Bacon’s ‘screaming pope’ at Katara

AILYN AGONIA

DOHA One of Francis Bacon’s ‘screaming pope’ paintings, estimated between $18 and $25 million, is among the 16 masterworks from Sotheby’s forthcoming New York Auction of Contemporary Art.

These works were on display at Katara as part of a preview on Sunday.

The iconic pope painting dated circa 1954, highlights the importance of the collection to be auctioned in New York in November 13. The event is deemed as the biggest sale of contemporary art in five years.

Sotheby’s Head of Cotemporary Department in New York Alexander Potter led the Doha preview of the highlights of the collection, which also included the works of other leading American and European Contemporary artists of post-war era Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The art works will be on display in Katara Building 5 on Monday too. The forthcoming auction is also headlined by the work of Gerhard Richter, a highlyrecognised artist of the 20th and 21st centuries. The German visual artist is known for his abstract and photorealistic painted works.

His work ‘Abstraktes Bid (712)’ is hailed for extensive and time-consuming technique devoted by Richter to the art piece and estimated to exceed $16million. It follows the $34.2 million sale of his ‘Abstraktes Bid (809-4)’at Sotheby’s London which established a world record for a work by Richter.

A number of paintings by American artist Andy Warhol are also on display. He is one of the leading figures in the so-called pop art.

It includes ‘The Kiss’ from 1963 created shortly after Warhol pioneered the silkscreening technique. It is estimated at $4.5 to $6.5 million. His work called ‘Green Disaster’, which comes from a cover of newspaper about a tragedy in 1964, is estimated at $12 million. While another Warhol creation ‘Martinson Coffee’ from 1962 is estimated at $3 to $4 million, while the 1964 painting ‘Flowers’ is estimated at $1.5 million to $ 2 million.

Also part of the preview are 20th century masterworks from the collection of American couple Sidney and Dorothy Kohl. It includes Joan Mitchell’s ‘Untitled’ of 1957 estimated at $6 to $8 million, Adolph Gottlieb’s ‘Transfiguration’ estimated at $3 to $5 million and Hans Hofmann’s Nirvana estimated at $5 to $7 million.

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