Sotheby's to Offer Property from the Estate of Theodore J. Forstmann - Spring 2012
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Sotheby’s New York to OfferProperty from the Estate of Theodore J. Forstmann
NEW YORK, SPRING 2012
Led by Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary ArtFrom Iconic Artists Including
Picasso, Soutine, Miró, Lichtenstein, Basquiat and Gorky
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE COLLECTION TO BE EXHIBITED IN LOS ANGELESHONG KONG AND LONDON IN ADVANCE OF THE SALE
20 March 2012 – Sotheby’s is honored to announce that it willoffer Property from the Estate of Theodore J. Forstmann, the
legendary financier and well known American philanthropist. Mr.
Forstmann was also a collector of great connoisseurship and
refinement, whose collecting interests spanned Impressionist and
Modern art, Contemporary art, American art and Latin American
art. A significant group of works will highlight Sotheby’s
Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 2 May 2012 and
includes Pablo Picasso’s portrait of Dora Maar titled Femme
assise dans un fauteuil, which exemplifies the artist’s wartime
work and his passionate exchange with Dora Maar (pictured right,
est. $20/30 million*). Chaïm Soutine’s Le chausseur de chez
Maxim’s is a masterwork of Expressionism and arguably the crowning achievement of the artist’s career (est.
$10/15 million), and Soutine’s Le Chasseur (est. $4/6 million), both done in Paris in the 1920s will be major
For Immediate ReleasePress Release New York
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highlights, as will be Tête humaine, a prime example of Joan Miró’s formative output of the 1930s (est.
$10/15 million). Outstanding works by Lichtenstein, Basquiat and Gorky will be included in Sotheby’s
Contemporary Art Evening Auction on 9 May 2012. These works will be sold across a series of sales at
Sotheby’s in New York through May 2012, and are estimated in excess of $75 million.
“Teddy Forstmann strove for excellence in business and in life, which
carried through effortlessly into his art collecting,” commented Stephane
Connery, Executive Vice President at Sotheby’s New York. “He
constantly reevaluated and refined his collection, keeping it fresh, fluid
and ever-evolving. He truly lived with and appreciated his works, often
rearranging them to explore new contexts and connections. Teddy had a
passion for strong, powerful images with Expressionist tendencies, and
this common thread runs throughout the works on offer this spring –
from the two commanding Soutine canvases, to Picasso’s ever-powerful
portrait of Dora Maar, to the charged works by Miró and Basquiat.”
Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale – New York, 2 May 2012
A group of seventeen works from the Collection will open the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on May
2nd, led by Pablo Picasso’s Femme assise dans un fauteuil from 1941 (pictured page 1, est. $20/30 million).
As the tensions of the late 1930s gave way to war, Picasso’s paintings communicated the immediacy of his time.These emotions are felt most intensely in the portraits of his muse and lover during the war, Dora Maar, who is
unmistakably the model for this work. Painted the same year as the artist’s masterful Dora Maar au chat, sold at
Sotheby’s in 2006 for $95.2 million, the present canvas exemplifies the brilliance of Picasso’s wartime oeuvre.
Le chasseur de chez Maxim’s is one of Chaïm Soutine’s most striking
paintings, and was purchased by Mr. Forstmann in 2004 for a then-record
auction price for the artist of $6.7 million (pictured above, est. $10/15
million). The artist’s portraits of anonymous sitters exude an emotional force
unique within the history of 20th century art, and the dynamic brushwork
and bold coloring of the present example position it at the pinnacle of this
series. Le Chasseur is another extraordinary example of Soutine’s work
from the 1920s (pictured right, est. $4/6 million). The artist chose
vernacular subjects as a source of inspiration for his most successful works,
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characterized by strong contrasts of color, commanding presence, and rhythmically charged brushstrokes.
Surrealist works in the collection will be led by Joan Miró’s Tête humaine,
which provides a rare glimpse into artist’s personal iconography (est.
$10/15 million). Miró painted Tête humaine in 1931 during an intensely
creative moment in his career, in which he broke away from discernible
influences and created a wholly unique visual language. Here he provides
an eloquent dialogue between precise painting and the incorporation of
found objects. Though redolent of both Dadaism and Surrealism, Tête
humaine transcends the movements that dominated European Modernism
at the time with a visionary expression.
The Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale will also offer significant works by
other iconic artists, including Paul Gauguin’s Cabane sous les arbres from his
Tahitian period (pictured right, est. $5/7 million), Kees van Dongen’s
L’Équilibriste that was painted at the height of the artist’s Fauve years (pictured
page 5, est. $4/6 million), and Pierre Bonnard’s Femme sortant du bain, an
example of his renowned female nudes (pictured page 5, est. $3/5 million). The
evening auction will also offer a suite of ten important lithographs by Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec – Mr. Forstmann purchased Elles (Wittrock 155-165) atSotheby’s May 1999 auction of Impressionist and Modern Art from the
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney (est. $400/600,000).
Contemporary Art Evening Auction – New York, 9 May 2012
The following week, Sotheby’s will offer three outstanding
paintings by Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Arshile
Gorky. The group will be led by Lichtenstein’s Sailboats III, an
interpretation of a theme that has been explored by artists for
centuries (est. $6/8 million). In this and other series the artist
worked on in the early and mid-1970s, he looked to the Cubists
as well as more traditional paintings for inspiration. Sailboats III is
the most evolved work from this series, and stands as a seminal
composition of movement, geometry and color.
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The Ring from 1981 is a striking self-portrait by Basquiat, which portrays
the artist as a warrior poised for battle in the boxing ring, his arrow raised
and ready to strike (est. $4/6 million). The work offers a rare insight into
the mind of one of the 20th century’s most acclaimed yet tormented
artists. Arshile Gorky’s Khorkom stands at the crossroads of European
Surrealism and American Abstract Expressionism, painted during a time
when the artist was looking to memories of his childhood in Armenia to
inform his works (pictured below, est. $3/4 million). The Surrealist
movement that was gaining traction in New York in the 1930s was a
major influence, and helped the artist to develop his individual style of
painting. Traces of Cubism also can be seen in Gorky’s paintings from the 1930s, including the present work.
Theodore J. Forstmann
Theodore J. Forstmann was the senior founding partner of the preeminent investment firm Forstmann Little &
Co. and the Chairman and CEO of IMG Worldwide Holdings, Inc. Forstmann was a pioneer of the leveraged
buyout and a forerunner in the development of private equity as an industry who, for more than three decades,
compiled an unparalleled record of investment performance which generated superior returns for Forstmann
Little’s investors. His impact was profound: Mayor Michael Bloomberg commented, “Teddy saw the world
more clearly than most people – and the thing that I admired most about him is that he always had the courageto act on his convictions.”
Nowhere was that conviction more lasting or meaningful than in his philanthropy. Mr. Forstmann was a founder
and major contributor to numerous philanthropic causes, with a
particular focus on helping disadvantaged children all over the
world. In 1998 he co-founded the Children’s Scholarship Fund
(CSF), the country’s largest charity helping parents send their
children to the schools of their choice. CSF is heralded not only
for changing the lives of thousands of children, but also for
spotlighting the huge demand for educational alternatives to the
current system. His tireless efforts to improve the lives of
children expanded well beyond the United States and were truly extraordinary in scope. As a Director of the
International Rescue Committee, he established a medical program for war-injured children in Bosnia. And as
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the only non-African Trustee of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, he
worked to relieve the plight of South African street children by providing
education, shelter and medical care. As Mayor Bloomberg recalled:
“Teddy was an outsider to the end – because he knew that was where you
had to be if you wanted to change the world. And Teddy wanted not only
to change the world – he wanted to save it. Teddy always said if you save
one child, you save the world. And Teddy saved the world many times
over.”
Calendar of Sales
Prints – New York, 26 & 27 April 2012
Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale – New York, 2 May 2012
Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale – New York, 3 May 2012
Contemporary Art Evening Auction – New York, 9 May 2012
Contemporary Art Day Auction – New York, 10 May 2012
American Art – New York, 17 May 2012
Latin American Art – New York, 24 May 2012Modern & Post-War British Art – London, 13 November 2012
*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium
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