Yoko Ono’s Basquiat canvas may fetch US$12 million at auction
A PAINTING by Jean-Michel Basquiat from the collection of Yoko Ono is heading for auction.
The work, titled “Cabra,” may sell for as much as US$12 million (RM51.6 million) at Sotheby’s contemporary art sale in New York on Nov 16, the auction house said.
Basquiat, who died at the age of 27 in 1988, is breaking records in the art world. In May, one of his paintings fetched US$110.5 million at Sotheby’s, the highest price for any American artist at auction. A 1982 Basquiat canvas depicting boxer Sugar Ray Robinson sold for about US$24 million last year. The first major UK exhibition of his works is now on view at the Barbican Art Gallery in London.
“I have had the pleasure of owning and living with this masterwork for over two decades,” Ono said in a statement. “The time has come for it to find a new home.”
Ono bought the painting from art dealer Tony Shafrazi in 1993, according to Sotheby’s. Basquiat created the image, which depicts a skull with horns, between 1981 and 1982 as a tribute to Muhammad Ali. The artist named it for the Spanish word for “goat,” but also meant it as an acronym for “Greatest of All Time,” an Ali nickname, Sotheby’s said.
Some proceeds from the sale will benefit Spirit Foundation, the charitable organisation founded by Ono and John Lennon in 1978, Sotheby’s said. The auction house guaranteed Ono an undisclosed minimum price regardless of whether the works sells or not. — Washington Post