Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (Boxer), 1982

Christie’s New York Fall 2008 Evening Sale of Post War and Contemporary Art takes place on November 12 and will present 75 master works representing major movements of the category. Significant examples by Post-War masters Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gerhard Richter, Lucio Fontana, Arshile Gorky, Agnes Martin, Barnett Newman, and Willem de Kooning will be offered alongside highly sought-after works by contemporary stars such as Brice Marden, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Louise Bourgeois and Subodh Gupta. The sale is expected to realize between $227-321 million.

Robert Manley, Head of the Post-War and Contemporary Art Department in New York commented: “We are pleased to have assembled one of our highest quality sales with works that are fresh to the market with attractive estimates for the November 12 auction. Most of the works are coming from prestigious private collections presenting unique opportunities for both new and seasoned collectors.”

Christie's Evening Sale is led by an extraordinary painting by Francis Bacon, Study for Self-Portrait, 1964, (estimate on request). This rare work is a consummate representation of the artist’s complex character, as well as the tour-de-force of his indelibly original style of painting. Bacon depicts himself in his truly iconic style, with a distorted twisting face so as to illustrate the intricate matrix of perspectives that lie within, achieving a haunting effect that not only presents his physical person, but in fact reveals every pulsation existing within his being. Bacon executed this work in one of the most significant years of his career and life, experiencing the enormous satisfaction of critical acclamation in both a catalogue raisonné and a monograph by John Russell, and the unbearable anguish of the death of his lover, Peter Lacy. It was in this wake of professional success and personal tragedy that Bacon transitioned from a maverick to a master, a triumph that is evident within Study for Self-Portrait.

The sale’s cover lot, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (Boxer), 1982 (estimate on request), stems from the collection of musician and renowned collector Lars Ulrich. One of the most important works by Basquiat to come to auction, Untitled (Boxer) features an exhilarating depiction of a black heavy-weight fighter, which the artist saw as a self-portrait. Executed in 1982, at the height of Basquiat’s creative development and fame, Untitled (Boxer), is acclaimed as one of the artist’s greatest achievements. The work demonstrates Basquiat’s signature style in which he combines the raw primitivism of urban graffiti with the formal components of classical portraiture, existing as an icon for Black America: his hero being both a triumphant warrior and a crucified victim.

Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale (Festa sul Canale Grande), 1961 (estimate on request) is one of only twenty-two paintings in his celebrated Venezie series, and is the only work that represents Carnivale. This work is among the finest examples of Fontana’s production during his stay in Venice, where he conceived his famous Venezie series while working for an exhibition at Palazzo Grassi. During this time Fontana continued to explore the plastic and textural potential of his “spatialist” art, while he absorbed the layered richness of Venice’s Byzantine and Baroque influences. This painting’s effect is heightened by pieces of shimmering Murano glass and punctures through the richly layered painted canvas, rendering a translucent surface that catches and reflects light, very much like the canals and architecture of Venice.

A swirling, mesmerizing abstraction, Brice Marden’s Attendant 5, executed in 1996-99, (estimate $10 to 15 million), is among Marden’s highly sought after Attendant series. This series exists in large part within museum collections, and is therefore extremely rare to see at auction. A testament to Marden’s quest for art with eternal relevancy, Attendant 5 bypasses content, replacing it with free flowing movement that embodies the spirit of life itself. Its harmonious stream of colored lines, captivates its viewers, leading them through a journey beyond the formal bounds of the canvas.

On the heels of a world record price established for Gerhard Richter last season, Christie's will offer a masterpiece of abstraction by Richter, Abstraktes Bild (710), 1989, (estimate on request) as well as the epic Ozu, painted in 1986 (estimate: $10 to 15 million). Measuring over 8 by 13 feet and painted across two canvases, Ozu was the catalogue cover for Richter’s first major retrospective held in America and Canada in 1988 and 1989.

The sale boasts a strong selection of sculptures that include a grouping of works by Louise Bourgeois: Spider V, (estimate: $1.5 to 2 million), Untitled (With floor no. 2), (estimate: $1.5 to 2 million) and High Heels, (estimate: $400,000 to 600,000). Recently celebrated in a retrospective at the Guggenheim, Bourgeois’s powerful work continues to be an influential force among contemporary artists today. Also featured is Joseph Cornell’s Pharmacy, 1943 (estimate: $1.5 to 2 million), from the Estate of Pierre-Noel Matisse, a sublimely nostalgic work acquired from Mrs. Marcel Duchamp. The sale also contains two significant, rare and early works by Alexander Calder Constellation with Red Knife, c. 1943

(estimate: $3 to 4 million) and Ostrich, c. 1941 (estimate: $600,000 to 800,000).

A superlative grouping of 16 Master Drawings of American Post- War Art from a Private Collection is also on offer, featuring works by Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, and Agnes Martin. The collection beautifully illustrates the power of drawing as an optimum portal through which to apprehend the sweeping innovations of Post-War American art. Highlights from this selection include an outstanding drawing by Arshile Gorky, Study for Agony I, 1946-47 (estimate: $2.2 to 2.8 million), Willem de Kooning’s radical rendition of the female figure, Woman, 1951 (estimate: $3 to 4 million), Agnes Martin’s wondrous cerulian blue watercolor, Starlight, 1951 (estimate: $500,000 to 700,000), and Barnett Newman’s luminous and stunning, Untitled, 1960 (estimate: $1.5-2 million).

In addition, the sale features Property from the Collection of Robert and Jean Shoenberg, including a lyrical oil on paper Composition, 1958 by Mark Rothko (estimate: $4 to 6 million), and a masterful work by Ellsworth Kelly, Green and White, 1961 (estimate: $2 to 3 million).

Highlighting the contemporary section is Takashi Murakami’s fantastic sculpture DOB in the Strange Forest, 1999 (estimate: $5 to 7 million). This work, featuring Murakami’s most frequent and favored protagonist DOB, plunges the viewer into the hallucinatory, cutesy yet twisted world of this modern master. True to the artist’s signature style, this work presents a new hero for a new era, an art form that deliberately and gleefully shuns Western notions of High and Low Art to present us with art that is clearly rooted in today's Japan.

Following in the footsteps of Marcel Duchamp, artists Jeff Koons and Subodh Gupta are represented by three lots, which truly demonstrate the continuation of ultimate modern master’s legacy. Such highlights include Koons’ Buster Keaton, 1988 (estimate: $5 to 7 million), an iconic work depicting the silent film icon after which it was named. Indian artist, Subodh Gupta, will be represented with two works including Cheap Rice, 2006 (estimate: $900,000 to 1.2 million), an engrossing work that epitomizes Gupta's ability to find tension and irony in the mundane.