Crowded by the incursion of the Christie’s “If I Live” sale on its original May 12 date, Phillips moved its Contemporary Art sale to May 15, as it faces greater competition in the emerging art category that it has heretofore successfully vanquished. August Uribe, the firm’s freshly hired worldwide co-head of contemporary art (until recently, an Impressionist and modern rainmaker at Sotheby’s), is quietly steering the house toward a wider purview that encompasses more than young art stars, “to try to secure for sale the lots of blue-chip names.”
That strategy will be evident this month with works such as David Smith’s unique welded steel and bronze sculpture Abandoned Foundation (Landscape), 1946, which debuted in the artist’s solo show at the Willard Gallery in 1947 and formerly resided in the Pulitzer family collection in St. Louis. Standing 13 1/4-inches high, it is estimated at $1.2 million to $1.8 million. Vija Celmins’s shimmering, star-studded, and undeniably beautiful Night Sky #3, 1991, an oil on canvas mounted on wood panel, is pegged at $2 million to $3 million and could challenge the $2,405,000 artist record set by Night Sky #14, 1996, at Christie’s last November. “I consider her extremely undervalued,” said Uribe.
The house also has its customary Andy Warhol, a blooming Flowers canvas from 1964, executed in silkscreen inks on canvas and medium-scaled at 48- by 48-inches. It carries an estimate of $10 million to $15 million. Another version in the same size sold at Phillips in May 2011 for $8,146,500, the highest auction price so far for a 48-inch square flower painting.
A version of this article appears in the May 2014 issue of Art+Auction magazine.
