One of the joys of visiting art exhibitions, whether at galleries or at auction houses, is finding something new. You think that there have been so many exhibitions of Andy Warhol that there is nothing new to see, yet at Christie’s this week, one of the highlights is a series of portraits, the ‘Athletes’ which Warhol created between 1977 and 1979 in collaboration with the art collector Richard L Weismann in which Warhol painted and created screen prints of some of the great sporting heroes of the time. One of the original paintings – of Mohammad Ali – is one of the high-priced features of the auction, sitting along with other works by Warhol.
Other highlights include work by Thomas Schütte, Bridget Riley, Jean Dubuffet, Howard Hodgkin, Yoshitomo Nara, Günther Förg and Banksy though Christie’s broad-based auction of 2oth century and contemporary art has many paintings and sculptures at surprisingly affordable prices by the likes of Antony Gormley, Grayson Perry and Elmgreen & Dragset which does leave you wondering how value works in the art world.