Christie's will sell works from the outstanding American collections of modern art
ARTinvestment.RU   01 марта 2009

Among the top lots - paintings by David Hockney and Roy Lichtenstein

This year, remember those who have followed the art market, as the «year of sales outstanding private collections». 23-25 February in Paris were auction Christies, who were represented by works from the collection of Yves Saint Laurent ( Yves Saint-Laurent), and Berger, Pierre (Pierre Bergé) - on the results can be found here (February 23), here (February 24) and here (February 25).

March 18, at Sotheby's auction will be items from the country house of Gianni Versace (Gianni Versace) .

A May 13, Christie's will sell the painting post-war artists, who previously belonged to the American sobiratelnitse Betty Freeman (Betty Freeman).

Betty Freeman died in January this year at the age of 87 years. She was known primarily as the patron of many famous contemporary composers, including John Adams (John Adams), John Cage (John Cage) and Steve Reich (Steve Reich). Freeman was also a photographer - portraits of musicians on display in New York's Carnegie Hall. Collect works of art, she began in the 1950's. First, it bought the work abstract expressionists , such as Clifford Still (Clyfford Still), Sam Francis (Sam Francis) and Mark Rothko (Mark Rothko) , then became interested in works of other eminent postwar artists and her first collection of works acquired by David Hockney (David Hockney), Roy Lichtenstein (Roy Lichtenstein), Klesiv Oldenburga (Claes Oldenburg) and Dan Flavina (Dan Flavin). At the auction, Christie's will display works from the collection of twenty-Freeman. Their total cost is estimated at 26-39 million dollars.

Among the pearls of the collection - painting by David Hockney «Housewife of Beverly Hills», created in 1966. Then Hockney worked on a series of California Dreaming. He asked Freeman to allow him to write a swimming pool in her backyard, but in the end instead of the basin has written itself. Estimeyt pictures of 6-10 million dollars. Auction house experts are confident that the picture will be sold well. According to Laura Paulson (Laura Paulson), director of the International Department of the post-war and Contemporary Art Christie's, the price of Hockney very stable, and work is rare - most paintings the artist, written in the 1960's, are in museums.

other works, which have high expectations, - «Funny Game» Roy Lichtenstein (Roy Lichtenstein). In this picture, written in 1977, shows a blonde girl playing on the beach with a ball. The work is part of a series «surreal paintings». It is a «remake in the style of pop-art» picture «Bather with an inflatable ball on the beach», established in 1932, Pablo Picasso (Pablo Picasso). Cloth also recalls the picture of Liechtenstein «The girl with the ball» (1961), which is in the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Christie's specialists praised «funny game» in the 4-6 million dollars.

In mid-March, the top auction lots will be exhibited in London. And in April, they move to the New York branch of the gallery Haunch of Venison, which bought Christie's two years ago.

Material prepared Yulia Maksimova

Source: nytimes.com , artinvestment.ru