Phillips Auctions a Basquiat Painting for $70 Million

This spring, Japanese multimillionaire Yusaku Maezawa will bid on one of the works in his private collection. He aims to sell Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 painting "Untitled (Devil)", With an estimated price of $70 million during a New York contemporary art evening sale managed by Jean-Paul Engelen on May 18, which will be held in Phillips auction house. It is being offered with a guarantee. Accordingly, this work is one of the most expensive pieces in his private collection. In 2016, Yusaku Maezawa purchased Untitled (Devil) from the New York dealer Adam Lindemann. The 16-foot-wide painting includes the same horned devil motif that appears in nearly all of Basquiat's art. "I believe that art collections are something that should always continue to grow and evolve as the owner does," said Maezawa in a statement, remarking on his decision to sell Untitled (Devil). His collection will be housed in a private museum in Chiba, which he is currently planning.

The entrepreneur has been on ARTnews's Top 200 Collectors list every year since 2016. Maezawa, whose fortune came from founding the online retailer Zozotown, would go on to reset Basquiat’s auction record when he paid $110.5 million at Sotheby's for a 1982 painting of "skull". The purchase of these two Basquiat paintings helped Maezawa become famous in the art world.

Phillips, after Christie's and Sotheby's, is the third-largest auction house in the world. A $993.3 million sales total was generated by the house in 2021, a 35 percent increase over pre-pandemic sales totals and the highest in the company's history.

Source:

• www.artnews.com