PARIS.- The next Sotheby’s sales of Contemporary Art in Paris will welcome connoisseurs and collectors to the Galerie Charpentier for two auction sessions, on 7 December (Evening Sale) and 8 December 2011 (Day Sale).

Some of the 141 works to be offered for auction are fresh to the market and come from prestigious collections – notably the Art Institute of Chicago, with Jean Dubuffet's Tête d’Homme (Theatre Mask XX, est. €70,000-90,000 / $96,500-125,000) and Jean-Michel Atlan's Agrigente (est. €120,000-180,000 / $166,000-249,000), to be offered at the evening session; and Arman's Don’t Touch (est. €30,000-40,000 / $41,400-55,500) and three small, unique bronzes by Germaine Richier, included in the Day Sale.

Evening Sale – 7 December
Among the session's star lots is Jean-Michel Basquiat's MP, a monumental self-portrait-like figure painted in 1984 and kept in the same collection since 1985 (est. €700,000-900,000 / $965,000-1,250,000).

After obtaining a world record €2,304,750 for a work by Pierre Soulages in May 2011, Sotheby’s Paris is honored to offer three further iconic works from key periods in the artist's career:

Peinture 195 x 130cm – 3 December 1956, a giant work with three vigorous black signs on a brown field, comes from Soulages' limited series Polyptiques Latents (est. €800,000-1,200,000 / $1,110,000-1,660,000). Two similar paintings are in the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Peinture 162 x 130cm – 13 November 1969, consigned from a Swiss private collection, is a polyphonic work lent masterful rhythm by its alternating blacks/whites and series of hooks (est. €400,000-600,000 / $555,000-830,000).

Peinture 130 x 102cm – 14 October 1980 is an inaugural work from Souages' Outrenoirs series, where the layering of single-coloured pigment reveals his unique ability to exalt the luminous potential of black (est. €200,000-300,000 / $276,000-414,000).

Martial Raysse's Espace Zéro plunges us into the world of 1963 and the Conquest of Space. The silvered astronaut's suit evokes the quest for a modern, sanitized world. With its fluorescent colours and red neon light, this work is an icon of Pop Art – of which Raysse was France's purveyor in chief (est. €300,000-400,000 / $414,000-555,000).

Produced in May 1960 – the same year as the Nouveaux Réalisme manifesto and the patenting of International Klein Blue (IKB) – Yves Klein's COS31 is a work of the utmost rarity (est. €500,000-700,000 / $690,000-965,000), combining cosmogony (natural imprint of reeds) and anthropometry (female body print).

After posting a record price for Zao Wou-Ki in the Western hemisphere at their previous Contemporary Art sale in Paris, Sotheby’s are pleased to offer his 12.12.67 this December: a superb example of the imaginary and highly poetic landscapes he pioneered and perfected (est. €300,000-400,000 / $414,000-555,000).

Chu Teh-Chun's Sombres Nuées (1998/9), 200 x 200cm, is a monumental, incandescent work (est. €400,000-600,000 / $555,000-830,000); while his Hivernal (1985), from his sought-after Snow cycle, is spangled with colours that gleam like jewels against a snowy background (est. €120,000-180,000 / $166,000-249,000).

The avant-garde nature of Chinese art finds powerful expression in Huang Yong Ping's Walking Up Language: a huge pair of Dadaist ceramic sculptures (est. €150,000-200,000 / $207,000-276,000).

Day Sale – 8 December
The Day Sale on December 8 begins with the Collection of Monsieur & Madame B. – a pair of itinerant collectors who, from 1960-80, energetically charted developments in 20th century art on travels which took them from Casablanca to Nice and from Padua to Paris. Highlights include a Takis Télésculpture Vibrative N°4 (est. €40,000-60,000 / $55,000-83,000); a Lucio Fontana Concetto Spaziale (est. €30,000-40,000 / $41,400-55,500); Martial Raysse's Bel Eté Concentré (est. €20,000-30,000 / $27,600-41,400); Alain Jacquet's Déjeuner sur l’Herbe (est. €25,000-35,000 / $34,500-48,300); Arman's Comme Comestible (est. €35,000-45,000 / $48,300-62,500); and a César Compression (est. €20,000-30,000 / $27,600-41,400).

The Day Sale's catalogue-cover symbolically features an Andy Warhol Dollar Sign from the former collection of the international art dealer Alexander Iolas – a mark of the friendship between Warhol and his first-ever gallerist (est. €150,000-200,000 / $207,000-276,000).

The session also includes outstanding works by Joan Mitchell, Nicolas de Staël, Hans Hartung, Gérard Schneider, Soto, Murakami, Cindy Sherman and Manolo Valdes, with his 1985 Obispo (est. €70,000-90,000 / $96,500-125,000).