Andy Warhol Flowers acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas (£3,000,000-4,000,000). Click on image to enlarge. UPDATE: THIS MADE £3,737,250.
Artworks and objects from the remarkable collection of the late playboy, photographer and style icon Gunter Sachs will be offered by Sotheby’s in London on May 22-23 next. More than 300 lots are on offer in a sale expected to make over £20 million. Collecting categories from Surrealism and Nouveau Realism, to Pop Art, Art Deco, Furniture and Graffiti and estimates are from £50 up to £3 million. In his capacity as a collector he was both passionate and a pioneer who accumulated a renowned avant-garde assemblage of art and furniture over 50 years. He believed that art should be lived with.
Cheyenne Westphal, Chairman of Contemporary Art Sotheby’s Europe, said: “Sotheby’s is tremendously privileged to have been entrusted with the sale of this remarkable collection, which truly captures the essence of Gunter Sachs’ life in the 1960s and 1970s and reveals his little-known side as one of the most visionary and influential collectors of the 20th century. The confluence of zeitgeist, exceptional provenance and arresting images of style-icon Gunter Sachs and movie star Brigitte Bardot – his second wife – by the hottest artists and most accomplished photographers of their time, including Andy Warhol and Richard Avedon, makes this assemblage among the most desirable single owner collections ever to come to market.”
At the core of the collection is an exceptional group of Pop Art masterpieces by Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselman and Roy Lichtenstein acquired in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s. In 1972 Sachs presented Warhol’s first large exhibition in Europe in Hamburg. Not a single picture sold on the opening night so Sachs secretly purchased half the works to save the embarrassment of admitting this to his friend Andy. Years later Sachs thanked the people of Hamburg for their then still-dormant interest in Pop Art, enabling him to make one of the smartest collecting decisions of his life. Warhol’s flower painting is one of the only six works in this format. There are landmark pieces of 20th century design, including work by artisan furniture makers like Louis Marjorelle, Emille-Jacques Ruhlmann, Edgar Brandt and Diego Giacometti.
UPDATE: – The Evening Sale of the Gunter Sachs Collection brought IN £35,628,250 – well above the pre-sale high estimate of £25 million. Over 90% of lots were sold.
Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann Secrétaire desk 1928 (£300,000-400,000), Click to enlarge. UPDATE: THIS MADE £361,250.
Lucio Fontana Concetto Spaziale 1961 (£700,000-900,000). Click to enlarge. UPDATE: THS MADE £802,000