NEW YORK.- NEW YORK– Phillips is pleased to announce the inaugural sale dates for the company’s new headquarters in New York at 432 Park Avenue. The state-of-the-art galleries and saleroom will open with the exhibition of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, leading upto the auctions on 23-24 June. The company has also announced the full live auction calendar for Spring 2021, along with highlights from the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Salesin New York.

Edward Dolman, Phillips’ Chief Executive Officer, said, “While2020 encouraged the world to embrace the digital frontier, in 2021, we look forward to reexamining the role of ourphysical spacewith the grand opening of Phillips at 432 Park Avenue. Phillips’ new headquarters are set to redefine the centuries-old auction experience with studioMDA’s innovativedesign. With the highly-anticipated inaugural sale in New York, the groundbreaking dual-location auctions to be hosted in association with Poly in Hong Kongand Beijing, and a string of tours around the globe, welook forward to promises of new beginnings and optimism for the season ahead, as the world begins to open up again.”

This June, Phillips will officially open its new Manhattan location at 432 Park Avenue, with the sales and exhibitions of 20th Century & Contemporary Art. Designed by studioMDA’s Markus Dochantschi, the gallery comprises over 35,000 square feet of concourse space featuring the grand auction room, exhibition galleries, viewing rooms and a VIP mezzanine. Visually connected to the public via the Park Avenue Cube at56th Street, the design breaks down the classical typology of the "auction behind closed doors,"inviting the public to witness the excitement of the auction experience.

Amongthe auction highlights from the 20thCentury & Contemporary Art Evening Sale to be debuted at the new location is Amy Sherald’sIt made sense...mostly in her mind.Phillips isdelightedto offer this singular workby Sherald after having achieved the world record for the artist most recently in December 2020 in New York.Bestknown for her life-sized portraits of quotidian African-American figuresset against flat, abstracted backgrounds, Sheraldcreates paintings that bridge reality and imagination.Anintimate and rare work in the artist’s oeuvre, It made sense...mostly in her mindis based on an autobiographical subject and displays a richly textured background seen in only few early paintingsfrom the artist’scareer. Painted in 2011,the work was previously on loan since 2012 at the National Museum ofWomen in the Artsin Washington, D.C.




Also included in the auction will be Vija Celmins’ Untitled (Ocean),1987-88,the secondpaintingof the artist’s iconic ocean surfacesto ever come to auction.Made at a pivotal moment in Celmins’ career when the artistreturned to paintingafter 12 years of abandoning the medium for drawing, Untitled (Ocean) is a rare example of theartist’s first ocean paintingsand was exhibited in Celmins’recent major retrospective at the Met Breuer, New York from 2019 to 2020.Carmen Herrera’s seminal painting,Green and Orange,1954,will also be offered at theauction. Featuredat the artist’s landmark solo exhibition in 2016-2017 at the Whitney Museum, New York, this important work marks the transition to Herrera’s mature oeuvreof larger canvases, and the geometric structures rendered in a bright green-and-orange palette anticipate the hard-edge minimalism of the 1960s. The auction will also include Brice Marden’s Elements III, 1983, which wasexhibited atthe artist’s important 1984 Pace Gallery show. Amongthe pivotal post-and-lintel construction paintingsby Mardenmade between 1979 and 1984, Elements IIIis part ofa seriescomprising five works, one of whichcurrently residesat the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

Building upon the success of the auction house’s 2020 sales—where works performed at a remarkable average of 112% of their low estimates—the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale will feature exceptional works by contemporary, post-war, and modern artists alike. The Morning Session will include important post-war works by Roy Lichtenstein and Frank Stella, as well as exceptional examples of French and British Modern sculpture. The Afternoon Session will offer a strong selection of cutting-edgecontemporary works by Matthew Wong, Vaughn Spann, Emily Mae Smith, and more.

The gallery and saleroom at 432 Park Avenue will be outfitted with an HVAC system to promote air purification and a high fresh-air turnover rate, and visitor density and fever scanners will also be installed to ensure the safety of the community. The space will also allow Phillips to continue to provide cutting edge technology to collectors around the globe through virtual exhibit walkthroughs, digital media walls and kiosks, and 4k video broadcasting of the auctions. 432 Park Avenue will be the only auction room in Manhattan that is visible from the street, encouraging all collectors and enthusiasts to visit when it is safe to do so.

As previously announced, Phillips and Poly Auction are pleased to announce they will continue to partnerin presenting their sales of 20th Century & Contemporary Art and Design with a revolutionary and innovative dual-location format this spring. To be held on 7-8 June, in conjunction with Beijing Poly Spring Auctions week, the sales will be conducted by Phillips auctioneers at JW Marriott in Hong Kong with a live feed relayed from Poly’s auction room in Beijing. The auctioneer will be able to take bids from those bidding in person and over the phone at both locations simultaneously, as well as from online bidders. Among the leading highlights of the Evening Sale is Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (940-7), 2015.

Continuing the momentum built earlier in the year, with the strong Editions sale in London and the record-breaking New Nowsale in New York, the London auctions of 20th Century & Contemporary Art will be held on 15-16 April. Leading the Evening Sale is Jean Dubuffet’s La féconde journée, a rare and important example of the artist’s work, which was included in Dubuffet’s major centenary retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, in 2001. Also included in the auction are works by Frank Stella, Mark Rothko, Alberto Giacommeti, Marcel Duchamp, and Mark Tansey.

Touring exhibitions for the auctions will be held across the globe in the lead-up to the sales –from Southampton and New York City to London, as well as majorcities across Asia,including Beijing, Shanghai, and Taipei.Tour dates will be announced in the coming weeksand Phillips looks forward to welcoming collectors back into the galleries to view these important works of art in person once again.The full Spring 2021 sale calendar is available below.