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Curators' Picks: May 7 Modern & Contemporary Art Signature® Auction
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Frank's Picks
Frank Hettig | Vice President, Modern & Contemporary Art
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Billy Childish’s "Sibelius Amongst Saplings" holds my attention because it revisits historical or cultural figures—here, the composer Jean Sibelius—not to idealize them, but to place them within an almost mythic landscape. The trees seem to pulse with quick, repetitive strokes, almost nervous in their energy, while Sibelius stands dark and still among them. That contrast stays with me—the world around him feels alive and unsettled, but he feels inward, almost withdrawn.
That directness is very much part of Childish’s larger body of work. He tends to strip painting down to something immediate and expressive, often placing figures in raw, emotional landscapes. In that sense, "Sibelius Amongst Saplings" fits naturally—it’s less about Sibelius as a composer and more about solitude, presence, and the act of standing still in the middle of something restless.
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Lee Mullican’s work from 1971 draws me in because it feels both controlled and strangely infinite. At first, the surfaces seem almost mechanical—built from thousands of tiny, repeated marks—but the longer I look, the more they open up into something atmospheric, almost cosmic. It’s as if the painting is less an image and more a field of energy.
This feels very much in line with Mullican’s broader work. Around this time, he was deeply engaged with ideas of cosmology and inner vision, using repetitive mark-making to map something beyond the visible world. His 1971 works seem to sit right at that intersection—structured, but reaching for something immeasurable.
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Holly's Pick
Holly Sherratt | Vice President, Modern & Contemporary Art, West Coast
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Donald Roller Wilson’s Cookie (2025) features a wide-eyed baby orangutan and one of the artist’s most beloved recurring characters. Presented in the style of a seventeenth century portrait, Cookie appears against a dark ground, her face lit with controlled light and framed by a crisp ruffled collar. The painting draws on traditional techniques, while the subject adds a childlike, slightly absurd twist. Cookie’s charm draws you in, but her direct, faintly self-aware gaze adds just enough strangeness to hold your attention. Works featuring Cookie are highly sought after and hard to resist when they appear on the market.
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George Rodrigue is best known for his Blue Dog, a defining image in his work. This painting pairs the familiar figure with a woman whose yellow eyes mirror the dog’s gaze, creating a direct, psychological connection. While Rodrigue also painted portraits, he rarely gave human figures this same otherworldly feature. The owner recalls, "George said he would never again paint a human with yellow eyes; that it belongs to me," underscoring the work’s rarity.
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Walter's Picks
Walter Ramirez | Consignment Director, Urban Art
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A standout among today’s leading figurative painters, Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe brings a fresh, contemporary perspective to portraiture. Born in Ghana and now based in Portland, the artist is known for his striking depictions of Black subjects, often rendered with smooth, tonal skin against bold, saturated backgrounds and intricately patterned clothing. The three works featured here exemplify his distinctive approach—each portrait is at once intimate and commanding, with figures that engage the viewer through calm, direct gazes and a strong sense of individuality. Quaicoe’s balance of stylization and realism, combined with his refined use of color and composition, results in images that feel both modern and deeply personal, making these works especially compelling.
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Known as the "Caribbean Gauguin," Angel Botello brings a vibrant palette and a deep appreciation for local culture to the work, resulting in a piece that feels at once rooted in tradition and distinctly modern. Botello’s Rey con caballo (circa 1970) captures the artist’s signature blend of bold color and simplified, sculptural forms. Inspired by traditional Puerto Rican santos—particularly figures of the Three Kings—Botello reimagines the subject with a modern, expressive touch. The king and horse are rendered with strong outlines and flattened planes, giving the composition a sense of both monumentality and warmth.
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Taylor's Picks
Taylor Curry | Director, Modern & Contemporary Art
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I’ve always liked Eric Orr’s approach to perception and space. His work unfolds slowly, driven more by subtle shifts in tone and surface than by overt imagery. The elongated format reads almost like a horizon line, creating a quiet, immersive field that gradually pulls you in. His practice is closely tied to the Light and Space movement, and that emphasis on perception and atmosphere really comes through here.
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George Rickey is arguably one of the most important postwar sculptors to fully rethink what sculpture could be. With Delta Theme with Two Lines V (1983), he strips it all the way down. No mass, no weight, just movement, precision, and time. It’s a great tabletop scale and a fantastic addition to any collection.
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Desiree's Picks
Desiree Pakravan | Consignment Director, Modern & Contemporary Art
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I absolutely love this Alice Baber watercolor from her Jaguar series. Through layered, biomorphic forms, she creates radiant color harmonies that suggest presence, movement, and energy. Her use of watercolor is particularly significant: translucent washes bleed into one another, creating soft edges and glowing transitions that give the compositions a sense of inner light and atmospheric depth. The surface often feels alive, with pulsating shapes that hover between figure and field, inviting the viewer to intuit rather than identify.
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This painting is very striking to me; it is abstract, yet refined and contemplative. Associated with the avant-garde movements of pre- and postwar Japan, Yamaguchi was a key figure in the development of modern Japanese abstraction and was fascinated with geometric structure with organic sensitivity. He often used simplified shapes and earthy, subdued palettes to create a work that feels both intellectually rigorous and quietly poetic. His paintings bridge cultural influences and reflect both an engagement with Western modernism and Japanese aesthetics to evoke a distinctive sense of calm and order.
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Alissa's Picks
Alissa Ford | Vice President, American & Western Art
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Contemporary Native American artists have become a major force in the market in recent years, achieving long-overdue recognition and acclaim. George Morrison of the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa was a pioneering modernist known for blending abstraction with a deep sensitivity to landscape, color, and texture. In Palisade, 1958, layered squares and rectangles built up with rich, gestural color echo the steep vertical cliffs known as palisades, whose stacked rock formations line rivers and coasts, while the dominant blues depict the presence and movement of water at their base. Through this interplay of color, texture, and form, Morrison creates a work that feels both architectural and fluid, a vivid homage to nature energized by the spirit of Abstract Expressionism.
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I have always admired David Bates’s perspective on everyday life. His narratives unfold through bold color and dynamic brushwork, bringing a distinctly modernist edge to traditional subjects. In Sisters, 1985 he portrays two women reading in a cozy interior; the books in their hands reference masters like Picasso and Manet, while the volumes on the floor, devoted to artists such as Ammi Phillips and American quilts, point to "primitive" Americana traditions, underscoring the blend of influences in his own work. This monumental painting is rich with pattern, color, form, and detail, even down to his cleverly placed signature on the dog’s collar, culminating in a composition that reveals new layers of meaning with each viewing.
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Ezriel's Picks
Ezriel Wilson | Cataloguer, Fine Art
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Larry Rivers’ Plexiglass Playmate is my favorite of the two works we’re offering in this sale. This striking construction of hot pink plexiglass forms a playful Playmate poised prominently atop a fuzzy stool, balancing both visual appeal and cultural significance. Beyond its eye-catching design, the work reflects the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s—a time when women navigated a complex shift between entrenched sexism and emerging liberation. Rivers showcases his skills in three-dimensional construction while capturing this moment in history. Created specifically for Playboy,
the piece was published as a two-page spread in the January 1967 issue as part of "The Playmate as Fine Art," in which eleven contemporary artists reimagined the iconic gatefold. Playboy sought to position itself as a publication of refined taste, celebrating the female form as a central artistic muse. What stands out most is Rivers’ use of bold, simplified forms—the hot pink silhouette evokes a cinematic, almost spy-film allure—contrasted with varied textures in the stool, jacket, and background. True to his approach, Rivers let the work speak for itself, noting that "words would interfere with the communication between it and the observer." Add this vibrant work—and a unique piece of Playboy history—to your collection today.
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Peter Anton’s 2014 Jubilant Assortment
looks far too scrumptious not to be my pick! This wonderful three-dimensional construction of mixed media is incredibly delightful to look at. I’ve followed Anton on social media for quite some time, eagerly awaiting the day I could experience his work in person. Who would’ve thought it would be here? Anton works within the playful and indulgent theme of food, celebrating the enjoyment and pleasures it brings to life. The artist, in a Wonka-like spirit, also embraces the idea that food can act as a universal language that truly brings people together. One of my favorite things about Peter Anton’s work is that he not only pays attention to what makes a piece aesthetically pleasing—carefully balancing color, texture, and visual impact—but also integrates
stunning realism in the bite marks, breaks, fine dustings of powder that might scatter when a chocolate is lifted, and the delicate wrinkles of the foil. These details add a sense of imagination and whimsy to this larger-than-life box of chocolates. Jubilant Assortment feels like it brings out your inner child, filling you with excitement when you see it in person. Come see it today—and maybe even add it to a wall in your home this May.
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Frank Hettig
Vice President, Modern & Contemporary Art
FrankH@HA.com
(214) 409-1157
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Holly Sherratt
Vice President, Modern &
Contemporary Art, West Coast
HollyS@HA.com
(415) 548-5921
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Taylor Curry
Director, Modern &
Contemporary Art
TaylorC@HA.com
(212) 486-3503
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Walter Ramirez
Consignment Director,
Urban Art
WalterR@HA.com
(212) 486-3521
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Desiree Pakravan
Consignment Director,
Modern & Contemporary Art
DesireeP@HA.com
(310) 492-8621
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Alissa Ford
Vice President,
American & Western Art
AlissaF@HA.com
(415) 548-5920
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