Sotheby’s lands $400mn Emily Fisher Landau collection
Intimate Picassos offered by Ward Moretti; Christie’s set to make Paula Rego record; new ‘non-fair’ for London
‘Femme à la montre’ by Pablo Picasso (1932) © Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s has announced it will be offering the $400mn-plus collection of about 120 works that belonged to the Manhattan patron of the arts Emily Fisher Landau, who died in March, aged 102. Two dedicated auctions, on November 8-9, both guaranteed, should give the art market a necessary boost after a weaker season before the summer break.
A longtime trustee of and significant donor to the Whitney Museum of American Art, Fisher Landau stands out as “one of the foremost female collectors of the 20th century”, says Brooke Lampley, global head of Sotheby’s fine art division. “She bought like a museum, as if she had its benefit of hindsight.”
Fisher Landau began collecting art in earnest after a jewellery theft from her New York home in 1969 resulted in a hefty insurance payout. Her collection at Sotheby’s spans major postwar artists — including Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko and Georgia O’Keeffe — and more recent success stories, such as Glenn Ligon, Nan Goldin and Mark Tansey.
Sotheby’s top estimate by far is reserved for Picasso’s “Femme à la montre”, a bold painting of Marie-Thérèse Walter from the artist’s celebrated year of 1932, priced at more than $120mn. Fisher Landau bought the work in 1968 from Pace.
There are more works in the collection, some of which are being kept by Landau Fisher’s daughter, with others expected to come to market, though Sotheby’s could not confirm.
‘Dora au chignon’ by PIcasso (1937) © Succession/DACS
Picasso is the star of a different sort of sale this season — that of the Dutch couple Pieter and Olga Dreesmann, who are offering 32 of the artist’s works on paper, ceramics and sculptures through Ward Moretti. The exhibition opens in London on October 9, before travelling to the gallery’s new space in Paris and then to New York, where co-founder Emma Ward has rented a gallery on the Upper East Side for the show (November 6-18).
The earliest work in the collection is a drawing of Picasso’s friend and fellow young artist, Carles Casagemas (1899-1900), used as the image alongside the sitter’s obituary after he died by suicide in 1901. A sheet-metal sculpture, “Tête d’homme barbu” (1962), is the latest work in the exhibition, with other highlights including an unusually tender drawing of Dora Maar from 1937, bought from the sitter’s estate in 1998. Such intimate works “could get lost in an auction environment”, Ward says.
The Dreesmanns say they are selling the works to “begin a new chapter in our lives as collectors”, something they have done before, with the £25.3mn sale of their Dutch Old Master paintings in 2012. Their Picasso collection is valued at more than $40mn, Ward says, with individual prices ranging from $12,500 to $3.5mn.
‘Dancing Ostriches from Walt Disney’s “Fantasia”’ by Paula Rego (1995)
Christie’s has landed Paula Rego’s majestic two-part pastel “Dancing Ostriches from Walt Disney’s ‘Fantasia’” (1995), which it will offer in London next month with an estimate of £2.2mn-£3.2mn — it would mark a record public price for the Anglo-Portuguese artist. The work was originally commissioned by London’s Hayward Gallery for its 1996 Spellbound: Art and Film exhibition.
Rego used her favourite model, Lila Nunes, for the ballet dancers, who come across as “deeply human and rooted, with a real physical presence”, says Tessa Lord, Christie’s interim head of postwar and contemporary art. Rego is a relative rarity at auction, partly accounting for what Lord describes as her being “slightly undervalued” on the public market. Her record stands at £1.1mn, made in 2015 for “The Cadet and his Sister” (1988).
The first international outpost of Stuart Shave’s Modern Art gallery in a Haussmann-designed building on Place de l’Alma, Paris
Stuart Shave will open the first international outpost of his Modern Art gallery in Paris, joining the incoming Hauser & Wirth and Mendes Wood in the French capital next month. Modern Art’s 2,000 sq ft, second-floor space will be in a Haussmann-designed building on Place de l’Alma in the city’s central eighth arrondissement.
Shave says that the move has been in the planning for a few years — “most of my artists don’t have representation in Paris” — but that it wasn’t a Brexit-motivated decision. The aim is for the Paris gallery to “complement” what he is doing in London, given the proximity of the two cities, he says. The UK capital, where he has two galleries, is “still the best city in the world for contemporary art”.
Each location will function very differently, Shave adds — the Paris gallery will host about three shows per year, versus more than a dozen in London, and will be by appointment only. He opens on October 16 with a group show including Eva Rothschild, Mohammed Sami and Sanya Kantarovsky. Modern Art is not joining this year’s coinciding Paris+ par Art Basel fair as, Shave says, “I am really mindful about what we take on.”
‘Collision’ by Savannah Marie Harris (2023)
The London gallerist Jonny Tanna, founder of Harlesden High Street, is behind what he is calling a “new non-fair”. Minor Attractions groups 20 galleries across two locations in Soho and London Bridge during Frieze week (October 10-15). Tanna says that the non-fair aspects include free entry and a more informal, socially focused event. “We’ll put up the works and have a party,” he says. Tanna compares the vibe to the recently founded, and well-received, Basel Social Club.
Tanna’s inspiration came from his own experience of the art world, which he joined after battling what he describes as “a gambling problem for 10 years”. Volunteering in galleries afterwards, he initially found “a lot of snootiness in a world that was hard to navigate” and set out “to do the opposite and erase elitism”.
Tanna is, however, delighted that Harlesden High Street has been accepted into the hallowed halls of this year’s Frieze London. Here, he will present a project that replicates the set of the US programme The Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson Show, a long-running community TV show that used puppets and songs to spread the word to children. It will have works by recent graduates Hamed Maiye and Mattia Guarnera-MacCarthy (under £10,000), as well as the artist — and the show’s puppeteer — David Liebe Hart. Tanna will also show in the London Bridge venue of Minor Attractions (called Cornershop), with the painter Savannah Marie Harris (£6,000-£12,000).