David Hockney – Beverly Hills Housewife
Hockney leads Christie’s contemporary Art auction, May 2009
In a packed salesroom, bidders drove Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art EveningSale total to $93,734,500, led by strong results for the Betty Freeman Collection and five new worldauction records for artists David Hockney, Claes Oldenburg, Douglas Wheeler, Tony Smith, andKerry James Marshall
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May 14 2009 – Leading the Evening Sale was a group of 20 works from the collection of the renowned Americanphilanthropist Betty Freeman which was 90% sold by lot and achieved a combined total of$31,606,500. One of the most important David Hockney works to come to the auction market,Beverly Hills Housewife, 1966-1967, achieved the evening’s top price of $7,922,500, and set a newworld auction record for the artist. Typewriter Eraser, a work that epitomizes Claes Oldenburg’srevolutionary approach to sculpture sold for $2,210,500 and set the second auction record of thenight. The catalogue cover lot, Roy Lichtenstein’s Frolic, 1977, fetched $6,018,500, followed by arare, early painting by Sam Francis from 1954 entitled Grey, which achieved $3,666,500. Firstexhibited in Dorothy Miller’s seminal 1954 MoMA show, Twelve Americans, the painting was acquireddirectly from Francis’s private collection by Mrs. Freeman, who enjoyed a long and closerelationship with the artist. Douglas Wheeler’s Untitled, 1968 set a new world auction record for theartist, selling for $290,500. Rounding out the Freeman collection was Alexander Calder’s Gypsophilaon Black Skirt, 1950, a coveted work that witnessed strong bidding, sold for $1,986,500
Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park No. 117, 1979, a consummate work for the artist, whichluminously illustrates the best qualities of his most celebrated series of paintings, achieved$6,578,500, just shy of the artist’s auction record of $6.76 million. Through his use of bright andcool blues and yellows, the artist communicates the ephemeral quality of nature, capturing thesensation and radiance of the coastal environment in which this work was created.
Masterfully executed, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s totemic Mater, 1982, an electrifying, rare rendition of afemale figure was acquired for $5,850,500. Painted during what many would describe as the apex ofBasquiat’s tragically short yet undeniably brilliant career, this work exudes the energy of a youngartist at the pinnacle of his creative output.
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