Milan/Amsterdam - This November, Christie’s presents a series of live and online auctions dedicated to modern and contemporary art. In Milan, the 20th/21st Century Milan Evening Sale on 16 November will be dedicated to the works of Italian and international artists, including Enrico Castellani, Alighiero Boetti, Piero Dorazio, Tom Wesselmann, Maria Lai and Sam Francis. Running in parallel, the 20th/21st Century Milan Online Sale is open for bidding between 8 and 18 November, offering paintings, photographs, prints and multiples by the likes of Louise Bourgeois, David LaChapelle, Maria Lai, Sophie von Hellerman, Tracey Emin, David Bowie, Alighiero Boetti and Salvo.

In Amsterdam, A Thousand Roads: A Private Collection in Rome offers works from an exceptional international collection in an online auction open for bidding from 9 to 23 November. The sale features renowned artists such as Georges Vantongerloo, Alexander Calder and Arnaldo Pomodoro. The cross-category season concludes with 20th/21st Century: Amsterdam, an online auction showcasing leading international artists of the 20th and 21st centuries such as Martin Kippenberger, Sam Francis, Arnulf Rainer, Daniel Richter and Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Christie’s Amsterdam is also delighted to offer 29 works from the collection of the late Ernst Kaars Sijpesteijn. Bearing witness to the collector’s exceptional eye, highlights from the collection include works by Yayoi Kusama, Alex Katz, Georges Rouault, Jean-Paul Riopelle, and Rob van Koningsbruggen.

MILAN

20th/21st Century Milan Evening Auction, Live, 16 November

Concetto spaziale by Lucio Fontana is a vision of luminous splendour from the artist’s celebrated series of Barocchi. Tiny constellations of holes - the artist's signature Buchi - punctuate the glittering surface, with thick folds of impasto parting ways to reveal a dark cruciform abyss beneath. It was executed in 1957, the year Russia launched the seminal Sputnik 1 satellite, and the work was last publicly exhibited in 1977 as part of Fontana's retrospective at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Fontana had long been fascinated by the Baroque era - for him, the period's invocation of metaphysical movement and otherworldly extravagance offered an important precedent for humankind's desire to conquer the limits of time and space (estimate EUR1,000,000/1,500,000).

Representation confronts reality in Michelangelo Pistoletto's Senza titolo. A distinctive work from the artist's iconic Quadri specchianti series, or mirror paintings, it is composed of a large panel made of polished stainless steel and represents the Turinese photographer Paolo Mussat. The photograph from which this work originates was shot by Pistoletto, to allow Mussat Sartor to become the protagonist and not the creator.  By depicting the act of image making, Senza titolo questions its own origins. Indeed, the work presents a thrilling interplay between artist and subject, fiction and truth, whereby the viewer enters into "new spatial and psychological relationships" challenging the notion of the real (estimate EUR300,000-400,000).

Natura morta by Giorgio Morandi shows his ability to sublimate arrangements of apparently mundane objects into something much greater than the sum of their parts. The interest is within their volumetric form and colour, one shape in relation to the others, and moreover for the emotional nuances associated with certain long-held, familiar objects. In the context of other still lifes from 1941, it shows a greater number (eleven) and variety of objects. The arrangement is also comparatively informal, while retaining a distinct compositional rhythm and visual harmony. Here, cuboid coffee tins mingle with the cylindrical forms of bottles and jugs. Almost every object overlaps or is overlapped by another, interrupting the outline of forms and altering how they are perceived. All this is captured using a muted colour palette of dusty rose tones, soft lighting and the carefully worked, but informal brushwork characteristic of Morandi (estimate EUR1,000,000-1,500,000).

Autoritratto by Antonio Ligabue is being offered by a refined private Italian collection. This painting has been exhibited in all of the major retrospectives dedicated to the artist and comes to the market for the first time (estimate: EUR120,000-180,000).

The Italian masters of the 20^th and 21^st century are presented alongside selected works by their international contemporaries such as Hans Hartung’s T1962-K17 (estimate: EUR130,000-180,000) and Tom Wesselmann’s Smoker Study (estimate: EUR60,000-80,000) from 1977, where ribbons of smoke curl from the luscious mouth of a smoker, appearing in a state of near ecstasy, her eyes closed and head reclined. Smoker Study offers the ultimate sensual distillation and has come to be understood as an erotic icon of American Pop. At their largest, these smoking mouths appeared on canvases the size of billboards: Smoker Study work is an intimate rendering of the same suggestive motif.

20^th/21^st Century Milan Online Sale, 8-18 November
Now open for bidding, the 20^th / 21^st Milan Online sale offers 66 lots, and is dedicated to paintings, photographs, prints and multiples of Italian and international artists. Works by David LaChapelle, Gianni Piacentino, David Bowie, Alighiero Boetti, Salvo, Maria Lai, Ai Wei Wei, Sandro Chia, Fausto Melotti and many more. The online sale will close on 18 November. 

AMSTERDAM

A Thousand Roads: A Private Collection in Rome, Online, 9-23 November             

This exceptional international collection comprises work by the likes of Alexander Calder, Georges Vantongerloo, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Lynn Chadwick, and Man Ray, among many other revered artists of the 20th and 21st Century. The sale is open for online bidding from 9 to 23 November 2021, and is on view alongside highlights of the 20th/21st Century: Online sale at Christie’s Amsterdam from Monday 8 November, which can be attended by appointment.

20^th/21^st Century Amsterdam Online, 11-25 November

This November, 20th/21st Century Amsterdam brings together an exciting selection of works by leading international artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Highlights include works by Martin Kippenberger, Sam Francis, Arnulf Rainer, Daniel Richter, and Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

Christie’s Amsterdam is also delighted to offer 29 works from the collection of the late Ernst Kaars Sijpesteijn. Rich in breadth and wide in scope, each work bears witness to the collector’s exceptional eye for detail, quality, and artistic significance. Highlights from the collection include works by Yayoi Kusama, Alex Katz, Georges Rouault, Jean-Paul Riopelle, and Rob van Koningsbruggen.

Also offered in this online sale are works by Georg Baselitz, Niele Toroni, Günther Förg, and Bernd and Hilla Becher from an Important European Private Collection. The collector’s pioneering embrace of the European and American avant-garde from the 1960s onwards transformed public appreciation for contemporary art in the Netherlands and beyond. Prominently exhibited since their creation, the works exemplify the collection’s international underpinnings and engagement with the art of its time.