Basquiat bought for $20,000 could fetch $40 million at Sotheby's auction

Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting Flesh and Spirit.

A monumental work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, estimated to reap about US$30 million ($40m) at auction, is coming to Sotheby's in May.

The roughly 3.5m by 3.5m Flesh and Spirit is being sold by the estate of Dolores Ormandy Neumann, an early champion of 1980s New York graffiti artists.

It will be offered during the contemporary art sale on May 16.

The collector bought it for US$15,000 ($20,500) in 1983 - the year it was completed - from an exhibition at Tony Shafrazi Gallery, according to Sotheby's.

The painting's title was inspired by Yale University art historian Robert Farris Thompson's book Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy.

It consists of several attached canvases and includes diagrams, text and images of disconnected body parts, brain and bones.

"It's raw, and at the same time, it's elegant," said Anthony Grant, a New York-based art dealer.

"Between the iconography, scale and material, it's got everything."

It's the most expensive work by Basquiat (1960-1988) to go on the block since last May.

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa bought a painting of a skull by the artist at Sotheby's for US$110.5 million, the auction record for an American artist.

Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting Flesh and Spirit.

- Bloomberg