Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction

Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening Auction features exceptional works from watershed moments in contemporary art, led by a portrait of Francis Bacon’s great muse and lover, George Dyer. Executed at the peak of Bacon’s career, Portrait of George Dyer Talking, 1966, was exhibited at the artist’s legendary first museum retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1971, which opened just two days after Dyer was tragically found dead in his hotel room. This powerful and poignant work is joined by Jeff Koons’ Cracked Egg (Magenta), a central sculpture from the artist’s acclaimed Celebration series, conceived to mark important moments in the calendar year with universal images of childhood joy and wonder. One of the only works in the Celebration series to have double-faced reflective surfaces, Cracked Egg is the most significant work by Koons to be offered in London since 2008. A further highlight is Gerhard Richter’s monumental canvas Abstraktes Bild from 1989, arguably the greatest Richter abstract ever to come to auction and painted at the high point of the artist’s abstract period (1988-1992). The Evening Auction will also present an outstanding group of works from the Sensation generation of artists, all of whom were featured in that landmark exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1997.

In addition, Christie’s is delighted to present Mickey, a new work by Damien Hirst based on Disney’s best-loved character and sold to benefit the charity Kids Company.