LONDON.- Phillips announced highlights ahead of the Evening & Day Editions auctions on 19 and 20 January. Led by a trio of iconic portraits: Banksy’s Kate Moss (Purple/Orange) from 2005, and two Warhol Marilyn screenprints, the sale will also include Francis Bacon’s Miroir de la tauromachie which comes to auction this month alongside the launch of a solo exhibition for the artist at the Royal Academy in London. Further highlights include a Modern group featuring Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, Pop Art from Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, and Contemporary editions from Miles Aldridge, Banksy, Damien Hirst, and David Hockney. The Evening sale on 19 January at 6pm will be followed by the Day sale on 20 January at 12pm. The exhibition is now live online on Phillips.com and the exhibition will be on view to the public in Phillips’ galleries on Berkeley Square from 12 to 20 January.
Rebecca Tooby-Desmond, Head of Sale and Auctioneer, said, “Following the success of our Global Editions auctions in 2021 which saw a 45% increase year on year from 2020, we are very excited to start a new year with our Evening & Day Editions auctions in London this January. Banksy’s Kate Moss (Purple/Orange) and Warhol’s Marilyn are the stars of our Evening Sale, alongside Pop Art and Contemporary highlights from Roy Lichtenstein, Damien Hirst, and Jonas Wood. We are also delighted to present a museum-quality group of Francis Bacon prints, coinciding with the opening of the Royal Academy Exhibition Francis Bacon: Man and Beast. Exploring a broad range of key periods of art history our January auctions will also feature works from modern masters such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. The vibrant and varied selection of 355 lots this January presents both established and next-generation collectors with the opportunity to acquire fantastic examples of work by blue chip and emerging artists. We look forward to welcoming visitors to the preview exhibition in person at our galleries on Berkeley Square and online on Phillips.com from 12 to 20 January.”
In Banksy’s Kate Moss (Purple/Orange) the artist pays homage to Andy Warhol’s iconic portraits of Marilyn Monroe, of which two screenprints also feature in the sale. Bold, bright and blonde, Moss flaunts Monroe’s most iconic attributes – her signature curls, flirtatious eyelashes, boldly-defined lips, and prominent beautyspot. As well as Monroe’s superimposed features, the addition of flat, solid colour in contrasting tones of purple and orange acts to capture Warhol’s vivid Pop aesthetic. Banksy uses the image of Kate Moss with the same intentions as his predecessor – the commodification of visual icons. Further works by the artist to feature in these auctions include Choose Your Weapon (Dark Purple), Girl with Balloon, Love Is In The Air and Napalm.
Francis Bacon’s Miroir de la tauromachie is an excellent example of the artist’s controversial, celebrated depictions of bullfights. Bacon's bullfights are composed within circular bull rings and often, as with the present work, contain a concave mirror in which bullfighter and bull confront each other and merge together in a swirl of movement. The present work is a complete set of four lithographs. A further nine works by Bacon will feature in the Evening & Day Editions auctions, including two self portraits, a portrait of his great friend Lucian Freud, and a triptych.
Coinciding with Queen Elizabeth II’s Jubilee year are a group of works featuring the Queen including a lithograph by Richard Prince, a screenprint by Andy Warhol, and a giclée print by Chris Levine. Demonstrating a broad spectrum of periods, styles and techniques, these works all celebrate the iconography of the traditional royal portrait and the celebrity status of Queen Elizabeth II. Richard Prince is widely recognised for his so-called "re-photography" technique – a revolutionary appropriation strategy of photographing pre-existing images from magazine ads and presenting them as his own. In 1985 Andy Warhol became fascinated by the public’s infatuation with British Royalty and immortalised the Queen in his contemporary aesthetic, transforming her into the celebrity he imagined her to be. Chris Levine’s work has been praised by the National Portrait Gallery as the ‘most evocative image of a royal by any artist’, and by Mario Testino as the Queen’s ‘most beautiful portrait ever’.
Included in the Evening & Day Editions auctions are a selection of iconic David Hockney editions showcasing a wide range of techniques. In Hockney’s My window drawings the artist depicts the view through his window throughout the changing seasons. Also included in the selection of Hockney works are two of his lithographic swimming pools, a subject widely identified as the artist's most famous motif, embodying his fascination with post-war America and, in particular, the hedonism of California. Hockney's swimming pools also serve as a metaphorical springboard into an extended investigation that spanned decades of his career: the formal challenge of representing water.
