“The self-portrait was hidden from the public for almost a quarter of a century” – Kommersant FM

Kommersant FM columnist Dmitry Butkevich talks about the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, put up for auction at Sotheby’s, as well as its estimated value.

And again we return to Jean-Michel Basquiat. Let me remind you, this absolute leader of the contemporary art market left very early, at the age of 27. He was born in New York to a Puerto Rican mother and a Haitian father in 1960. At the age of 17 he became a graffiti artist. He played in a music group. At 22, he met Andy Warhol and became his partner. Warhol died in 1987, Basquiat in 1988 from an overdose.

And now a self-portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat, which has been hidden from the public for almost a quarter of a century, comes to the market. “Self-portrait as a Heel” (Self-portrait as a Heel), 2.5 m high, was painted in 1982. On an emerald green background there is a black figure, anthropomorphic, but with obvious goat-like features, in a kind of white foam. The figure has multiple arms and the words “Back View” and “Composite” on the back.

The work will be offered for sale at Sotheby’s evening contemporary art auction on November 15. Its estimated cost will be $40-60 million. Let me remind you that Basquiat’s current record is $110 million. According to Sotheby’s, Basquiat took the self-portrait while living in the Venetian house of dealer Larry Gagosian, who later organized the artist’s first exhibition on the West Coast of the United States. During the highly productive year of 1982, Basquiat created three works that used the word heel, a slang term for a punk or delinquent.

The first part of “Self-Portrait in the Form of a Heel,” an almost complete analogue of the current painting, sold for $5.9 million at Christie’s in New York in 2010. But this particular painting – “Self-Portrait as a Heel (Part Two)” – last appeared at a public auction in 1999. Then it was sold at Christie’s for $772 thousand. Previously, it belonged to the Belgian collector Stefan Jansen, who was one of Basquiat’s first patrons and bought the painting from Gagosian immediately after its creation.