NEW YORK, NY.- Phillips de Pury & Company announced the highlights of the forthcoming New York Modern and Contemporary Editions sale to be held at Phillips de Pury & Company’s Chelsea galleries on June 2, 2009.

The third sale from the dynamic Modern and Contemporary Editions department will offer a multitude of buying opportunities of quality works at many price levels and spans icon images and artists through offbeat, up-and-coming names at affordable estimates.

Featured on the front and back covers of the auction catalogue will be part of a portfolio of 7 lithographs by Richard Tuttle titled Censorship, 2003 which will be offered for the first time at auction with an estimate between $3,000-4,000. The beautiful litho washes are abstracted and titled with each day of the week. This choice typifies the department’s goal of offering pieces that highlight print and multiple making in their most classically beautiful sense. Censorship marks a return to focus on the image and object in a classic collecting sense – for the pleasure and reward of doing so.

Color plays a dynamic part in the overall visual appeal of the sale with various images by cutting-edge artist, Mary Heilman and Kelley Walker’s CD-rom printable Maui, 2002 estimated between $1,500-2,000. Surface textures become interest points in examples by Conrad Marca-Relli Autumn Suite, 1974 with 6 collaged lithographs estimated between $4,000 -6,000 and Günther Förg’s Untitled (bronze), 1988, a bronze wall relief estimated between $3,000 -4,000. Terry Winters’ mixograph Metal Virus, 2003 produced at Mixografia in Los Angeles, the pioneering printmaking facility which invented the process of mixing inks and paper pulp to create elegant and substantial works of art will be offered with a pre sale estimate between $2,500-3,500.

Minimalism is highlighted by Donald Judd’s aluminum wall object Untitled (New Museum Multiple), 1986 estimated between $20,000 - 30,000 and works by Agnes Martin, Ellsworth Kelly and Josef Albers.

Gestural abstractions of the natural world in lithographs by Joan Mitchell and Willem de Kooning reach a more frenzied height with three works by Julie Mehretu and Lee Bontecou’s largest print to date, nearly 8 feet tall, (An Untitled Pint), 1981-82 and printed at ULAE on Long Island, New York is estimated between $9,000 -12,000.

The sale takes a wandering route through playful and serious mid-century Modern prints and objects by Joan Miro, Jean Arp, Harry Bertoia, Stanley Hayter and Victor Vasarely.

Multiple objects such as Louise Nevelson’s Night Leaf, 1969 estimated between $2,000-3,000; Tom Friedman’s Untitled, 2002 estimated between $2,500 - 3,500 which is a stack of 75 Styrofoam cups and Roy Lichtenstein’s Tea Set, 1984 estimated between $15,000 - 20,000 will be offered alongside works by Ken Price and Paul McCarthy.

Allen Ruppersberg and Richard Artschwager face off with book and literature themed multiple objects: Siste Viator, 1993 estimated between $2,000-3,000 comprising two WWII era bookends and 20 book facsimiles/vintage book plates vs. Book, 1987, a Formica covered wood open book estimated between $5,000-7,000.

Two lots by Martin Kippenberger show us his wide ranging idiosyncratic abilities – one in the form a reappropriating another artist’s work (Imi Knoebel) by using 9 stretchers wrapped in plastic and latex tape titled Tic-Tac-Toe, Tae-Kwon-Doe, 1990 estimated between $8,000--12,000 and the other, a traditional intaglio print employing etching and aquatint, Untitled (Self-Portrait), 1997 is estimated between $8,000-12,000.

A quietly elegant grouping of black, white and grey prints focusing on artists known for their draftsmanship, are grouped together in examples by Jasper Johns’ The Seasons, a large scale etching from 1989 estimated between $20,000 - 30,000; Lucian Freud’s After Chardin (Small Plate), 2000, etching estimated between $5,000-7,000l; Henri Matisse’s Figure Endormie, Châle sur les Jambes, 1929 lithograph estimated between $14,000 - 18,000) and a Vija Celmins ocean surface image.

A group of Kiki Smith female figures and portraits provide a wide ranging overview of the artists printed oeuvre. Highlighted is the pair (being sold separately) Ballerina (Stretching Right) and Ballerina (Stretching Left), 2000, two aquatints with collaged tissue paper creating their tutus and areas of gold glitter hand applied on top, each estimated between $3,500 – 4,500.

Bruce Nauman’s Dead and Ah ha, both done in 1975 are two from the group of iconic aggressive images and early printmaking produced at Gemini in Los Angeles and titled loosely as from the Sundry Obras Nuevas (Various New Works) series—a title used to unify a wide range of imagery.

An examination of Chuck Close portraits appear in three different versions: large and small formats; different mediums: lithography, photography, etching and screen print and cover recent projects by the artist. The impressively large 2007 screen print, Self-Portrait measures 75 x 58 inches and is estimated between $50,000 - 70,000.

Keith Haring’s Untitled I-VI the complete set of 6 large early black and white lithographs from 1982 is estimated between $15,000 - 20,000.

A complete set of 10, in excellent condition of Andy Warhol’s Electric Chairs is estimated at $40,000 - 60,000— the lowest the set has been estimated at since 2003. Also included in the sale are a number of images by Pop icons Tom Wesselmann, Alex Katz, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Larry Rivers, Richard Hamilton, James Rosenquist and Jim Dine.