A collaborative work by Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, measuring an impressive 10 x 13 metres, will be auctioned at Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction in May. The untitled artwork last appeared on the market nearly 15 years ago, when it hammered $2.65 million at Sotheby’s in 2010. Today, the auction house is worth about 18 million dollars, growing almost six times.
Without a title It was produced between 1983 and 1985 as part of a great collaboration between the two artists, which was explored in depth at last year’s exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Fondation in Paris. Zurich gallerist Bruno Bischofberge introduced the two artists in 1982. One of approximately 160 paintings created during this period, the works combine Warhol’s screen printing technique with Basquiat’s expressive figuration. Basquiat said of the collaboration, “Andy would start one and put something really familiar on it, or the product logo, and I’d kind of make it disappear.”
At first, the collaborative paintings were highly criticized. In 1985, the artists presented the work at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York without any sales. This would mean the end of the collaboration. This period was preceded by the deaths of both artists, Warhol in 1987 and Basquiat in 1988.
“When Warhol and Basquiat unveiled the fruits of their collaboration at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in 1985, the critical reception failed to see the true artistic vision of what is arguably the most important artistic collaboration of the 20th century,” said Grégoire Billault, president of Sotheby’s. of contemporary art. “Nearly 40 years later, the collaborative work is now rightly seen as a landmark and integral part of both artists’ bodies of work, synthesizing their contrasting styles and perspectives with iconoclastic style.”
Before the sale in May, it is the most valuable painting from the collaboration period Zenith (1985), which sold to Phillips in May 2014 for $11.4 million.
