Auction of art works to support the Warburg Renaissance
Anselm Kiefer, Cornelia Parker and Edmund de Waal among leading artists donating works to be offered in the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale in London on 4 March 2022
We are delighted to announce that works donated by renowned contemporary artists, including Anselm Kiefer and Edmund de Waal, will be offered in the Phillips 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale in London on 4 March. These generous donations are in support of the Warburg Renaissance, the transformation of the Warburg Institute. Before the auction, the works will go on view at 30 Berkeley Square from 26 February - 4 March.
Many of the works to be auctioned have been personally donated by the artists in recognition of the influence that Aby Warburg and the Institute has had on their own work as well as its enduring impact on contemporary visual culture and intellectual thought.
The sales of the works will help to fund the completion of the £14.5m renovation and expansion of our home in Bloomsbury, led by Stirling Prize-winning architect Haworth Tompkins, to create a more open and accessible building and welcome in and educate a wider audience with new and dynamic public spaces for lectures, exhibitions and digital experimentation. They will also provide funding for new programmes for exhibitions, residencies and commissions for contemporary artists, writers and thinkers. At the heart of the Institute’s new gallery will sit the porcelain-painted walls of the library of exile, Edmund de Waal’s installation, donated by the artist in 2020, which will provide a place of contemplation and dialogue about books, libraries, memory and exile.
The auction has been led by the Warburg Charitable Trust and the Warburg Visionary Circle, a group of curatorial and creative leaders who have dedicated themselves to raising the Institute’s profile and engaging new audiences.
Highlights of the sale will include works by Anselm Kiefer, Michael Joo, Goshka Macuga, Cornelia Parker, Gerhard Richter and Edmund De Waal.
The works will be on show at 30 Berkeley Square from 26 February - 3 March (Monday - Saturday 10am-6pm and Sunday 12-6pm). Lots 179-194 are being auctioned to benefit the Warburg Institute. View the artworks here.
And on Tuesday 1 March, at 5.00pm, the Warburg hosts an online panel discussion, Word, Image and Memory: Aby Warburg and Anselm Kiefer, with Warburg Director Bill Sherman in conversation with two of the people who have worked most closely with Kiefer, Gagosian’s Richard Calvocoressi and Robin Vousden.
View the artworks
Find out more about the sale
The Warburg Renaissance
The Warburg Renaissance is a major project which includes a total transformation of the Institute’s London home, creating state-of the-art facilities, ‘completing’ Charles Holden’s unfinished building in Bloomsbury, and realising the founding vision for the Institute in which display, discovery and debate were closely connected.
Having secured almost all of the £14.5m needed to proceed with the building project, the Institute is now raising the funds needed for the people and programmes that will open the building and its collections to new audiences—including artists.
