Our top 10 picks from Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale in New York
- Edward Mitterrand
- Nov 15, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 18, 2024
Nov. 19, 2024 - 7pm CST
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Ed Ruscha (B. 1937)
Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half, 1964
oil on canvas 65 x 121 ½ in. (165.1 x 308.6 cm.)
"I don’t have any River Seine like Monet, I’ve just got U.S. 66 between Oklahoma and Los Angeles". Ed Ruscha
Christie's Lot Essay
"The gas station had a polished newness that I just had to draw and then paint." Ed Ruscha
Christie's Lot Essay
Estimate on request
René Magritte (1898-1967)
L'empire des lumières, 1956
gouache on paper
14 3⁄8 x 18 ½ in. (36.3 x 46.8 cm.)
"I often paint variations of my pictures; it’s my way of defining the mystery, of possessing it". René Magritte
Christie's Lot Essay
"…through my work, it’s poetry that speaks". René Magritte
Christie's Lot Essay
ESTIMATE: USD 6,000,000 – USD 8,000,000
Alexander Calder (1898-1976)
Sumac VI, 1952
sheet metal, wire and paint
47 ½ x 52 in. (120.7 x 132.1 cm.)
Black and white are first—then red is next—and then I get sort of vague. It’s really just for differentiation, but I love red so much that I almost want to paint everything red. I often wish that I'd been a fauve in 1905.
Alexander Calder (A. Calder, in Katharine Kuh, ed., The Artist’s Voice: Talks with Seventeen Artists. New York and Evanston, Illinois: Harper & Row, 1962, p. 41.)
ESTIMATE: USD 5,000,000 – USD 7,000,000
Willem de Kooning (1904-1997)
Untitled, 1982
oil on canvas
60 x 54 in. (152.4 x 137.2 cm.)
“I don't paint with ideas of art in mind. I see something that excites me. It becomes my content." - Willem de Kooning
Artnet
ESTIMATE: USD 8,000,000 – USD 12,000,000
Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015)
Blue Tablet, 1962
oil on two joined canvases
92 x 92 x 4 ½ in. (233.7 x 233.7 x 11.4 cm.)
"Like the Precisionists, Kelly recognizes forms in everyday experience which have esthetic potential; seizing them out of context, he purifies and refines them, recreating them in the context of abstract art in order to possess them".
Barbara Rose (quoted in “The Sculpture of Ellsworth Kelly,” Artforum, Summer 1967, p. 55).
ESTIMATE: USD 4,000,000 – USD 6,000,000
Donald Judd (1928-1994)
Untitled, 1987
each: 6 x 27 x 24 in. (15.2 x 68.6 x 61 cm.)
overall: 120 x 27 x 24 in. (304.8 x 68.6 x 61 cm.)
"A shape, a volume, a color, a surface is something itself. It shouldn't be concealed as part of a fairly different world". Donald Judd
Christie's Lot Essay
ESTIMATE: USD 4,000,000 – USD 6,000,000
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997)
Purist Painting with Pitcher, Glass and Classical Column, 1975
acrylic, oil and graphite on canvas
60 x 40 in. (152.4 x 101.6 cm.)
“I take a cliché and try to organize its forms to make it monumental. The difference is often not great, but it is crucial” - Roy Lichtenstein
Artnet
ESTIMATE: USD 4,000,000 – USD 6,000,000
Dan Flavin (1933-1996)
alternate diagonals of March 2, 1964 (to Don Judd), 1964
daylight fluorescent light
diagonal length: 144 in. (366 cm.)
“I can take the ordinary lamp out of use and turn it into a magic that touches ancient mysteries. (...) And yet it is still a lamp that burns to death like any other of its kind”
D. Flavin, quoted in B. Rose, Autocritique: Essays on Art and Anti-Art, 1963–1987, New York 1988, p. 71.
ESTIMATE: USD 1,000,000 – USD 2,000,000
Frank Stella (1936-2024)
Untitled (Concentric Squares), 1974
acrylic on canvas
80 ½ x 80 ½ in. (204.5 x 204.5 cm.)
"One learns about painting by looking at art… There is no other way to find out about painting". Frank Stella
Christie's Lot Essay
ESTIMATE: USD 5,000,000 – USD 7,000,000
François-Xavier Lalanne (1927-2008)
Unique 'Grande Carpe' Bar, 1972
patinated sheet iron, nickel silver, painted wood
52 ½ x 127 ½ x 25 in. (133.4 x 324 x 63.5 cm) (closed)
52 ½ x 127 ½ x 69 ½ in. (133.4 x 324 x 176.5 cm) (open)
"The animal world offers an infinite repertory of forms connected to a universal symbolism. Children as well as adults are sensitive to this. And everything I do is made to be used". François-Xavier Lalanne
Christie's Lot Essay
ESTIMATE: USD 6,000,000 – USD 8,000,000
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