From major museums to the walls of your home
A look at five artists who have recently been the subject of major shows, or who have exhibitions coming up in 2018 — all featured in the Post-War and Contemporary Art auction on 1 March
David Hockney
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David Hockney (b. 1937), View of Lake Palace Hotel, Udaipur, drawn in 1977. 14 x 17 in (35.6 x 43.2 cm). Estimate: $20,000-30,000. This lot is offered in Post-War and Contemporary Art on 1 March 2018 at Christie’s in New York
In 2017, he was the subject of a major, career retrospective at Tate Britain in London. Seen by 478,000 people, it is the most-visited exhibition in the gallery’s history. The show subsequently travelled to the Centre Pompidou in Paris and very recently finished its run at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
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David Hockney (b. 1937), Untitled (Family Portraits from El Gran Teatro), painted in 1984. 45½ x 137¾ in (115.6 x 349.9 cm). Estimate: $250,000-350,000. This lot is offered in Post-War and Contemporary Art on 1 March 2018 at Christie’s in New York
Sam Gilliam
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Sam Gilliam (b. 1933), Flowering Plum, painted in 1986. Overall: 54¼ x 97¼ x 4⅛ in (137.8 x 247 x 10.5 cm). Estimate: $100,000-150,000. This lot is offered in Post-War and Contemporary Art on 1 March 2018 at Christie’s in New York
Gilliam, who represented the United States at the 1972 Venice Biennale, was invited to return to the exhibition in 2017. He hung a new ‘drape painting’ above the entrance to the central pavilion in the Giardini.
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Sam Gilliam (b. 1933), Coolness Is Born, executed in 1992. 60 x 64¾ in (152.4 x 164.5 cm). Estimate: $40,000-60,000. This lot is offered in Post-War and Contemporary Art on 1 March 2018 at Christie’s in New York
The artist will be the subject of a major exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel in the summer of 2018. Last year, his work also featured prominently in the exhibition, Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, at London’s Tate Modern.
Laura Owens
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Laura Owens (b. 1970), Untitled, executed in 2005. 14⅛ x 10¼ in (35.9 x 26 cm). Estimate: $12,000-18,000. This lot is offered in Post-War and Contemporary Art on 1 March 2018 at Christie’s in New York
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Laura Owens (b. 1970), Untitled, executed in 2002. 24⅜ x 18 ½ in (61.9 x 47 cm). Estimate: $25,000-35,000. This lot is offered in Post-War and Contemporary Art on 1 March 2018 at Christie’s in New York
The New York Times critic, Roberta Smith, recently called Owens ‘one of painting’s most innovative explorers’, and from November 2017 to February 2018, she was the subject of a significant, mid-career survey show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
Danh Vo
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Danh Vo (b.1975), Minerva, executed in 2014. 19¾ x 53¼ in (50.2 x 135.3 cm). Estimate: $80,000-120,000. This lot is offered in Post-War and Contemporary Art on 1 March 2018 at Christie’s in New York
This eventful, personal history infuses pretty much every art work Vo makes, as he addresses issues such as cultural identity, belonging, colonialism and migration. His regular use of gold leaf is seen to symbolise the longstanding hope for riches of myriad immigrants to the West.
Danh Vo is currently having a comprehensive survey exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, in New York.
Nina Chanel Abney
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Nina Chanel Abney (b. 1982), Country Ken, painted in 2012. 30¼ x 20⅛ in ( 76.8 x 51.1 cm). Estimate: $5,000-7,000. This lot is offered in Post-War and Contemporary Art on 1 March 2018 at Christie’s in New York
She's hailed for revitalising narrative figurative painting, with her visually packed scenes (commonly including dollar signs, questions marks and single-syllable exclamations like ‘wow’) reflecting the bombardment of information we’ve grown accustomed to in the internet age.
Abney’s first solo museum show is currently on at the Chicago Cultural Center and will travel to the ICA in Los Angeles in September. The artist has also just produced a set of murals for the Palais de Tokyo, in Paris.