Christie’s Postwar & Contemporary Art sale, on May 13, is headlined by major offerings from storied Chicago collectors Edwin and Lindy Bergman and led by Alexander Calder’s playful mobile “Poisson volant,” 1957. A big catch at 24- by 40- by 100-inches, it is estimated at $8 million to $12 million. So far, 10 Calder works have sold for more than $5 million, and this is a superb and rare example. The Bergman family, which endowed the Art Institute of Chicago with a Joseph Cornell Gallery, is also selling a group of Cornell boxes, including “Untitled (Penny Arcade Portrait of Lauren Bacall),” 1946, tagged at $5 million to $7 million.
Christie’s is also offering a range of high-value trophy works, including Jackson Pollock’s calligraphic painting in black enamel “Number 5 (Elegant Lady),” 1951, put up by the German E.ON corporate art collection for $15 million to $20 million. On loan to the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf since 2001, the picture made its American debut at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York in 1956. Jackson gave her Oldsmobile convertible to the artist in exchange for two paintings, including “Number 5.” He died violently in that car two years later.
Christie’s is also offering Basquiat’s swashbuckling nude warrior, “Untitled,” 1981, consigned from the Washington D.C.-area Reiner family collection, with an estimate in the region of $20 million to $30 million. The mural-size, orange-and-red-hued work was acquired by Anita Reiner in 1982 from Annina Nosei, the artist’s primary-market dealer.
Eight abstract works will be offered from the estate of Omaha collector and philanthropist Phillip Schrager, including a juicy Willem de Kooning, “Untitled xxxi,” 1977, estimated at $8 million to $12 million. A larger version from the same series, “Untitled viii,” made a record $32,085,000 at Christie’s last November, and “Untitled xxix,” 1977, sold for $8,080,000 at the house in November 2006. On the Pop art front, Andy Warhol’s seminal and personally inscribed “White Marilyn,” 1962, from the collection of dealer Eleanor Ward, who gave the artist his first solo show, is pegged at $12 million to $18 million.
Christie’s is also offering what may be the priciest lot of the season, a 1984 Francis Bacon triptych, “Three Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards,” of the artist’s last companion and heir, which carries an estimate in the region of $80 million. It last sold in February 2001 for $4.5 million at Christie’s London.
A version of this article appears in the May 2014 issue of Art+Auction magazine.
