Phillips, together with the famous entrepreneur and art collector Yusaku Maezawa, announce the sale of Basquiat's 1982 work “Untitled”. With a breadth of over sixteen feet and estimated in the region of $70 millioni, this monumental tour de force is poised to drive the New York auction season when it is offered in the evening sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art on May 18. In the lead-up to the auction, the work will embark on an international tour of London, Los Angeles and Taipei, before heading to Phillips' New York headquarters at 432 Park Avenue.
Cover of the artist's 1996 catalog raisonné and featured in many of his major retrospectives, Untitled has since become one of the most iconic examples of Basquiat's work. His sheer brilliance is on full display in this monumental canvas, one of the largest of the artist's career, measuring nearly eight feet high and over 16 feet wide. This striking landscape format is likely a nod to Pablo Picasso's masterpiece Guernica, which Basquiat saw as a child in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and later recalled that it left a strong impression on him. Instantly recognizable for his short vertical dreadlocks, the artist takes on the guise of a demonic figure in Untitled, his violent rage declared by blood-red paint dripping from his horns. Rising against a fiery expanse of gestural color evoking abstract expressionism, the subject is in stark contrast to Basquiat's depictions of martyrdom and sainthood and epitomizes his interest in the duality of heaven and hell. This masterpiece is unequivocally one of the best examples of iconography distinctiveness and pictorial ability that triumphantly marked the apex of the too short career of the artist.
The May auction comes at a particularly exciting time for Jean-Michel Basquiat; in early April, a landmark exhibit celebrating the artist will open in lower Manhattan. Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure© was organized by the Basquiat family and features over 200 never seen and rarely shown paintings, drawings, multimedia presentations, ephemera.
Phillips Auction House will accept cryptocurrency for payment for this work, in Ethereum or Bitcoin.
