NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales on 11 & 12 November will feature a group of important works from the Collection of Magasin III Museum & Foundation for Contemporary Art which are being sold to benefit future acquisitions and educational programing. Based in Stockholm, Magasin III has long been one of the most important institutions in Europe for contemporary art with an ambitious exhibition program, central to which is commissioning artists to produce new works. Among the pieces to be offered in the Evening Sale are an important painting by Agnes Martin as well major sculptures by Bruce Nauman and David Smith. Anish Kapoor, John Chamberlain, Cindy Sherman, Ad Reinhardt, and Juan Muñoz will be represented in the Day Sale on 12 November. In total, 19 works from the Collection of Magasin III are expected to bring in excess of $8 million. All works go on view in New York on 7 November.

Alexander Rotter, Co-Head of Sotheby’s Global Contemporary Art Department, commented: “It is a privilege for Sotheby’s to support Magasin III’s current mission and ambitious plans for the future by offering these tremendous works in our November sales. The museum is well-known and hugely respected as one of the cultural centers of Scandinavia and with these sales it will further its important work in the region.”

Founded by Robert Weil and David Neuman in 1987, Magasin III is a private museum and foundation based in Stockholm with a focus on international contemporary art. The institution has emerged as an important national and international artistic arena driven by close relationships with a wide variety of practicing artists. Magasin III has also been proactive in their efforts to raise artists’ profiles through a generous program of loaning artwork to international institutions across the globe.

The group of Magasin III pieces is led by Agnes Martin’s Untitled #7, a classic example of the artist’s exploration of the grid motif which challenges the viewer by eliminating all sense of depth and direction (est. $2.5/3.5 million). In Untitled #7 horizontal bands of grey paint and faint pencil lines hypnotize the viewer, inviting them to immerse themselves in sheer tranquility. Bruce Nauman’s Untitled (Suspended Chair, Vertical III) comes from the politically charged South America series in which suspended chairs are used as a surrogate for torture victims (est. $600/800,000). A number of examples from this body of work are today housed in some of the world’s most prestigious institutions.

Voltri III by David Smith will also be offered in the evening auction (est. $1.5/2 million). Executed in 1962, the Voltri series was inspired by the artist’s trip to Voltri, Italy where he manipulated and reassembled found materials in his quest for reinvention and renewal, a technique that would become one of the key elements of the sculptor's oeuvre.

Among the pieces featured in the Day Sale is Anish Kapoor’s Void IV, an early example of the artists distinctive bowl-like sculptures covered in blue pigment (est. $500/700,000). Void IV is a smaller version of the artists monumental Untitled from the series which was exhibited as part of the artist’s winning Turner Prize exhibition in 1991 and is now in the collection of the Prada Foundation, Milan.

Two works from Cindy Sherman’s now classic History Portraits series will also be sold by Magasin III in the Contemporary Art Day Auction. Inspired by a commission for dinnerware and tea service by the French porcelain company Limoges, the artist produced a number of images that reference the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical periods.