Sotheby’s Sets Pre-Opening Peek at Sales

Sotheby’s auction house won’t officially open its new facility in Beverly Hills until an Oct. 18 ribbon-cutting ceremony, but the public will get its first look this week with a preview of upcoming events. Doors will open Friday with a free exhibition of prints, photographs and jewelry to be offered at sales this month.

The move signals an increased local presence for the auction house, which closed its Los Angeles operation in 1982, retrenched in small offices on Rodeo Drive and began conducting print sales last year. The recently renovated 13,000-square-foot space, at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Bedford Drive, includes offices, galleries, a sale room and the West Coast headquarters of Sotheby’s International Realty Inc.

“We have space to exhibit large contemporary pieces, hold educational seminars and conduct regional auctions,” Andrea Van de Kamp, Sotheby’s managing director, said. In addition to its sales activities, Sotheby’s expects to present programs on collecting, conservation and other subjects of interest to the art world, she said. At the inaugural exhibition, jewelry collectors can check out $200 brooches, $2,000 wristwatches and a platinum, pear-shaped diamond ring valued at $30,000-$40,000--all of which will go on the block on Wednesday.

For fine-arts aficionados, there’s a sampling of 19th-, 20th-Century and contemporary prints and photographs, to be auctioned next Thursday. Among highlights are Roy Lichtenstein’s “Peace Through Chemistry II,” a lithograph and silk-screen published in 1970 by Gemini G.E.L. ($20,000-$30,000); Frank Stella’s 1982 woodcut and relief-printed etching “Talladega Five I” ($20,000-$25,000); Edward Ruscha’s 1968 “Hollywood” silk-screen ($20,000-$25,000); two color lithographs by Jasper Johns, “Cicada,” printed in 1981, and a 1979 work, “Periscope I” ($18,000-$20,000 apiece), and Russian avant-garde artist El Lissitzky’s 1923 color lithograph “Globetrotter” ($12,000-$15,000).

Photographs include “Beach Equipment,” a color carbro print produced by Paul Outerbridge around 1936 for House Beautiful and valued at $10,000-$15,000, plus dozens of images by well-known artists, expected to sell in the range of $1,000-$5,000.

* Sotheby’s auction preview exhibition, 9665 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. Friday through Tuesday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Information: (310) 274-0340.