DALLAS – Andy Warhol’s light never fades. The artist’s iconic 1975 portrait of Mick Jagger, the irreplaceable Rolling Stones front man, took center stage on April 18 during Heritage’s Prints & Multiples event. The Picasso-inflected screenprint, signed by Jagger, brought in $131,250, well above its estimate, in a carefully curated sale of significant works on paper by modern and contemporary greats. After a two-hour bidding scrum for only 91 lots, the auction closed past $1.5 million and proved the current strength of this art category. A number of works admirably outperformed their estimates and new auction records were set for Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and David Hockney.
Warhol cleaned up, in fact, claiming six of the top 10 spots in the auction’s final results, which included three of his early Campbell’s Soup cans: 1968’s Onion Soup, Pepper Pot, and Hot Dog Bean each went for $57,500. Also, Warhol’s 1983 screenprint Sidewalk sold for $32,500, and one of his indelible Electric Chair screenprints from 1971 brought $30,000.
Warhol’s friend and protege, the beloved Keith Haring, was the artist behind the lot that realized the second-biggest price in the event and also set an auction record for a set of prints from Haring: His four lithographs titled Pop Shop III from 1989 sold for $125,000. The work is Haring at his sharpest and most prophetic: The panels tell a loose and rangy (and prescient) tale of humans struggling to control their machine.
Another strong American performer was Joan Mitchell’s large lithograph diptych titled Sunflowers, which sold for $93,750, outpacing its high estimate by more than $30,000. The Sunflowers series, published by Tyler Graphics, Ltd., was the last that Mitchell printed before her death in 1992.
A screenprint after Jean-Michel Basquiat titled Olympic (1983/2017) sold for $28,750 and set an auction record for a single print from this series. Another notable record popped up with David Hockney’s 1965 lithograph titled A Picture of a Landscape in an elaborate Gold Frame, from A Hollywood Collection. It sold for $15,000, well above its estimate. Hockney’s lithograph Two Pembroke Studio Chairs, from Moving Focus from 1984, also sailed well past its high estimate and brought $18,750.
David Hockney, ‘A Picture of a Landscape in an elaborate Gold Frame, from A Hollywood Collection,’ $15,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions, ha.com
“We are so proud of another great result this spring. Our top artists are breaking records, and some lots we haven’t seen on the market in a long time from Hockney and Chagall are getting the recognition they deserve,” said Heritage’s Director of Prints & Multiples Rebecca Van Norman. “These results show the print market is still strong and Heritage is in for a great year.”
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