Led by a Sigmar Polke raster dot painting with a $20m estimate that would make it only the second Polke work to sell for eight-figures, Christie’s has secured the Emily and Jerry Spiegel collection for the May sales in New York. The May Evening sale will inlcude 26 works from the collection.
The Polke is matched by a Christopher Wool painting also estimated at $20m that is the family’s second major work by the artist to come to the auction block. The first of the Spiegel’s Wools re-set the prices for Wool when it was sold four years ago.
Among the other works are a Philip Guston figurative painting that could move his prices into a new register, so few of these works come to market. There’s also an early Koons work with four vacuum cleaners that will feed the end of Koons market with strong collector demand. Works by Francis Picabia, Warhol, Richter, Anselm Kiefer and Cindy Sherman round out the $100m guaranteed collection. Here’s Christie’s on the trove:
The Spiegels were internationally recognized as vanguard collectors of Post-War and Contemporary Art, who devoted the last thirty years of their lives to the patronage of and philanthropy to the arts. The Spiegels’ legendary collection of painting, sculpture, and photography comprises over 100 works that will be represented throughout Christie’s Evening and Day Sales of Post-War and Contemporary Art, as well as in a dedicated October Photographs Auction in New York. Together, the collection is expected to realize in excess of $100 million. The collection will be on view at Christie’s London April 6-11.
Alex Rotter, Chairman, Post-War and Contemporary Art, remarked “The Collection of Emily and Jerry Spiegel is one of the great examples of visionary collecting in Post-War America. The Spiegels bought Wool, Sherman, Koons, Polke and Kiefer when very few collectors had the guts to do so, and acquired works that were considered incredibly radical and fierce at the time. As a testament to their foresight, these works are just as poignant today – only now they are among the most sought after examples of contemporary art in private hands. However, the Spiegels didn’t restrict their collecting to new artists. They successfully combined threads of Pop, Minimalism and photography with cutting edge contemporary to form a collection that conveyed a deep representation of post-war art.”
