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Frank's Picks
Frank Hettig | Vice President, Modern & Contemporary Art, Dallas
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Robert Motherwell’s Untitled, from Flight exemplifies the artist’s lyrical approach to abstraction, where gestural brushwork and stark contrasts create a sense of both movement and restraint. Produced during a period when Motherwell was deeply engaged with printmaking, this work demonstrates his ability to translate the spontaneity of painting into the controlled processes of lithography.
For collectors, Untitled, from Flight is a compelling synthesis of Motherwell’s painterly language and his mastery of print, situating the piece as an important extension of his broader oeuvre.
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‘Gravity Feed’, from Myth and Technology from 1978 by James Rosenquist, is a vibrant print that exemplifies Rosenquist’s Pop Art language, layering bold color and fragmented imagery to explore the tensions between natural forces and industrial technology. Altogether, the print layers human presence (footprints) with mechanical force (treads) and abstract void (black square), framed by hints of technological diagrams. The result is classic Rosenquist: a collision of everyday signs and industrial metaphors that reflect on how people are caught in the flows of modern technology and culture.
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Holly's Picks
Vice President, Modern & Contemporary Art, San Francisco
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In 1974, Jasper Johns organized the Merce Cunningham Portfolio, a project celebrating the choreographer’s experimental spirit and circle of collaborators. The edition included works by Robert Rauschenberg, Bruce Nauman, Robert Morris, Jasper Johns, John Cage, and others, each contributing a print rooted in their own practice. Some of my favorites are John Cage’s 30 by Thoreau, layering fragments of Thoreau’s writings and sketches through chance-determined methods so that text and image interact unpredictably, and Bruce Nauman’s Canned Dance, a witty sequence of studio movements that plays on the idea of "canned" performance while questioning the definition of dance.
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Alex Katz’s Purple Hat (Ada) (2017) is an archival pigment print from his lifelong series of portraits of his wife and muse, Ada, who has appeared in more than 200 works since the late 1950s. Her features are pared down to flat planes of color and sharp contours, accented by the vivid purple hat that lends the print its striking presence. At 98, Katz still works in his New York studio, returning to Ada’s image as a way of marking time, each portrait capturing a fresh moment in their decades-long exchange.
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Desiree's Picks
Consignment Director, Prints & Multiples, Beverly Hills
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I love this edition coming up in our October Showcase auction. The figure of Monica, one of Wesselmann’s recurring muses, is reduced to black and white but is still a striking image. By reducing detail and emphasizing simplified, flat planes, he transforms the intimate pose into a larger-than-life exploration of form and desire. This print is a wonderful example of his signature fusion of pop art and classical nudes.
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Another one of my favorite works is this Elizabeth Catlett’s Fiesta, a vibrant celebration of community and cultural identity, capturing the joy and energy of a shared gathering. Known for her ability to merge modernist style with themes rooted in African American and Mexican life, Catlett infuses the scene with rhythmic movement and warmth. The work reflects her deep commitment to portraying everyday people with dignity and vitality, turning a festive moment into a timeless affirmation of resilience and cultural pride.
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Rebecca's Pick
Rebecca Lax | Consignment Director, Prints & Multiples, New York
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Tea Leaves
(1996) is an exceptional and rare large-scale tapestry print by Suzanne McClelland, created in collaboration with ULAE. Rendered in her signature palette of greys and black, this striking work measures an impressive 87 ¾ inches tall by 108 inches wide. Richly layered with handmade collage elements, the print showcases McClelland’s distinctive, graffiti-like mark-making. The artist designed the work to be installed without a frame, to stand alone as a bold wall piece. Each print in the edition was fitted on the verso with Torinoko paper loops, through which a custom wooden rod runs to support wall mounting. The print and its hanging rod are shipped in a custom-built wooden crate. With the edition long sold out from the publisher, this early printmaking project is a rare
and compelling example of McClelland’s innovative approach to materials, form, and presentation.
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Taylor's Pick
Taylor Gattinella | Consignment Director, Modern & Contemporary Art, New York
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David Driskell was a celebrated American artist and scholar whose work masterfully fused African traditions, African American heritage, and modernist expression. Echoes, Driskell’s screenprint from 1996, embodies his vibrant use of color, layered symbolism, and spiritual depth. His paintings and prints have become highly sought after by collectors and institutions alike, from the Baltimore Museum of Art in Maryland; National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; The Studio Museum in Harlem; Whitney Museum of Art, New York, among others. Widely regarded as a foundational figure in American art, Driskell’s legacy endures as both an artistic and cultural touchstone.
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Hannah's Picks
Hannah Ziesmann | Cataloger and Associate Specialist, Fine Arts, Dallas
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Jane Hammond’s Tabula Rasa renders the body as both archive and altar, a quiet explosion of imagery inked across the skin like dreams remembered in fragments. From dominos to deities, love birds to lotus flowers, each tattoo tells a story that feels deeply personal and impossibly universal. The figure stands nude but not exposed – her back turned, her skin a canvas of symbols that invite curiosity rather than vulnerability. It is a portrait of memory as mythology, where the body becomes a map of wonder, grief, and imagination. With uncanny tenderness, Hammond invites us to read the body as blank slate, a palimpsest of experience, where every image tells a story.
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Martin Puryear’s Cane
portfolio is a poetic meditation on memory, identity, and inheritance, distilled into a series of quietly powerful etchings. Drawing inspiration from Jean Toomer’s 1923 modernist masterpiece Cane, Puryear translates the novel’s fragmented lyricism and layered racial history into a visual language rooted in restraint and abstraction. Each print speaks in whispers – delicate lines, minimal forms, and haunting silhouettes that evoke both presence and absence, weight and breath. As in his sculptural work, Puryear eschews spectacle for subtlety, allowing negative space and material texture to carry emotional depth. The portfolio reads like a visual elegy; less an illustration of Toomer’s text than a parallel gesture, where history lives not in narrative, but in
form, shadow, and silence.
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Find these and other outstanding modern and contemporary prints in Heritage's Prints & Multiples Showcase Auction. The auction's session is 1:00 PM Central Time, Friday, October 17.
Sincerely,
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Frank Hettig
Vice President, Modern & Contemporary Art
Dallas
FrankH@HA.com
(214) 409-1157
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Holly Sherratt
Vice President, Modern & Contemporary Art,
San Francisco
HollyS@HA.com
(415) 548-5921
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Desiree Pakravan
Consignment Director,
Prints & Multiples,
Beverly Hills
DesireeP@HA.com
(310) 492-8621
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Rebecca Lax
Consignment Director,
Prints & Multiples,
New York
BeckyL@HA.com
(212) 486-3736
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Taylor Gattinella
Consignment Director,
Modern & Contemporary Art,
New York
TaylorG@HA.com
(212) 486-3681
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Hannah Ziesmann
Cataloger and Associate Specialist,
Fine Arts, Dallas
HannahZ@HA.com
(214) 409-1162
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