Sales of collectors’ estates bring pizzazz to the modern market
To find a Basquiat that has been in the same collection since it was painted, and not traded for 35 years is extremely rare
Impressionist, modern and contemporary art worth $1.8 billion (£1.4billion) goes on view on Friday in New York and, more than ever, it is evident how the passing of a generation of modern art collectors who held on to their art until ripe old age is fuelling the market.
In the Impressionist sales, Christie’s has the pick of the collections from recently deceased estates. Topping the bill is a $66million clutch of paintings by Cézanne and Van Gogh from the collection of media mogul and Condé Nast supremo, Samuel Irving “S.I.” Newhouse, who died in 2017 aged 89.
The works are a fraction of what he owned. A sumptuous bowl of fruit by Cézanne (c1888-90), which he bought above estimate (he rarely gave up bidding on what he wanted) for £18.2million ($29.5million) in 1999, is the front-runner of the sale, now estimated at $40million (£31million).
Worth a tidy $66million are paintings by Modigliani, Matisse and other Post-impressionists from the estate of Drue Heinz, the literary philanthropist and British-born wife of the food magnate Jack Heinz, who died last year aged 103. And $35million worth of art owned by the Texas oil heiress and socialite Princess “Titi” von Fürstenberg, which has only now filtered through following her death in
2006, and which rounds off the sale with a $20million Picasso portrait of his first wife, Olga, painted in 1923.
Sotheby’s Impressionist department is relying to a much greater extent on one collection, estimated at nearer $69million. Though the seller’s identity has not been revealed, the collection is thought to have been assembled by Thomas Beck, a Hungarian-born Canadian engineer who is credited with designing bulbs for Christmas tree lights. It includes the highest estimated lot of the week – $55million for one of Monet’s paintings of haystacks (1890). Beck, who died aged 90 in 2016, bought the painting in 1986 for $2.53million, and the proceeds, say Sotheby’s, will go towards not-for-profit institutions in science and music. Beck was a Life Member of the Board of the Weizmann Institute of Science and chairman of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
At Christie’s, the Newhouse collection overflows into contemporary art sales, with $64million of art led by a silver rabbit by Jeff Koons estimated at $50-70million. If it sells, it will create a new record for a sculpture by a living artist. But it has not been guaranteed and much will depend on confidence in the Koons market, which has not been watertight of late. There are no such leaks in the market for David Hockney, currently the world’s most expensive living artist. In 2000, art adviser Thea Westreich bought a piece from his paper pool series for $666,750, describing it as “a fabulous buy.” It is now expected to fetch $9-12million.
Equal in value to the Newhouse collection are a dozen works from the estate of Robert and “Buddy” Mayer, founders of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Mayer died in 1974, but his wife lived until 2016 and the age of 97. The Mayers bought mainly new work in the Sixties, direct from the artists’ galleries – the most valuable now being an 8ft silk-screen painting by Robert Rauschenberg featuring an image of JFK on the presidential campaign trail, but finished, poignantly, after he was assassinated. It is now guaranteed to fetch a record for the artist, with an estimate between $50-70million.
There’s a small Francis Bacon of a screaming Pope with an inviting $20million estimate, from the collection of the late Seattle businessman Richard Lang and his widow Jane, who died in 2017 aged 97. And $34 million of works, including a potentially record-breaking painting by Philip Guston, from the collection of the copper magnate Gerald Lennard, who died last year aged 87.
Not to be outdone, Phillips has secured a $60million collection of works by Lichtenstein, Calder, Warhol and others formed by Miles Fiterman, who died in 2004, and his widow, Shirley, who is 97. Phillips also has the most youthful estate on the market with its star lot, a $9million selfportrait by Jean-michel Basquiat, acquired by the hip-hop DJ Matt Dike when it was painted in 1983 and with him until his death from cancer last year, aged only 56.
To find an important Basquiat that has been in the same collection since it was painted, not traded for 35 years while prices have been soaring, is extremely rare and the kind of thing serious art buyers love. Of course, it is not unusual for estate sales to appear at auction, but to have so many that has not been traded for over 50 years, as we have in New York, could be a sign of the times – the passing of a generation – and a bullish sign for the market.