The most valuable auction of a private collection of contemporary art ever staged in London comes up at Christie’s next month when 44 works from the Essl Museum come under the hammer on October 13. They are expected to realise around £40-60 million. The collection was formed by DIY magnate Karlheinz Essl and his wife Agnes. The Essl Museum houses Austria’s largest private collection of Post-War and Contemporary Art, numbering around 7,000 pieces. They began collecting in the 1980’a and expanded into international art in the 1990’s with works by Gerhard Richter, Paul McCarthy, Louise Bourgeois, Anish Kapoor and Alighiero Boetti.
The Essls opened their museum in Klosterneuburg near Vienna in 1999. The sale will comprise of masterpieces by the giants of German Post-War and Contemporary Art including Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz, Martin Kippenberger, Sigmar Polke and Neo Rauch, as well as major works by international artists such as Cindy Sherman, Frank Stella, Louise Bourgeois and Morris Louis. The selection for sale has been carefully made from the Museum’s holding and will reflect the quality and breadth of the collection. Two works by the leading Austrian artists, Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Maria Lassnig, which reflect the Essl Museum’s reputation as the home of the greatest collection of Austrian Contemporary Art in the world, will be included. The sale of these 44 works from The Essl Collection carries a pre-sale estimate of £40,000,000-60,000,000. UPDATE: The sale totalled £46,861,500
Georg Baselitz – Fingermalerei Akt (Fingerpainting – Nude) (£800,000-1.2 million) Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2014. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £1,538,500
Sigmar Polke – Indianer mit Adler (Indian with Eagle) (£1.5-2 million). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2014. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £5,122,500