SALES PREVIEW

Impressionist/Modern and Contemporary Art

By Judd Tully

Published: May 2, 2008

RICHARD NEUTRA'S KAUFMANN HOUSE

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME THAT CHRISTIE'S HAS PLACED ARCHITECTURE IN THE CONTEXT OF A CONTEMPORARY SALE. >

Robert Rauschenberg Andy Warhol Sam Francis Pablo Picasso Alberto Giacometti Mark Rothko Roy Lichtenstein Gerhard Richter

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Despite the tumult of world events, 1963 was a fantastic year for the artist, who had solo exhibitions at Sonnabend Gallery, in Paris, and Castelli, in New York, as well as his first museum retrospective, at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan, curated by the institution’s dynamo director, Alan Solomon.

Given its rarity and art-historical importance, not to mention its freshness to the market and pristine provenance—the family of the current consignor bought it for $6,500 from Castelli the year it was made—Overdrive is primed to overturn Rauschenberg’s auction record of $10.7 million, set last May at Sotheby’s New York by Photograph, a small 1959 “Combine” painting. Before that, the artist’s high had been $7.3 million, paid for Rebus (now in New York’s Museum of Modern Art) at the same house in April 1991.

"Impressionist/Modern and Contemporary Art" originally appeared in the May 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's May 2008 Table of Contents.