London – Christie’s 20^th / 21^st Century: London Evening Sale, taking place on 28 June, showcases a strong narrative on the dynamism of portraiture across the centuries in celebration of London’s National Portrait Gallery re-opening to the public, bringing together intimate and insightful works representing a survey of portraiture from 1855 to 2021. Artists include Frank Auerbach, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Miriam Cahn, Edgar Degas, Louis Fratino, Lucian Freud, Howard Hodgkin, and Sahara Longe.

Keith Gill, Head of Impressionist and Modern Art, London and Tessa Lord, Interim Acting Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, London: “London’s vibrant summer season will be highlighted by the highly anticipated re-opening of the National Portrait Gallery. To celebrate the power of portraiture, we are thrilled to present a comprehensive survey of portraits through the 20^th and 21^st centuries both as part of our auction and also in our curated Selfhood exhibition. From Edgar Degas’ confident early self-portrait to Basquiat’s dialogue with Pablo Picasso, we revel in one of the most insightful and personal art historical genres.”

The Art of the Self

A Man (Self-portrait) (1944, estimate: £1,500,000-2,000,000, illustrated, page one, right) is a rare early self-portrait by Lucian Freud, rendered with the clean graphic style and crystalline precision that marked the birth of his practice. Presented for the first time at auction and recently included in Freud’s self-portrait exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston 2020, here the artist presents himself as an almost mythical figure, crowned with shells and with wide, all-seeing eyes. A definitive work within Howard Hodgkin’s oeuvre, The Spectator (1984-87, estimate: £800,000-1,200,000) is a majestic self-portrait. The painting is less a depiction of Hodgkin’s likeness than a portrait of his presence: an image of his artistry and a catalogue of his techniques. Self-Portrait (2021, estimate: £40,000-60,000, illustrated above, centre) is a luminous life size self-portrait by Sahara Longe, who uses the forgotten methods of classical art training to depict vividly emotive and contemporary figures.

Edgar Degas’ Autoportrait, vers sa vingt-et-unième année (circa 1855, estimate: £250,000-350,000, illustrated page one, left) captures an artist on the brink, a person in the process of becoming their true self. The sensitive depiction of Autoportrait, vers sa vingt-et-unième année speaks to the still-evolving character of the young Degas, revealing his soul to the viewer. Shot through with references to art history, Louis Fratino’s practice explores themes relating to his own queer identity. In Listening to a conch (2017, estimate: £40,000-60,000, illustrated above, right), echoes of Pablo Picasso, Lucian Freud and David Hockney are spun into a vision of tender, intimate self-reflection.

Artist’s Artists

Coinciding with global tributes to the artistic legacy of Pablo Picasso as the art world marks 50 years since the artist’s death, Untitled (Pablo Picasso) (1984, estimate: £4,500,000-6,500,000, illustrated page one, centre) is the ultimate expression of Jean-Michel Basquiat being in dialogue with his artistic predecessors, blurring Picasso’s identity with his own. Head of Leon Kossoff (1957, estimate: £800,000-1,200,000, illustrated page two, left) is the third of just four works on paper that Frank Auerbach made depicting his great friend and fellow artist, one of which is housed in the Sainsbury Centre. Sitting for one another at close range, they fuelled the early phases of each other’s portrait practices, defining, in turn, a new generation of British figurative art.

Imagined Portraiture

Plucked from her imagination, though often informed by pre-existing images, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s fictional characters have written bold new chapters for Black representation in art. Featured in the recent Tate Britain retrospective which closed in February this year, Diplomacy I (2009, estimate: £1,000,000-1,500,000, illustrated above) depicts a group of suited delegates, recalling Marion Kaplan’s photographs of African heads of state at a summit in Uganda in 1967. Yiadom-Boakye however, has inserted a single woman, incongruously clad in pink. Similarly confronting female presence in portraiture, herumstehen, 9. + 29.1. + 13.4.17  (2017, estimate: £60,000-80,000) by Miriam Cahn, vividly captures the artist’s ongoing fascination with sexuality and the body, its subject a complex vision of empowerment and vulnerability.