NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s Prints & Multiples auction in New York on 20 & 21 April will offer over 280 works, spanning from the late 19th Century through to Contemporary prints. With estimates ranging from under $1,000 to $600,000*, the sale offers a unique opportunity for both emerging and established connoisseurs to grow their collection. Highlights of the auction include portraiture by two 20th Century masters: two linocuts by Pablo Picasso, Portrait de jeune fille, d'après Cranach Le Jeune (estimate $400/600,000) and Portrait de Jacqueline (estimate $80/120,000), and Roy Lichtenstein’s relief print Nude with Blue Hair (estimate $300/500,000). The Contemporary portion of the sale will be led by premier examples of Andy Warhol’s printmaking: the complete portfolios of Cowboys and Indians (estimate $225/325,000) and Details of Renaissance Paintings (estimate $180/240,000). The exhibition will be on view to the public at Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries beginning on 17 April.

A highlight from the Modern European portion of the sale is Marcel Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q. Shaved (estimate $30/40,000), a reproduction of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa on a playing card mounted to a dinner invitation. The present work is personalized in ink to Mr. Monroe Wheeler, a former director of exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and is offered together with the original envelope addressed to Mr. Wheeler. While the invitation was executed as an edition of 100, it is particularly rare to find an example in the format for which it was initially conceived.

After a chance meeting on the streets of New York City, Athos Pratesi, of the worldrenowned Pratesi luxury linens company, established a lifelong friendship with Andy Warhol. In 1982, the artist gifted Athos and Dede Pratesi his 1980 screenprint with diamond dust, Shoes (F. & S. II.257), on offer in the Prints & Multiples auction in New York (estimate $80/120,000). The work is being sold from The Pratesi Collection with proceeds benefitting a future Pratesi Family Charitable foundation.

PROPERTY OF THE BANK OF AMERICA COLLECTION
Beginning this month through September 2016, Sotheby’s will offer a series of works from the Bank of America Collection, sold to benefit the Camp Harbor View Foundation. Camp Harbor View serves youths from Boston’s at-risk neighborhoods through two four-week summer camp sessions, and offers programs to campers and their families throughout the year. In total, the works on offer at Sotheby’s are estimated to sell for over $1 million.

The Prints & Multiples sale represents the initial offering of these works, with a selection of 20 contemporary prints that features pieces by Andy Warhol, Alex Katz, Jasper Johns and more. A highlight of the group is Warhol’s Space Fruit: Still Lifes (F. & S. II.198-203), a complete portfolio of six screenprints in colors from 1979 (estimate $60/80,000).

FURTHER SALE HIGHLIGHTS

• Roy Lichtenstein Nude with Blue Hair Screenprint in colors 1994 Est. $300/500,000

• Pablo Picasso Portrait de jeune fille, d'après Cranach le jeune Linoleum cut printed in colors 1958 Est. $400/600,000

• Pablo Picasso Portrait de Jacqueline (B. 923; BA. 1245) Linoleum cut printed in colors, 1959 Est. $80/120,000

• Jean-Michel Basquiat Untitled: Four Prints The complete portfolio of four screenprints in colors, 2001 Est. $100/150,000