NEW YORK, NY.- Swann Galleries’ offering of Contemporary Art on Tuesday, May 22 features a wide-ranging selection of sculpture, paintings and multiples with important works by Alexander Calder, Barbara Hepworth, Yayoi Kusama and Ai Weiwei.
Leading the sale is Andy Warhol’s iconic screenprint portrait of Mao, 1972, with an estimate of $40,000 to $60,000. More than a dozen scarce works spanning the visionary's career include Campbell’s Soup cans in various media and a set of stamps. Pop Art continues with Roy Lichtenstein’s 1965 lithograph Shipboard Girl and Crak!, 1963-64 ($20,000 to $30,000 and $12,000 to $18,000, respectively).
The sale offers a breadth of portfolios, including Barbara Hepworth’s complete Opposing Forms, 1970, with 12 lithographs, which carries an estimate of $20,000 to $30,000, and the complete Look at it on a Rainy Day (Regentag Portfolio), 1971, by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, with ten screenprints with metallic embossing ($12,000 to $18,000). Keith Haring's radiant portfolio Ludo, 1985, with five lithographs, is valued at $25,000 to $35,000.
Original works include two gouache paintings by Alexander Calder, each titled McGovern and expected to sell between $30,000 and $50,000. Also available are unique pieces by Willem de Kooning, Paul Sharits and Theodoros Stamos.
Leading a dynamic selection of color-field abstraction is Ellsworth Kelly's monumental screenprint Blue, Yellow and Red Squares, 1970-71, with an estimate of $10,000 to $15,000. Josef Albers is well represented by ten iconic works, led by Interaction of Color, 1963, his influential portfolio ($5,000 to $8,000). Several prints by Gene Davis and Frank Stella will be offered, and a spectacular offering of two-and three-dimensional works by Victor Vasarely, including the cover lot, Zoeld (Blue/Green), 1975, with an estimate of $5,000 to $8,000.
A significant selection of three-dimensional works includes Brass Knuckles, 2010, by Robert Lazzarini, at $10,000 to $15,000. After La Negresse, 1872, 2006, is a cast resin multiple by Kehinde Wiley in homage to the nineteenth-century French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, with an estimate of $4,000 to $6,000. Yayoi Kusama is represented by two of her signature pumpkins cast in resin—one with red dots on a white gourd, the other black on yellow ($1,500 to $2,500). Ai Weiwei closes the auction with an irreverent gesture in electroplated rhodium on cast urethane resin, titled Artist’s Hand, 2017, valued at $1,000 to $1,500.
