This May, Sotheby’s will present as a highlight of the Contemporary Evening Auction one of the most significant paintings created jointly by legendary artists Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat during their famed period of collaboration from 1983 - 1985. The painting, Untitled (1984), is a large-scale example of their multi-year creative experiment that fused their distinctive visual languages and styles–Warhol’s signature use of screenprinting and mechanically produced imagery, such as corporate logos, coupled with Basquiat’s expressionistic, figurative scrawls in paintstick–to create one of the most singular bodies of work in 20th-century art. In the four decades since their creation, the Warhol-Basquiat collaboration paintings have only added to the mystique and legend of their creators, and stand out as daring testaments to their artistic partnership and friendship.
Coming to auction for the first time in nearly 15 years with an estimate upon request, Untitled’s sale will mark a major new benchmark price for the series. The sale follows a period of recent critical reappraisal and cultural attention for Warhol-Basquiat works, including a blockbuster retrospective held last year at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. Titled Basquiat x Warhol: Painting Four Hands, the exhibition represented the largest collection of collaboration paintings ever exhibited, and a version of the exhibition traveled later in 2023 to the Brant Foundation in New York. Untitled was a centerpiece of both exhibitions, and together the surveys marked the most significant-ever presentation of these famed collaborative works.
Untitled will be part of Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction on 13 May 2024 in New York.
