Sotheby's to Sell WWI-Era Artworks in Centenary Auction

Sotheby's has announced a landmark auction titled 'The Beautiful and Damned: Radical Art of the Great War,' scheduled for November 12, 2018, in New York. The sale coincides with the centenary of the armistice signed on November 11, 1918, and is positioned just three days before Christie's highly anticipated November 15 auction featuring David Hockney's 'Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures),' estimated at $80 million. Sotheby's aims to close the gap with its rival, which has outperformed it in 2017 and the first half of 2018, partly due to the record $450 million sale of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi.' The auction includes masterpieces from private collections: Marsden Hartley's 'Pre-War Pageant' (estimate $30 million), Ludwig Meidner's 'Apokalyptische Landschaft' (estimate $12-18 million), and Franz Marc's 'Kühe' (1912), created shortly after co-founding Der Blaue Reiter with Wassily Kandinsky. These works reflect the tumultuous period of World War I and its impact on modern art. The sale is part of Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale.