COLOGNE.- On 20 March 2024, Sotheby's Modern & Contemporary Art LIVE auction in Cologne, Palais Oppenheim, will present an exciting selection of paintings, sculptures and works on paper by national and international artists from the 20th and 21st centuries. Works by modernists such as Alexej von Jawlensky, August Macke, Franz Marc, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Lesser Ury will be combined with contemporary representatives such as Isa Genzken, Günther Uecker, Günther Förg, Konrad Klapheck, Rainer Fetting and Wolfgang Mattheuer, as well as Hermann Nitsch, Barry Flanagan and Yoshitomo Nara. The LIVE auction comprises a varied mix of large and small formats, colour explosions through to pure monochrome, expressive abstractions and unusual media that are worth discovering in order to enrich your own collection with a further facet. The LIVE auction on 20 March 2024 starts at 4:00 pm CET and comprises 92 lots estimated at around EUR 1.8 - 2.5 million.

The star lot of the auction is Barry Flanagan's (lot 25) sculpture Hare with Ball from 1994. Since his first public appearance at the Venice Biennale in 1982, the hare has become a characteristic motif in Barry Flanagan's oeuvre. In this work (number 3 from an edition of 8 plus 3 artist's proofs), a single hare balances on a round ball while appearing to express joy. This whimsical gesture engages the viewer in its movement, although it is static at the same time. In terms of material and production method, the work follows the development of classical sculptural practice - the formal qualities of the bronze, the scale and meticulous draughtsmanship as well as the volumetric sensibility are powerfully emphasised in this work. This sculpture is estimated at €150,000 - 200,000.

Günther Förg (lot 4) is one of the outstanding artists of contemporary art. His abstract works are striking for their geometric forms and schematic clarity. His works are particularly characterised by architecture, which is reflected in his entire oeuvre. In his acrylic on canvas Untitled from 1998, a network of lines in the colours orange, black, green and yellow intersects, enveloping the viewer in a veil of colour. The present work Untitled is one of Förg's grid paintings begun in the early 1990s, in which the artist moved away from his expressive monochrome works in favour of more intuitive and informal matrices of line and colour. Förg was not interested in the conceptual exploration of a painting, but rather in its composition and showed a distinct tactile and sensory understanding of gestural abstraction. For the artist, painting was far more than its conceptual starting point and became a celebration of colour, medium and form. The painting, which comes from an important German private collection, is estimated at €100,000 - 150,000.

The Düsseldorf-born artist Konrad Klapheck, who died last July at the age of 88, is known for his ambiguous machine paintings. The lot on offer was created in 1971 and titled Berceuse (Lullaby) (lot 16) in oil on canvas; previously held in a private collection in Düsseldorf, Lullaby is estimated at €80,000 - 120,000.

Also with an estimate of €80,000 - 120,000 is Composition Abstraite (Lot 29) by Serge Poliakoff, who is considered a French modernist artist.

One of the leading representatives of the Leipzig School, a figurative art movement in East Germany, is Wolfgang Mattheuer (lot 17). In November 2023, two of his works were sold at the Sotheby's Figuration to Abstraction: Expressions of the 20th Century auction in Cologne for six to seven times the lower estimate. A new auction record price was thus set for the painting After Sunset. In his work Große Straße I, which comes from an excellent private collection and is now being offered in the LIVE auction with an estimate of €40,000 - 60,000, is one of the most important paintings in Wolfgang Mattheuer's artistic development. Painted in 1961, it is not only central to the motifs and composition of his later work, but also contains a profound examination of the socio-political landscape of the GDR and demonstrates the artist's first cautious approach to commenting on the complexity of this period.

The Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara (lot 15) became a synonym for the neo-pop movement that emerged in Japan in the 1990s. There is something else... has been in the same private collection for 20 years, having been purchased directly from the artist by the current owner in 2004 (pre-sale estimate: €60,000 - 80,000).

Lesser Ury (lot 57) was a German painter and graphic artist of the Impressionist Berlin Secession, who depicted city life in an atmospheric and impressionistic way. He focussed on the streets and coffee houses of the Berlin metropolis. This pastel work, created in the early 1920s, appears almost contemplative despite the hustle and bustle. Estimated at €26,000 - 35,000, the drawing Bellevuestraße, Berlin has been part of the same private collection for 35 years.

The LIVE auction includes an appealing range of different media at attractive prices, both for established collectors and for a new, emerging clientele:

As Sotheby's looks forward to an enchanting summer, Peter Anton's (lot 92) Milk Chocolate Bar & Dark Chocolate Bar should be a refreshing addition to an existing or new collection. Estimated at €5,000 - 7,000, the duo from a German private collection will be offered in the auction.

There are also lots with no reserve, i.e. starting at EURO 1. Among them are Bernard Aubertin and Günther Uecker.

· The French artist Bernard Aubertin is considered to be a representative of the ZERO movement and is represented with two monochrome red panel paintings, which are offered with not reserve, including Monochrome Rouge (Lot 33), estimated at €5,000 - 7,000 and Monorosso (lot 27), estimated at €4,000 - 6,000, (PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, GERMANY).

· Günther Uecker, (lots 88 & 89) another well-known figure of the ZERO movement, will be offered with two works from a Düsseldorf private collection with no reserve - Wüstenfund (12) and Wüstenfund (3), each estimated at €5,000 - 7,000.