A young Richter’s painting of an even younger Polke and a once-grimy Brazilian landscape by Frans Post: our pick of the May auctions

Gerhard Richter, Mann mit zwei Kindern (1966)

Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Phillips, New York, 13 May

Estimate: $4m to $6m

This work, appearing at auction for the first time,connects three of Germany’s most celebrated painters. In Mann mit zwei Kindern, Gerhard Richter painted his close friend Sigmar Polke as a young child on an outing with his family, an early and foundational example of Richter’s photo-like paintings, many of them done in shades of grey. Richter is a decade older than Polke and the artists’ styles differed greatly, but the pair also have some commonalities: they studied together at the Düsseldorf Academy, both fled East Germany and they collaborated on an exhibition together in 1966. In a bizarre twist, Mann mit zwei Kindern was once in the collection of another German painter: Blinky Palermo, who was in the year below Richter and Polke at the Düsseldorf Academy and also from East Germany.

Frans Post, View of Olinda with Ruins of the Jesuit Church (1666)

Elegance & Wonder: Masterpieces from the Collection of Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III, Sotheby’s, New York, 21 May

Estimate: $6m to $8m

View of Olinda comes from the collection of Jordan and Thomas Saunders, and is poised to break the auction record for Frans Post (1612-80). Thomas Saunders, who died in 2022, was a partner and managing director of Morgan Stanley during the 1970s. He and his wife Jordan were also prolific collectors; George Wachter, Sotheby’s co-chairman of Old Master paintings, said Saunders’s favourite was View of Olinda, thanks to Post’s intricate, detailed portrayal of the people, plants and animals of Brazil. It was an unlikely addition to the collection, as it was rediscovered covered in grime in a barn attic in Connecticut. Wachter was convinced there was more to the dirty canvas than met the eye, and persuaded Saunders to purchase the work for $2.2m in 1998. Works by Post rarely come to auction; this is the most significant to appear in three decades, and with the artist’s highest estimate ever.

Andy Warhol, Big Electric Chair (1967-68)

20th Century Evening Sale, Christie’s, New York, 12 May

Estimate: Around $30m

Making its auction debut this monthat Christie’s evening sale of 20th-century art is Big Electric Chair, which for more than 50 years was part of the collection of the Belgian neuropsychiatrist Roger Matthys and his wife Hilda Colle. They acquired the work a year after it was displayed at Warhol’s first major European retrospective at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1968. Alex Rotter, Christie’s chairman of 20th and 21st century art, says that the work is “singular within Warhol’s oeuvre—a solitary object in a quiet moment, reflecting the fragility of the human condition”. Warhol first began exploring images of the electric chair in the early 1960s, and of the 12 images that debuted at the Moderna Museet in 1968, only four remain in private hands, according to Christie’s.

Fernando Botero, The Bed (1982)

20th/21st Century Art Evening Sale, Bonhams, New York, 14 May

Estimate: $700,000 to $1m

Colombia’s most celebrated artist Fernando Botero used exaggerated form and perspective to show the sensual subject’s figure in The Bed at a larger-than-life scale. The female nude consumes the space of the bedroom, “making her presence undeniable and consequential”, the auction house said in a statement, drawing comparisons between Botero’s depiction of the sitter and Renaissance scenes by Tintoretto. Botero still maintains an air of intimacy in the painting, with details like the woman’s painted fingernails, green eye makeup and delicate watch on display. The sale at Bonhams will mark the painting’s auction debut, having only been acquired previously through Marlborough Gallery in New York, and then by a Los Angeles interior designer.