Phillips will inaugurate its new Park Avenue headquarters with an evening sale of 20th century art in New York City on June 23. Alongside works by Vija Celmins, Brice Marden and Carmen Herrera, the summer sale will headline Amy sheraldthe portrait It made sense … especially in his mind (2011), which is expected to fetch a price of $ 500,000 to $ 700,000.

The work depicts a woman in equestrian attire holding a stuffed animal and looking at the viewer. It pays homage to the artist’s childhood experience in a predominantly white riding camp. Since 2012, the work has been on loan to the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, where it hangs alongside another single-figure portrait of a young girl titled They call me Redbone but I prefer to be Strawberry Shortcake (2009), donated to the museum by Baltimore collector Steven Scott. Proceeds from the sale of this work will benefit the acquisitions, exhibitions and endowments of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

“She paints very few pictures,” Phillips vice president Jean-Paul Engelen said in a statement. “So when it comes to auctions, it’s a big event.”

Phillips set the current record for Michelle Obama’s portrait painter in December, when she sold her second ever-auctioned work at an evening sale in New York City. The Bathers (2015), a double portrait of two young women in swimsuits, came from the collection of Virginia philanthropists William and Pam Royall, and sold for $ 4.3 million, well above its estimate of 150,000 to 200 000 dollars. Before that, Sherald’s Innocent you, innocent Me (2016), portrait of a young man on a blue background, sold in May 2019 at Christie’s for $ 350,000, against an estimate of $ 80,000 to $ 120,000.

Other highlights planned for the June evening sale include Celmins’s Untitled (Ocean), 1987-1988, the artist’s second painting of ocean surfaces to be auctioned. It is estimated to be around $ 6 million. Marden’s abstraction Elements III (1983) is expected to reach $ 4 million, and Herrera’s 1958 painting Green and Orange should go for $ 2 million.

Following the nightly sales of modern and contemporary art in New York, Phillips will host a series of joint 20th century art and contemporary art auctions with Chinese company Poly Auction, this time with two outlets, in Hong Kong. and in Beijing, in June.