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Frank's Picks
Frank Hettig | Vice President, Modern & Contemporary Art, Dallas
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Jasper Johns' Target with Four Faces' (1979) revisits one of
his most iconic motifs with a conceptual twist. Rather than presenting literal
faces, the work features the word FACE inscribed four times in a block-like
panel above the target.
With its bold concentric rings of yellow and blue, the
target itself anchors the composition with Johns' signature balance of formal
rigor and visual power. By reducing representation to the written word, Johns
pushes viewers to question how meaning is constructed, bridging the gap between
object, symbol, and perception. As a continuation of his target imagery from
the 1950s and an evolution toward more conceptual concerns, 'Target with Four
Faces' is distinguished in his oeuvre and remains a highly desirable work for
serious postwar collections.
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James Turrell's 'Deep Sky' (1984) translates the immersive
qualities of his light installations into the intimate medium of print. Known
for architectural environments such as his 'Skyspaces'
and the monumental 'Roden Crater' project, Turrell uses light as a material,
reshaping how viewers experience perception and space. In Deep Sky, his
aquatints evoke vast, atmospheric fields of color that echo the meditative
stillness of standing inside one of his installations.
The portfolio represents a rare opportunity for collectors
to engage with Turrell's vision outside the architectural scale of his
site-specific works. The title itself gestures toward the cosmos, a central
theme in his practice, underscoring the portfolio's role as a conceptual
extension of his exploration of sky and infinity. As such, Deep Sky' occupies a
vital place in Turrell's oeuvre, offering a portable yet profound counterpart
to his immersive installations and making it a highly significant addition to
collections of contemporary art.
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Holly's Picks
Vice President, Modern & Contemporary Art, San Francisco
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Keith Haring's Radiant Baby is one of his
most iconic symbols, representing innocence, and what he called "the purest and
most positive experience of human existence." First drawn in New York subways
in the early 1980s, the bold outline of a crawling infant encircled with rays
became Haring's emblem. The radiating lines suggest spiritual light, evoking
religious imagery and associations with the Christ child. Both playful and
profound, Radiant Baby embodied hope during the AIDS crisis
and remains a powerful emblem of renewal.
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Julie Mehretu is a painter and printmaker known for
abstractions that draw on cartography, architecture, and calligraphic gesture
to explore history, migration, and social experience. A graduate of the Rhode
Island School of Design, she has shown in leading museums and is celebrated for
large-scale compositions that capture the dynamism of contemporary life. Untitled
(Pulse) translates these concerns into an intimate print, where arcs
and strokes overlap in a concentrated field that evokes both urban movement and
rhythmic vibration.
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Desiree's Picks
Consignment Director, Prints & Multiples, Beverly Hills
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As a California native, this print resonates with me so
much. By appropriating the phrase "Made in California", Ruscha blurs the
boundaries between art and commodity, and the words lose their commercial
bluntness. Its vibrant orange background plays a key role in how the print
communicates California's identity. It radiates warmth and intensity, echoing
the colors of the California landscape; sunsets over the Pacific, the arid glow
of desert terrain, and the ripe fruit that fueled much of the state's agricultural
economy. The choice of orange amplifies the sense of
energy and optimism often associated with the West Coast, suggesting vitality
and abundance. The absence of imagery invites viewers to project their own
associations with California onto the phrase, making the work as much about
collective imagination as about literal geography.
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For Kusama, the pumpkin is more than a botanical object, it
is a self-portrait of sorts, a symbol of comfort, resilience, and whimsical
eccentricity. Pumpkin #4 is a bold example of the artist's
iconic use of repetition, form, and personal symbolism. Both the pumpkin and
the background are filled with rhythmic dot patterns, creating a hypnotic
visual experience that blurs the lines between object and space. It's a symbol
that fuses her identity as a woman, and what makes this lithograph so vibrant
and dynamic.
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Rebecca's Picks
Rebecca Lax | Consignment Director, Prints & Multiples, New York
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The earliest Flowers print by Andy Warhol,
created in 1964, was published to coincide with his exhibition at the Leo
Castelli Gallery in New York, held from November 21 to December 17, 1964. This
print predates the later 1970 Flowers series-a
set of 10 prints on larger paper-two examples of which
are also included in this Signature Prints auction (see lot numbers 65061 and
65062). One key distinction between the two iterations of the same
flowers image, lies in their production: the 1964
print was produced by the commercial offset lithography firm Total Color, also
based in New York, the later series done in screen-printing. Warhol frequently
employed commercial printing methods to diminish the traditional, handmade
quality of fine art printmaking like etching and woodcut, thereby emphasizing
the commoditization of his imagery. Far from being a "painting for
painting's sake" artist, Warhol challenged the prevailing norms of the art
world. As the most iconic figure of Pop Art, he pushed beyond abstract
expressionism and helped redefine the boundaries of contemporary art.
