LONDON.- Phillips brings together a broad spectrum of international names across its sales of 20th Century & Contemporary Art during Frieze Week. Celebrating the rich diversity of the art landscape of today, the Evening Sale includes works by blue chip names Gerhard Richter, Joan Mitchell, and Christopher Wool, alongside young and exciting contemporary artists Ali Banisadr, Cheyney Thompson, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Comprising 37 lots, the Evening Sale will take place at 5pm on 5 October, and will be preceded by Shape & Space: New Ceramic Presence, a curated sale dedicated to Modern and Contemporary ceramics. Comprising 204 lots, the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale will take place at 2pm on 4 October.

Painted in 1963, Gerhard Richter’s Hände, from the Estate of Howard Karshan, is one of the earliest examples of the artist’s photo realist paintings and is recorded as number 12 in the catalogue raisonné of his work. Representative of Richter’s investigations into the mediums of photography and paint, Hände elegantly captures one of the oldest motifs in the history of art, depicting not only the tool of creation but also the tool of representation. Other works from the Karshan Collection to be included in the London Evening Sale are Georg Baselitz’s Untitled, 1967 (estimate: £250,000-350,000), Cy Twombly’s Untitled, 1969 (estimate: £350,000-550,000), and Gerhard Richter’s Busch, 1985 (estimate: £800,000-1,200,000). Busch was included in the seminal exhibition Gerhard Richter: 40 Years of Painting at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, which also travelled to the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC.

Coming to the market at a moment of marked celebration of Joan Mitchell’s work, Perch and Twirl, executed in 1973, exemplifies the artist’s oeuvre of this period with its vivid energy and bold colour. Perch and Twirl came immediately after the artist’s first major solo exhibition at the Everson Museum of Art entitled My Five Years in the Country, 1972, and shortly before an eponymous show at the Whitney in 1974.

The Evening Sale will offer an important group of Italian artists, including Agostino Bonalumi, Enrico Castellani, Lucio Fontana, and Arnaldo Pomodoro with Grande Tavola Della Memoria. Executed in 1959-65, this formative sculpture became a cornerstone for the subsequent spherical and columnar bodies of work that went on to define Pomodoro’s career. Stretching approximately two meters in height and over three meters in length, the colossal bronze panels are engraved with a myriad of glyphs that reflect the artist’s lifelong fascination with the codes and markings that define the human condition. Another cast from the edition was included in Pomodoro’s one room installation at the 1988 Venice Biennale; that example is still in the artist’s collection and the other is in the collection of the municipality of Darmstadt.

Concetto spaziale, Attese, 1963 is an emblematic expression of Lucio Fontana’s preoccupation with universal and spiritual concepts. The cuts crossing the surface indicate a symbolic transcendence of space and time. Additional highlights of Italian Post-War art include Enrico Castellani’s Superficie Gialla Tokyo no. 2, 1967, that captures the artist’s iconic mastery of the inclinations of light and space (estimate: £250,000-350,000). Superficie Gialla Tokyo no. 2 was included in Castellani’s exhibition at Toyko Gallery in 1968, and has been in the same private collection ever since.

Another notable highlight is Peter Doig’s Cobourg 3+1 more, which holds the current world auction record for a work on paper by the artist (illustrated right). Painted in 1995, Cobourg 3+1 more recalls Doig’s years spent in Canada, sketching out the untouched environment of a lake near his Parents’ residence in Ontario. Directly relating to other monumental works of the same scene, the present work hovers at the intersection between reality and abstraction. Executed a year after Doig’s Turner Prize nomination, Cobourg 3+1 more exists amidst a collection of paintings recounting persistent memories of the artist’s childhood home.

The Evening Sale champions a rich diversity of international names from the contemporary scene, including Ali Banisadr’s Nowhere, 2010. The composition of Nowhere hangs between figuration and abstraction; glimpses of forms, figures, flora and fauna emerge from the multitude of intricate brushstrokes that cultivate the surface of the canvas. Also on offer is Untitled, 2006 by Amy Sillman, who is soon to be celebrated at the Camden Arts Centre, London, in her forthcoming 2018 solo exhibition (estimate: £150,000-200,000). Other works include Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Marble, 2010 (estimate: £150,000-200,000), Avery Singer’s Ihole, 2011 (estimate: £40,000-60,000), and Cheyney Thompson’s Chronochrome set 1, 2010 (estimate: £150,000-250,000).

Yorkshire Sculpture Park
In partnership with Yorkshire Sculpture Park Phillips is pleased to announce that the 20th Century & Contemporary October Sales will include works sold to raise money in support of emerging artists. Renowned artists and their representatives, including Joan Miró, Henry Moore, David Nash, KAWS and George Rickey, are supporting this initiative by donating works of art to be sold across the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales.

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale
One of the leading highlights of the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale is Wolfgang Tillmans’ Freischwimmer 34, a photographic work showcasing Tillmans’ exploration of non-representational photography, creating abstract and distorted images designed to push the limits of visibility and causing the viewer’s gaze to ‘swim’. A sculptural highlight from the Day Sale is Lynn Chadwick’s First Girl Sitting On Bench. In this angular composition Chadwick navigates not only physical form, through the use of metal structures, but also the mental sphere of his subject, through her contemplative pose. A further highlight is Günther Förg’s Untitled, which belongs to his iconic series of lead paintings created throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Through his composition of a slate grey background washed with white and bisected by a solitary electric blue stripe, Förg encourages us to admire the intensity of the metallic material itself. The resulting work is a harmonious dialogue between depth and dimensionality.