Sotheby's Unveils 42 Works Donated by Prominent Artists to Benefit THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM Highlighting Sotheby's Contemporary Art Auctions In New York on 16 & 17 May Full Proceeds to Benefit the Studio Museum's New Building on 125th Street EVENING AUCTION TO OFFER WORKS BY: Mark Bradford | Njideka Akunyili Crosby | Glenn Ligon Julie Mehretu | Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

** All Works Now on Public View in Sotheby's New York Galleries **

NEW YORK, 4 May 2018 - Sotheby's is thrilled to unveil the full contents of Creating Space: Artists for The Studio Museum in Harlem: An Auction to Benefit the Museum’s New Building, which will highlight our marquee auctions of Contemporary Art this May in New York.

Throughout the spring, an intergenerational group of 42 prominent artists (*full list below) with close ties to the mission and history of The Studio Museum in Harlem have donated important works for auction at Sotheby's. The full proceeds of these works will support the campaign to construct the museum’s new home on 125th Street, designed by Adjaye Associates in collaboration with Cooper Robertson. The auction also celebrates the institution's 50th anniversary this year.

All 42 works are now on public exhibition in Sotheby's New York galleries. Paintings by Mark Bradford, Julie Mehretu, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Glenn Ligon and Njideka Akunyili Crosby will open our Contemporary Art Evening Auction on 16 May, with the remaining pieces highlighting the Day Auction on 17 May.

Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, said: "I’m profoundly touched by the tremendous generosity that artists and their representatives have demonstrated for this project. Artists are at the heart of everything the Studio Museum has done for the past fifty years – from our foundational Artist-in-Residence program to creating impactful exhibitions of artists of African descent at every stage in their careers. It means so much to have artists support us in creating this dynamic new building, where their work can engage the public even more deeply."

CONTEMPORARY ART EVENING AUCTION
16 May

Mark Bradford
Speak, Birdman
2018
Estimate $2/3 million

Mark Bradford made his New York debut in Freestyle (2001), the first in the Studio Museum’s now-iconic “F-show” series of emerging artists, and in 2010-11 the museum staged his solo show Mark Bradford: Alphabet. Renowned for his large-scale works made from layers of salvaged paper, Bradford's expressive civic tapestries embody the urban experience as-lived. Created by the artist specifically for the Studio Museum's auction, Speak, Birdman is a stunning example of his cartographic works, dense with richly collaged comic book strips, silver paper, and rope, which have most recently been celebrated in his solo sold-out shows at Hauser & Wirth in Hong Kong and Los Angeles.

Julie Mehretu
Conjured Parts (Dresden)
2017
Estimate $1/1.5 million

Julie Mehretu participated in the Studio Museum's Artist-in-Residence program from 2000-01, and her work most recently appeared in the exhibition Their Own Harlems (2017-18). Known for her highly ambitious, wonderfully dizzying and intricate masterpieces, Mehretu has distinguished herself as one of the leading artists of her generation. With its soft, multi-colored background, Conjured Parts (Dresden) is a particularly lyrical example of the artist's work. It is a particular privilege to offer this work in advance of Mehretu's highly-anticipated retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and subsequent venues, opening in 2019.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
An Assistance of Amber
2017
Estimate $100/150,000

The Studio Museum has long supported British-Ghanaian artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, including presenting her first solo museum exhibition, Any Number of Preoccupations, in 2010-11. Yiadom-Boakye has been recognized for her generously rendered fictional figures, which appear to exist independently of narrative or history, instead allowing the viewer to rely on imagination and project his or her own story onto the work. An Assistance of Amber is an archetypal example of her elegant single-figure portraits, with the sitter’s densely-painted face absorbing the viewer.

Glenn Ligon
Stranger #86
2016
Estimate $1/1.5 million

Glenn Ligon’s long relationship with the Museum began with an internship in the 1980s, and his site-specific work Give Us a Poem has greeted Museum visitors since 2007 – and will be installed in the museum's new building. Language is a central theme in Ligon's practice, with his most iconic works being the large-scale canvases featuring words that have been stenciled, repeated, and layered to near illegibility as the phrase or sentence winds its way down the composition. Executed in encrusted black oil stick and enlivened with the delicate glimmer of coal dust, Stranger #86 hails from the artist's seminal series of paintings based on James Baldwin's 1953 essay "Stranger in the Village". The work creates a tension between the legible and illegible, the visible and invisible, ‘black space’ and ‘white space’ – thus throwing into sharp relief a multifaceted identity.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Bush Babies
2017
Estimate $600/800,000