LONDON—A Jean Michel Basquiat work, Untitled (Pecho/Oreja) (1982-83), owned by the Irish rock band U2 has been announced as the headline lot in Sotheby’s London’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale, scheduled for July 1. The painting, made when Basquiat was 22, contains many of the motifs that would continue throughout the artist’s short career, including the roughly sketched, highly expressive head, and is expected to fetch £6m.

The work was bought from the Robert Miller Gallery in New York by bassist Adam Clayton in 1989. From there it was transported back to the band’s Dublin studio, where it has hung ever since.

Sotheby’s hopes that the painting will go the way of the last rock star-owned Basquiat work put up to auction, Profit I (1982), which was owned by Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich and which doubled its presale estimate, bringing in $5,509,500 at Christie’s New York in May 2002.

Oliver Barker, a specialist in the Sotheby’s contemporary art department, said: "It seems especially appropriate that a work by Basquiat should end up at a music studio, since so much has been said about the relationship between his art and music." In addition to U2 and Ulrich, David Bowie and Lenny Kravitz are also said to own works by the artist.

In May 2007, Sotheby’s established a world record at auction for Basquiat when it sold Untitled (1981) for $14.6 million in New York.