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A special print on offer is Rashid Johnson's Untitled
Anxious Red, published in 2021. This limited-edition print features a
unique printing process developed by the master printers at Brand X Editions to
best reflect the artist's vision. The method explores processes of rejection
and absorption, beginning with layered screen-printing runs in glossy white and
red silkscreen inks. A final layer of red paste is then applied over the
surface and swiftly hand-wiped from the sheet - a gesture evocative of cleaning
an inked etching plate. The paste absorbs into the raw paper and further
stains it. Each hand worked print in the edition carries subtle,
individual variations. Untitled Anxious Red is an early
example of Johnson's use of this distinctive technique, marking a pivotal
moment in his printmaking practice. Rashid Johnson's work is currently
featured in a solo exhibition, Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers,
on view at the Guggenheim Museum in New York through January 19, 2026.
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Taylor's Pick
Taylor Curry | Director, Modern & Contemporary Art, New York
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Few images are as instantly recognizable as Andy Warhol's
Marilyns. In 1967, Warhol took Marilyn Monroe's iconic face and reimagined it
in a portfolio of ten screenprints that turned her Hollywood persona into pure
Pop Art. What I love about this impression is the sheer punch of color. The hot
pink ground, the blazing yellow hair, and the sharp black shadows all collide
to create something at once glamorous and electric.
Warhol had a gift for distilling celebrity into a single unforgettable image,
and here he transforms Marilyn into both a star and a symbol, bold, consumable,
and utterly iconic.
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Taylor's Picks
Taylor Gattinella | Consignment Director, Modern & Contemporary Art, New York
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Vija Celmins is celebrated for her
painstakingly rendered images of the natural world, from oceans and desert
floors to star-filled skies. In works like Drypoint -
Ocean Surface from 1983, Celmins translates these
subjects with remarkable precision, using the delicate line of drypoint printing to evoke both intimacy and immensity.
Each work balances the intricate technique with a meditative quiet that calls
the viewer to take a closer look.
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Frank Stella's Polar Co-ordinates III is part of a series
inspired by his travels to Scandinavia, where he translated the movement and
geometry of maps into vibrant, abstract compositions. Using lithography, Stella
layered bold arcs and intersecting lines in dynamic colors that seem to radiate
outward with energy. The work reflects his interest in both rigorous structure
and playful visual rhythm, creating a print that feels at once ordered and
exuberant. An additional impression of this work can be found in the collection
of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
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Hannah's Picks
Hannah Ziesmann | Cataloger and Associate Specialist, Fine Arts, Dallas
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There's something magnetic about the way Warhol reimagines
Venus - not as a distant myth, but as a figure we already know, lit in the
palette of desire and modernity. Her gaze feels familiar yet unreachable,
Botticelli's goddess filtered through the saturated glamor of Pop. The swirling
hair, rendered in neon fuchsia and flaming coral, feels less like wind and more
like electricity pulsing through the sky. It's Warhol at his most reverent and
most rebellious - offering up a centuries-old ideal not to preserve it, but to
keep it alive by letting it evolve.
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Charles White's The Folk Singer is thunderous in its
stillness: a lone figure carved in sweeping lines, head tilted skyward, mouth
open wailing in song. The voice feels almost audible, vibrating through the
swirling cosmos above him, rendered in fevered, hypnotic strokes. It is not
just a portrait, it is an invocation: of spirit, of struggle, of something
ancient and unshakably human. White transforms black ink into light, grief into
strength, and silence into sound.
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Find these and other outstanding modern and contemporary masterworks in Heritage's Prints & Multiples Signature® Auction. The auction's session is 11:00 AM Central Time, Thursday, October 16.
Sincerely,
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Frank Hettig
Vice President, Modern & Contemporary Art
Dallas
FrankH@HA.com
(214) 409-1157
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Holly Sherratt
Vice President, Modern & Contemporary Art,
San Francisco
HollyS@HA.com
(415) 548-5921
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Desiree Pakravan
Consignment Director,
Prints & Multiples,
Beverly Hills
DesireeP@HA.com
(310) 492-8621
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Rebecca Lax
Consignment Director,
Prints & Multiples,
New York
BeckyL@HA.com
(212) 486-3736
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Taylor Curry
Director,
Modern & Contemporary Art,
New York
TaylorC@HA.com
(212) 486-3503
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Taylor Gattinella
Consignment Director,
Modern & Contemporary Art,
New York
TaylorG@HA.com
(212) 486-3681
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Hannah Ziesmann
Cataloger and Associate Specialist,
Fine Arts, Dallas
HannahZ@HA.com
(214) 409-1162
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