Sotheby’s announced today that it will be selling the $20m collection of Jerome and Ellen Stern once on view in their home in the Hamptons. The top lot is a David Smith sculpture that recently got a featured role in a major exhibition, according to The Art Newspaper:
One highlight of the collection is David Smith’s steel Voltri-Bolton X (1962), bought by Stern out of the artist’s studio. The sculpture had pride of place in the courtyard of the Royal Academy, London for its acclaimed Abstract Expressionism show last year and is currently on show at Chatsworth House, a stately home in Derbyshire, England, as part of Sotheby’s Beyond Limits selling exhibition. It will be offered at the auction house’s contemporary art evening sale in New York on 16 November with a $6m to $8m estimate.
The Sterns 250-work collection includes a number of Marlene Dumas works. The most valuable one being Magdalena (1995) estimated at between $3-4m.
Other big-ticket works being offered are David Hammons Untitled: a double-sided work (1975) (est $350,000-$450,000); Wangechi Mutu’s A Dragon Kiss Always Ends in Ashes (2007) (est $150,000-$200,000); and Pablo Picasso’s unusual, dark Le baiser (1930) (est $2m-$3m).
Adventurous art collection of Jerome and Ellen Stern comes to Sotheby’s (The Art Newspaper)