1,100,000-1,600,000) is a mesmeric composition from the ‘Lieux cursifs’ series that occupied his output between April and September 1957. Incised into the work’s marbled earthen surface with a knife, a narrative sequence unfolds, like ancient graffiti carved into a rockface. 

Lot 6. Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985), Panorama, signed with initials and dated 'J.D. 78' (lower left), acrylic and collage on paper mounted on canvas, 82 ¾ x 111 5/8in. (210.2 x 283.4cm.) Executed on 20 January 1978. Estimate GBP 2,000,000 - GBP 3,000,000 (USD 2,612,000 - USD 3,918,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 12. Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985), La robe à boutons (Button Dress), signed and dated 'J. Dubuffet 61' (lower left); signed, dated and titled 'La robe à boutons J. Dubuffet sept. 61' (on the reverse), oil on board, 25 ½ x 21 1/8in. (64.7 x 53.7cm.) Executed on 4 September 1961. Estimate GBP 1,200,000 - GBP 1,800,000 (USD 1,567,200 - USD 2,350,800). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 5. Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985), Alentour la maison (Around the House), signed and dated ‘J. Dubuffet 57’ (upper right); signed, titled and dated ‘Alentour la maison J. Dubuffet juin 57’ (on the reverse), oil on canvas, 35 1/8 x 45 5/8in. (89 x 116cm.) Painted on 3 June 1957. Estimate GBP 1,200,000 - GBP 1,800,000 (USD 1,567,200 - USD 2,350,800). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Painting in the 21st century
Included in Tschabalala Self’s acclaimed exhibition at the Frye Art Museum in 2019, Spare Moment (2015, estimate: £80,000-120,000) presents two resplendent characters who are set against a background of abstract eye-like forms, motifs that recur throughout her work. Self draws upon her experience of growing up in Harlem to confront issues surrounding race, sexuality and gender. By deliberately exaggerating her subjects’ physical features, she highlights the stereotypes and expectations surrounding the black female body. A profusion of vibrant colour and fractured form, Kissing in the Dump (2004, estimate: £350,000-550,000) exemplifies Dana Schutz’s glorious brand of painterly breakdown. A couple embrace in a kaleidoscopic junkyard. The riot of garbage includes a chair, a frying pan and a discarded wreath; wires and mains plugs. Like many of her works, the present work depicts a subject that is unlikely to have been tackled in paint, conjuring an escapist, humorous vision of romance among the wreckage. Jordan Casteel’s Mom (2013, estimate: £180,000-250,000) captures the artist’s mother in a moment of peaceful solitude, registering the play of light and shadow across her face, clothes and hands. A vast, erotically-charged vision spanning nearly three metres in width, Cecily Brown’s Girl Trouble (1999, estimate: £1,400,000-1,800,00) is a bacchanal of fiery hues, enigmatic figural forms and rich, gestural abstraction. Rendered with intuitive, sensual brushstrokes, it demonstrates the orgiastic painterly language for which she is celebrated. 

Lot 3. Tschabalala Self (b.1990), Spare Moment, oil, pigment, fabric and acrylic on canvas, 62 x 44in. (157.4 x 111.7cm.) Executed in 2015. Estimate GBP 80,000 - GBP 120,000 (USD 104,480 - USD 156,720). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 1. Dana Schutz (B. 1976), Kissing in the Dump, signed and dated 'Dana Schutz 2004' (on the reverse), 65 ¼ x 71 ½in. (165.7 x 181.6cm.), oil on canvas. Painted in 2004. Estimate GBP 350,000 - GBP 550,000 (USD 457,100 - USD 718,300). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

 Lot 1. Jordan Casteel (b. 1989), Mom, signed and dated '2013 Jordan Casteel' (on the reverse), oil on canvas, 48 x 36in. (121.9 x 91.4cm.) Painted in 2013. Estimate GBP 180,000 - GBP 250,000 (USD 235,080 - USD 326,500). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 43. Cecily Brown (b. 1969), Girl Trouble, signed ‘Cecily’ (lower left); signed and dated ‘Cecily Brown 99’ (on the reverse), oil on canvas, 100 x 110 1/8in. (254 x 279.7cm.) Painted in 1999. Estimate GBP 1,400,000 - GBP 1,800,000 (USD 1,828,400 - USD 2,350,800). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Albert Oehlen
Mission Rohrfrei (1996, estimate: £1,800,000-2,500,000) is a spectacular early ‘John Graham Remix’ painting by Albert Oehlen. The series derives from Oehlen’s obsession with an obscure painting by John Graham, a largely forgotten figure who played an important role in Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist circles in mid-century America. Undermining, critiquing and ultimately revitalising painting in a post-painting world, Oehlen dismantles his medium to expose its beating heart. 

Lot 20. Albert Oehlen (b. 1954), Mission Rohrfrei (Down Periscope), signed and dated 'A. Oehlen 96' (on the reverse), acrylic, oil and inkjet on canvas 84 ¼ x 107 5/8in. (214 x 273.5cm.) Executed in 1996. Estimate GBP 1,800,000 - GBP 2,500,000 (USD 2,361,600 - USD 3,280,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020. 

Sigmar Polke
With its shifting, illusory surface, Sigmar Polke’s Untitled (estimate: £2,800,000-3,500,000) is a mesmerising image of optical and erotic fantasy. Created in 2000, it was acquired shortly afterwards by the German tennis player and former Wimbledon champion Michael Stich, who gave it as a wedding present to his wife. The present work, unseen for many years, combines Polke’s signature raster-dot technique with layers of interference pigment, reflecting a spectrum of shimmering metallic tones under varying light conditions. 

Lot 15. Sigmar Polke (1941-2010), Untitled, signed and dated ‘Sigmar Polke 2000’ (on the reverse), acrylic and interference colour on canvas, 39 3/8 x 31 ½in. (100 x 80cm.) Executed in 2000. Estimate GBP 2,800,000 - GBP 3,500,000 (USD 3,656,800 - USD 4,571,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Auction
The Day Auction on 13 February will also feature works included in the Whitechapel Gallery exhibition ‘Radical Figures’, presenting paintings by Tschabalala Self, Tala Madani and Dana Schutz. Further highlights include Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Paolo Mussat Sartor (1962-88, estimate: £250,000-350,000), Sam Francis’s Blue and Black (1954, estimate: £180,000-250,000) and Jean-Paul Riopelle’s Clairons (1955-56, estimate: £180,000-250,000).

Lot 138. Michelangelo Pistoletto (b. 1933), Paolo Mussat Sartor, signed twice, titled and dated 'Michelangelo Pistoletto - Paolo Mussat Sartor - 1962-88 Pistoletto' (on the reverse), silkscreen on polished stainless steel, 49¼ x 27½in. (125 x 70cm.) Executed in 1962-1988. Estimate GBP 250,000 - GBP 350,000 (USD 326,499 - USD 457,099). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 143. Sam Francis (1923-1994), Blue and Black, oil on canvas, 21 ¾ x 21 ¾in. (55.2 x 55.2cm.) Painted in 1954. Estimate GBP 180,000 - GBP 250,000 (USD 235,080 - USD 326,499). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

Lot 144 Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923-2002), Clairons, signed and dated 'Riopelle 56' (lower right); signed and dated 'riopelle "Clairons"' (on the reverse), oil on canvas, 28½ x 36¼in. (72.5 x 92cm.) Executed in 1955-1956. Estimate GBP 180,000 - GBP 250,000 (USD 235,080 - USD 326,499). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.