Sotheby’s New York autumn season will be led by “The Triumph of Painting: The Steven and Ann Ames Collection”. The landmark collection, assembled by the New York patrons of the arts, philanthropists and collectors, tells the story of painting over the past 50 years through masterpieces by Robert Ryman, Georg Baselitz, Willem de Kooning, Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, Philip Guston and others. Overall, the works are estimated to fetch in excess of $100 million in sales of Contemporary Art on November 17 bd 18,
At the core of the collection are outstanding works by two giants of 20th-century painting: Gerhard Richter and Willem de Kooning. Richter was one of the first painters to spark the couple’s interest after they fell in love with his work in the 1980s; indeed Steven wrote his thesis on the artist to earn his Master’s degree in Art History at Columbia University. The evening auction on November 17 will include Richter canvases from every major period of his career covering his full exploration of the medium – abstract, landscape, portraiture, conceptual and more. Robert Ryman and others then entered the collection before the Ames’s sought out paintings by Willem de Kooning, seeking to connect the legacies of these different artists and bridge the stylistic gaps between them.
UPDATE: THE AMES COLLECTION PART 1 BROUGHT IN $122.8 MILLION
Gerhard Richter A.B., St. James 1988 ($20.30 million) UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $22.7 MILLION
Gerhard Richter A.B., Still 1986 ($20-30 million) UPDATE: THIS MADE $33.9 MILLION
