A rare masterpiece by German painter Georg Baselitz – estimated at £6.5m-8.5m – has the potential to set a possible record for the artist at Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening auction on 8 March 2017.
We are talking about Mit Roter Fahne (With Red Flag) from 1965, from the famous Heroes Series and it is a painting that consolidated the figure of the artist as one of the strongest and most oppositional voices of the post-war period.
The powerful Baselitz canvas is at the center of a group of 17 works by German artists, almost a quarter of the March auction. As well as Gerhard Richter's magnificent Eisberg (Est. £8m – 12m), Anselm Kiefer's monumental Athanor (Est. £1.5-2.5m), Sigmar Polke's Pop-inspired Die Schmiede, (Est. £1-1.5m ), a major painting by Martin Kippenberger – estimated at £3-4 million – as well as works by Wolfgang Tillmans, Albert Oehlen, Thomas Schütte, Günther Förg, Günther Uecker and Michael Krebber.
Alex Branczik – Sotheby's Europe Head of Contemporary Art – comments “Moments of dramatic social and political change have always created powerful revolutions in the artistic field and this has particularly occurred in post-war Germany. Many of these artists are decidedly innovative, dealing with profound subjects, creating new visual languages that have redefined the history of European art.”
The German contemporary art market is growing:
The German Contemporary Art market has grown steadily in recent years, culminating in the £30.4m ($46.3m) auction for Gerhard Richter's Abstraktes Bild in London at Sotheby's in 2015.
