Masters of Abstraction

Willem De Kooning, Untitled XXII, 1977

^{Estimate $25,000,000 – 35,000,000}

Encapsulating the full force of Willem de Kooning's abstract vernacular, Untitled XXII was executed at a critical moment in the artist's career, marked by his departure of Manhattan for the natural landscape of Springs, Long Island; for de Kooning, the change in scenery sparked a renewed focus on painting. Untitled XXII represents a formal climax of this period, and belongs to an explosive outpouring of creativity that produced an illustrious body of large-scale, color-drenched canvases that rank among the most iconic achievements of de Kooning’s decades-long career. Famous for his relentless working and reworking of his canvases in the 1950s, de Kooning demonstrates a confidence and urgency within the composition of Untitled XXII that is as affecting today as it was when it was first exhibited in 1978.

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Mark Bradford, Spinning Man, 2007

^Estimate ^{$5,000,000 – 7,000,000}

A masterful fusion of tactile materiality and abstracted gesture, Spinning Man is a superlative example of Bradford’s idiosyncratic artistic practice. Clothed in the camouflage of a repetitive cycle of addition and subtraction, Bradford’s chosen media – culled from the detritus of his Leimert Park neighborhood in Los Angeles – are abstracted under the structuring rule of his systematic grooves. Deftly wielding the weighty legacy of an abstract vernacular to a sociopolitical end, Bradford’s work is a vital reminder of the role of art to facilitate meaningful social change.

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Norman Lewis, Ritual, 1962

^Estimate ^{$700,000 – 1,000,000}

Norman Lewis stands as a critical member of the Abstract Expressionists in New York, and was the only African-American artist present at the historic 1950 symposium at Studio 35 where the leading artists of the day coined their eponymous term. Ritual from 1962 exemplifies Lewis’s abstract vernacular, engulfing the viewer in a stunning blue vista punctuated by complementary brushstrokes of yellow, red, and orange. Although abstract, Ritual speaks to Lewis’s sociopolitical engagements in the 1950s and 60s and his profound focus on the subjects of race and civil rights.

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Agnes Martin, Untitled, 1960

^Estimate ^{$1,800,000 – 2,500,000}

A gem-like vision of shimmering lines and saturated azure depth, Untitled is among a limited grouping of small-scale works from 1960 that arguably constitute Agnes Martin’s first true series of grids; similar paintings from this pivotal year reside in esteemed museum collections, including Dia Art Foundation, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Yale University Art Gallery and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as distinguished private collections worldwide. Intimate in scale, this work exemplifies the artist’s signature ability to impart profound poignancy within the sparest of artistic vernaculars.

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Jackson Pollock, Untitled, 1944

^Estimate ^{$1,500,000 – 2,000,000}

Jackson Pollock’s Untitled from 1944 is an impassioned and significant work on paper executed at the cusp of the artist’s brilliant innovation of the drip technique. The present work straddles Pollock’s Surrealist-inspired output and the mural-like paint-spattered canvases that would come to define not only his career, but the entire Abstract Expressionist movement. Untitled is one of just three of the largest works on paper from 1944 that prefigures the style and format of some of Pollock’s most significant works to come; one of the sister works resides in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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Kazuo Shiraga, Untitled, 1964

^Estimate ^{$1,800,000 – 2,500,000}

An exceptional example of Kazuo Shiraga’s seminal series of abstract paintings, Untitled epitomizes the dynamism, power and physicality that define the artist’s oeuvre. A pivotal member of Japan’s iconic post-war collective, The Gutai Art Association, Shiraga committed himself to action painting as the dynamic synthesis of himself and his work, underscoring the group’s quest for a radical new artistic expression.

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Joan Mitchell, River III, 1967-68

^Estimate ^{$5,000,000 – 7,000,000}

Juxtaposing dense accumulations of saturated pigment with passages of frenzied individual brushstrokes, Joan Mitchell’s monumental River III is a magisterial example of the artist's unique painterly idiom. Following in the steps of Monet, here Mitchell paints not just a literal depiction of landscape but a sensual and emotional impression of the pastoral idyll, in which nature is comprised of an equilibrium of sky, land and water. In River III, flashes of golden yellow paint shine like dappled sunlight glimpsed through the trees, while swathes of blue, green and purple evoke the lush riverbanks of the Seine.

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Lee Krasner, Sun Woman I, 1957

^{Estimate $6,000,000 – 8,000,000}

Sun Woman I is a superlative example of Lee Krasner's Earth Green series, considered the most iconic and pivotal corpus in the artist's accomplished career. Conceptually rigorous and aesthetically astounding, this masterpiece nods to the action painting of Krasner’s late husband, Jackson Pollock, but has an explosive ebullience that sets it apart from the work of her contemporaries. In Sun Woman I, the female figures appear fertile, joyful and sexual, but not sexualized, in a way which poignantly reclaims the bodies from male representation.

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Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild, 1986

^{Estimate $3,500,000 – 5,000,000}

With its majestic vista of visual splendor, Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild beautifully exemplifies the artist’s aesthetic and conceptual investigations into the very practice of painting itself. Stemming from the chronological apex of the period in which Richter perfected and centralized his use of the large-scale spatula or squeegee, the work is a superb embodiment of the most iconic series of works of the artist's output.

Though reminiscent of earlier Abstract Expressionist paintings in its gestural execution and indomitable spirit, Abstraktes Bild brilliantly captures Richter’s unparalleled ability to temper a fevered painterly passion with logical and balanced execution, creating an utterly rapturous painting that engulfs the viewer in a dramatic riot of dazzling color.

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Hans Hofmann, Terpsichore, 1958

^{Estimate $4,000,000 – 6,000,000}

Stunning in its intensity of hue and mastery of stroke, Hans Hofmann’s Terpsichore is a prismatic example of the painterly genius that established the artist as one of the most influential icons of the post-war period. Set on a grand scale, the present work offers a composition of dazzling chromatic vitality, assembled from saturated slabs of color in thick impasto, producing a dynamic surface that is rich in both visual and textural details. By laying down strata of freshly applied marigold, emerald, magenta, and canary yellow daubs, Hofmann not only creates a rhythmically ordered canvas but also expresses his abiding passion for the materiality of paint.

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