This summer, Sotheby’s London will present a one-off auction and exhibition that spans over half a millennium of art history. From Rembrandt, ‘the first modern painter’, to Richter, who has earned his position as one of today’s greatest contemporary painters by reinterpreting the masterpieces of his forefathers, the sale will offer the very best from Old Masters, Impressionist & Modern Art, Modern & Post-War British Art and Contemporary Art – travelling through the Italian Renaissance and the Dutch Golden Age, to the revolutionary birth of Modernism, and the invasion of Pop Art and Post-modern Abstraction.
The exhibition opens to the public in Sotheby’s New Bond Street galleries today, with many of the works on view for the first time in decades. They will be hung in such a way as to illuminate the often-unexpected connections between artists and periods, shining a spotlight on the various threads that run through Western art history.
The Evening Sale will take place at 6pm BST on 28 July, offering over seventy works. Among the star lots are works by Joan Miró (est. £20-30 million / $25-37.5 million), Francis Bacon (est. £12-18 million / $15-22.5 million), Henri Matisse (est. £8-12 million / $10-15 million), Rembrandt (est. £12-16 million / $15-20 million), Gerhard Richter (est. £9-12 million / $11.3-15 million), Fernand Léger (est. £8-12 million / $10-15 million), Pablo Picasso (est. £6-9 million / $7.5-11.3 million), David Hockney (est. £4-6 million / $5-7.5 million) and Alberto Giacometti (est. £4-6 million / $5-7.5 million). Almost two-thirds of the art in the sale has never been at auction before, and of the lots that have appeared in the past, some 70% have been off the market for two decades. View the full catalogue online here.
“This auction brings together spectacular works by some of the greatest names in art history – artists who re-wrote the rule book – and, with the global art world calendar having shifted, we too have seized the opportunity to do things differently. As a new generation of collectors show less concern with the traditional art market categories of the past, this is a sale without boundaries for those collectors who look for the best of the best, regardless of where or when the artworks were made. Following the success of our recent New York auction in June, live-streamed in real-time across the world, and strong success in Hong Kong last week, we are excited now to be presenting another great offering to the world’s hungry market in London.”
PRESS OFFICE CONTACTS
Melica Khansari | Melica.Khansari@Sothebys.com | +44 (0)20 7293 5164
Rosamund Chester | Rosamund.Chester@Sothebys.com| +44 (0)20 7293 5162
About Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s has been uniting collectors with world-class works of art since 1744. Sotheby’s became the first international auction house when it expanded from London to New York (1955), the first to conduct sales in Hong Kong (1973), India (1992) and France (2001), and the first international fine art auction house in China (2012). Today, Sotheby’s has a global network of 80 offices in 40 countries and presents auctions in 10 different salesrooms, including New York, London, Hong Kong and Paris. Sotheby’s offers collectors the resources of Sotheby’s Financial Services, the world’s only full-service art financing company, as well as Advisory services for collectors, museums, corporations, artists, estates and foundations. Sotheby’s presents private sale opportunities in more than 70 categories, including three retail businesses: Sotheby’s Wine, Sotheby’s Diamonds, and Sotheby’s Home, the online marketplace for interior design.
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* Estimates do not include buyer's premium or overhead premium. Prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer's premium and overhead premium and are net of any fees paid to the purchaser where the purchaser provided an irrevocable bid.
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