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Barney Ebsworth’s $300m Collection of American Art Debuts at Christie’s Paris

September 5, 2018 by Marion Maneker

Travel entrepreneur and art collector Barney Ebsworth built one of the leading collections of American art in private hands. He estimated that his collection had only one other rival in private hands. Among his great prizes were two of Georgia O’Keeffe’s best abstract works.

One he acquired at auction from the sale of the influential American art dealer Edith Halpert’s collection. The sale piqued O’Keeffe’s interest. Halpert had shown her work earlier in the century. The aged artist wanted to meet the man who bought Black, White and Blue.

Ebsworth declined her first few invitations to come to New Mexico. Finally, Ebsworth, who preferred to buy the work of artists who were no longer living so he didn’t have to engage with the artists, made the trek. The two hit it off. For many years after that, Ebsworth and O’Keeffe sought each other’s advice and counsel. Ebsworth was eventually called upon to mediate between the notoriously difficult artist and her long-time dealer.

Because O’Keeffe respected Ebsworth so much, she eventually sold him one of her other ‘best’ abstract works from her own holdings, Music—Pink and Blue I. Those two works might have fetched nine figure sums. Instead, they’ve been donated to museums. Black, White and Blue went to the National Gallery in Washington, along with Charles Sheeler’s Classic Landscape. The Seattle Museum got Music—Pink and Blue I and Marsden Hartley’s Painting No. 49, Berlin.

Such is the quality of the Ebsworth collection that even without those two extraordinary works, Christie’s has plenty of firepower to launch the collection. One of the lessons of Christie’s last few successes, the Leonardo and the Rockefeller Collection, has been global appeal of Western art and the need to bring that art to various cities around the world to cultivate unexpected collectors.

Today, Christie’s launches the Ebsworth collection with 11 works unveiled in Paris. From now until the end of October, the collection will travel to New York, Hong Kong, London, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In November there will be a single-owner day and evening sale of the works.

Christie’s estimates the collection will yield $300m. Rumors in the art market suggest Christie’s has guaranteed the family trust that figure. Among the eleven works touring are a Jackson Pollock estimated in the region of $50m, a Willem de Kooning Woman estimated in the region of $60m, and Edward Hopper’s Chop Suey which is estimated in the region of $70m.

Ebsworth claimed he was offered $60m for Chop Suey in the 1990s. That’s 20+ years ago and before the steep climb in international art prices. Then, again, tastes change; artists go out of fashion. Those three works with an aggregate estimate of $180m may be set to attract bidders. Ebsworth had a few other very significant works that have not been announced here.

Christie’s may be holding some of those works for later sales. Or the works might be family favorites still held by the family trust. The two works we don’t see either on the list of donations or announced for viewing in Paris are by artists with particularly active and advancing markets. We’ll be keeping our eye out for them.

In the meantime, here’s Christie’s release for the Paris show:Continue Reading

Hopper Sale to Fund Contemporary Purchases

August 28, 2013 by Marion Maneker

Edward Hopper, East Wind over Weehawken ($22-28m)

The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts is selling this Edward Hopper painting,  East Wind over Weehawken (1934), in December at Christie’s with an estimate of $22-28m following the $19m sale of Hopper’s “Blackwell’s Island” which was in turn picked up by the Crystal Bridges Museum. PAFA is keeping its other Hopper painting, Apartment Houses, which was the artist’s first work to be acquired by a museum and using the proceeds from East Wind over Weehawken to bulk up the endowment and purchase contemporary art.

The museum’s director, Harry Philbrick, wrote in PAFA’s press release:

“We are going back to our tradition of actively collecting contemporary art. Just as we purchased Apartment Houses when Hopper was still an emerging artist, we will use the proceeds from the endowment to build a broad base of the works of today’s emerging and mid-career artists, and tomorrow’s.”

He told the New York Times:

Mr. Philbrick said that if the work fetches its estimate, it will quintuple the funds generated annually for the purchase of art. About 25 percent of the endowment will be dedicated to filling gaps in the collection of historic art, but around three quarters of new investments will be in contemporary art.

The main focus will be American painting and sculpture, Mr. Philbrick said, but “we will be looking to buy significant works across various mediums.” The museum recently added a Bill Viola video installation to its collection.

Pennsylvania Museum Selling a Hopper to Raise Endowment for Contemporary Art (ArtsBeat/NYTimes)

Heirs Revolt Against Museum Storage

October 26, 2010 by Marion Maneker

Jori Finkel has an excellent story in the Los Angeles Times but the import is inverted by a little bit of cultural piety. Finkel sets up the story as terrible drain of world-class art from Los Angeles because greedy heirs of the Brody, Crichton, Hopper, Palevsky and Shapazian collections want money over making a civic contribution:

Deborah McLeod, who has worked with several of these collectors as director of Gagosian Beverly Hills, calls the exodus of artwork “a failure of our culture.”

“Unlike the East Coast, where a number of big families have the tradition of giving,” she says, “there just isn’t an ingrained philanthropic culture of supporting museums here in Los Angeles. You’ve heard people say we’re a one-philanthropist town, with Eli Broad, and that’s not so far off.”

L.A. gallery owner Louis Stern adds that museums can hardly compete with auctions now that art, especially contemporary art, routinely achieves such high prices. “Who’s going to donate an artwork when you are promised millions at market?

“The idea of selling at auction is incredibly seductive,” he adds. “The auction houses are extremely well organized, they make it their business to know all the trusts and estates lawyers. They’ve taken on this sort of quasi-official role in the art world — almost like a bank.”

Further down, an alternative theory of the crime emerges where the collectors themselves — and their heirs –rebel against the idea of their prized works ending up unseen in storage:

According to one collector’s heir, speaking on condition of anonymity out of concern for his family’s legacy, the dread of museum storage can even be incentive to sell at auction. “Many people don’t give to museums for fear that the work will end up in storage. So sending it out into the world, where it is purchased by people who want it, more or less ensures that it will be lived with.”

An Exodus of Art Work from LA (Los Angeles Times)

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