Drue Heinz’s art collection sells for more than $81 million
The sale Monday of the late Drue Heinz’s personal art collection at Christie’s in New York generated more than $81 million — including a record price for a painting by Pierre Bonnard, the French post-impressionist.
The sale Monday attracted collectors partly because many of the artworks were unavailable for more than half a century and created by some of the world’s bestknown artists, said Jessica Fertig, senior vice president and head of the impressionist and modern art evening sale at Christie’s.
A literary benefactor and philanthropist, Mrs. Heinz, was 103 when she died in March 2018 at Hawthornden, a medieval castle in the rural village of Lasswade, Scotland. Before her death, she established one-month fellowships that provide writers with accommodation and food while they write at the castle. Some of the auction proceeds will fund those fellowships.
She married H.J. “Jack” Heinz II in 1953 and the couple were together for 34 years. They enjoyed collecting art and skiing, and their social circle included Princess Margaret, the late sister of Queen Elizabeth II; British Prime Minister Winston Churchill; authors Antonia Fraser and Truman Capote; pop artist Andy Warhol; and actor Rex Harrison.
The auction set a world record for “La Terrasse,” a Bonnard painting with a pre-sale estimate ranging from $5 million to $8 million.
The buyer paid $19.5 million for the large canvas that depicts a scene in the southern French town of Grasse, where perfume is made. In the painting, Bonnard stands on a terrace.
“Drue was collecting in such an intelligent way and with such a keen eye. She would hang Renoir and Degas in the same room with Bonnard and Monet and Picasso,” Ms. Fertig said.
The auction catalog noted that if Mrs. Heinz was not quite ready when guests arrived, she instructed her staff to “show them the pictures, and I will be down.’’
A portrait by Amedeo Modigliani of his friend and model, Lunia Czechowska, sold for $25.2 million.
A nude by Henri Matisse fetched $6.5 million, less than the estimated pre-sale prices that ranged from a low of $7 million to a high of $10 million.
But a Rene Magritte artwork brought the secondhighest price ever realized for a sculpture by the artist.
“Magritte sculptures of this scale don’t come on the market all that often,” Ms. Fertig said.
The whimsical Magritte sculpture, titled “La Therapeute,” sold for $2.65 million. It shows a man’s hat and coat draped over a bird cage.
An Alberto Giacometti sculpture had a low estimate of $1.8 million and sold for $5.2 million.
In Pittsburgh, Mrs. Heinz established the Drue Heinz Prize for Literature and was the major benefactor of Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures, which presents a series of evenings with 10 prominent authors each year.
Mrs. Heinz served on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Royal Academy in London. She endowed the Heinz Architectural Center at Carnegie Museum of Art to honor the memory of her husband, who died in 1987. He was the father of U.S. Sen H. John Heinz III.
Although a news release from the Los Angeles-based Sunshine Sachs public relations firm said that proceeds from the auction would benefit the Heinz Family Foundation, that could not be confirmed Friday.
“Neither the Heinz Family Foundation or the Heinz Endowments are recipients of monies from the Drue Heinz auction,” said John Ellis, a spokesman for the Heinz Endowments. “At the moment, we don’t have information as to what entity or entities may receive any monies that are disbursed.”
On June 4 in London, Christie’s will auction Mrs. Heinz’s decorative arts collection and furniture from her townhouses in London and New York, where interiors were by John Fowler and Renzo Mongiardino. Also in London, on June 17, Christie’s will sell Mrs. Heinz’s art at its Modern British Art evening sale.