Sale on 18 July Features Fresh to Market Works by Robert Motherwell and Jennifer Barlett Alongside Cutting-Edge Artists Daisy Dodd-Noble, Kate Pincus-Whitney, Anna Valdez, and Others
Climb, 2018
Estimate: $5,000 – 7,000
Phillips announces a new live auction dedicated to 20th Century & Contemporary Art taking place on 18 July in New York. Featuring just over 110 lots, the selection highlights a diverse and compelling group of artists with established names such as Robert Motherwell, Alex Katz, and Andy Warhol, along with many pieces by women artists of the 20th century and today.
This includes Sally Michel Avery, Sophie Larrimore, Perle Fine, Pipilotti Rist, Lynne Drexler, and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, who currently has a solo exhibition featured at the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many others. This unique assemblage brings together artists experiencing a resurgence in recognition, as well as those who have more recently emerged from the shadows of their male counterparts.
The works will be on view from 10 – 17 July at 432 Park Avenue, providing an opportunity for visitors and art enthusiasts alike to escape the summer heat and immerse themselves in the artworks on display.
Alphabet Eight, 1993
Estimate: $100,000 – 150,000
Leading the sale is Jennifer Bartlett’s Alphabet Eight, 1993, a dazzling visual journey of bouncing colors at the intersection of art and mathematics. The work consists of 64 steel plates, each covered in irregular patterns formed by tiny dots of primary colors. After spending over 15 years exploring various media, the Alphabet series marks Bartlett’s return to the idiosyncratic steel plate technique that defines her early works. Each painting includes an additional plate with figurative elements reflecting Bartlett’s interrogation of the widely accepted categorizations of modern art. By integrating representational images into an abstract design, Alphabet Eight pushes the limits of traditional definitions of abstract and figurative art.
Open No. 137: In Ultramarine on Beige, 1969
Estimate: $80,000 – 120,000
Also featured is a fresh to market Robert Motherwell, Open No. 137: In Ultramarine on Beige, 1969. Motherwell’s Open series, executed between 1967 and 1974, marked an evolution in his painting practice towards an increasing economy of form. As Motherwell himself explained in a statement from 1969, he found his initial inspiration for the series from the way in which a smaller, painted canvas leaned against the unpainted verso of a larger canvas in his studio. Open No. 137: In Ultramarine on Beige returns to the series’ genesis through the use of two interposed rectangles in intimate scale, showcasing the rich and formal understanding of abstraction that Motherwell displayed throughout his career.
Pheasant, 2016
Estimate: $4,000 – 6,000
Anna Valdez is cutting-edge artist seeing her auction debut with her work Pheasant, 2016. Emblematic of her signature colorful still lives, Pheasant plays with the reinterpretation of old masters imagery into a new context.
