Lindsay Pollock reports on Bloomberg that auction plans have been made to clear some of the 3000 works of art owned by Lehman Brothers. The sale is hardly a blockbuster with the average price of works in the range of $1500 but that’s what it takes to fill lots of international investment banking offices with passable wall decorations:

Lehman will begin selling its multimillion-dollar corporate art collection in a series of three sales at Freeman’s Auctioneers in Philadelphia this winter.

Lehman is shedding 650 lots, projected to fetch a total of $1 million. They include modern and contemporary paintings, prints and drawings, along with a smaller group of American and European paintings and prints from Lehman’s New York, Boston and Delaware offices. Sales are scheduled for Nov. 1, Dec. 6 and Feb. 12, 2010.

“We tried to price things consistent with what they will bring in the current market,’’ said Anne Henry, Freeman’s vice president of modern and contemporary works of art. “There’s a lot of really attractive work at affordable levels.’’ […]

Items in the November sale range from an abstract 2007 black-and-blue collage by Venezuelan artist Arturo Herrera, estimated to sell for as much as $15,000, to a surreal 1997 Louise Bourgeois print of an undulating bed with lips for as much as $1,500.

The firm’s art collection consists mostly of European and American art from the 1970s onwards. Willie Cole and French sculptor Bernar Venet are among those offered in this first round of selling. […]

“At the moment, it doesn’t look like a good time for sellers,’’ said New York private dealer Meredith Palmer. “I don’t anticipate they are going to get good prices for a lot of these things.’’

Lehman Mounts Art Bargain Auction with Lichtenstein, Bourgeois (Bloomberg)