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Richter, Bacon to lead Sotheby’s Contemporary Art auction, May 2013

Gerhard Richter - Domplatz, Mailand

Gerhard Richter
Domplatz, Mailand [Cathedral Square, Milan], 1968
Oil on canvas, 108×114 in (275×290 cm)

Richter, Bacon to lead Sotheby’s Contemporary Art sale ‘Study for a Portrait of P.L.’ by Francis Bacon and ‘Domplatz, Mailand’ by Gerhard Richter will be the highlights of Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction on 14 May 2013.]]>

April 20, 2013, source: Sotheby’s

“Domplatz, Mailand” by Gerhard Richter was the result of a commission by Siemens Elettra to produce a monumental work for their Milan offices in 1968. The canvas was Richter’s most ambitious to date; spanning in excess of 9 by 9 feet, it was the largest figurative work he had created and its sheer technical accomplishment was remarkable. Today, the work stands as the epitome of the artist’s celebrated 1960sphoto-painting canon. Domplatz, Mailand hung in Siemens’ offices for 30 years before appearing in a Sotheby’sLondon auction in 1998 where it was acquired by the esteemed Pritzker family of collectors for a then record priceand subsequently hung in their Park Hyatt Hotel in Chicago for over a decade. The painting is now being sold bythe Hyatt Hotels Corporation and carries an estimate of $30/40 million.

“Domplatz, Mailand returns to Sotheby’s 15 years after setting a new auction record for the artist and just sevenmonths after Sotheby’s established the new benchmark for Richter with ‘Abstraktes Bild’ (809-4) selling for $34.3million,” commented Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art.

Francis Bacon’s 1962 “Study for a Portrait of P.L.”stands as a surviving eulogy of the artist’s illfatedlover, Peter Lacy and summates a relationshipthat had a paramount effect on both Bacon’s life andwork. Painted posthumously, just months after hisearly death from alcohol abuse in 1962, this homageis the most important and iconic portrait of Lacyever created by Bacon and formally marks thedirection of his work in the following decades. UntilSotheby’s pre-sale exhibitions began this month,Study for a Portrait of P.L. had not been seen inpublic since 1972. The work carries an estimate of$30/40 million.

The auction will also include Jackson Pollock‘s “The Blue Unconscious”, Yves Klein‘s “Sculpture éponge bleue sans titre, SE 168”, described by Sotheby’s as “the most extraordinary sculpture by the artist ever to be offered at auction” and “Onement VI” by Barnett Newman, one of the most important works by the artist.

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Bacon’s ‘Figure writing reflected in mirror’ at Sotheby’s (news, May 2012)
Richter’s ‘Abstraktes Bild’ sells for £21,3M at Sotheby’s (news, October 2012)

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Richter, Bacon to lead Sotheby's Contemporary Art auction, May 2013