As New York’s autumn auctions ignite, the spotlight falls on stellar provenances, from the fabled holdings of Leonard A. Lauder and Cindy and Jay Pritzker to Surrealist treasures long hidden in private hands. These sales, unfolding as Sotheby’s settles into the history-rich Breuer building, show how an artwork’s past owners and journeys can be as decisive as the work itself. Independent art expert in Impressionist and Modern art, Aleksandra Todorovic writes about the role of provenance in appraising value.
By Aleksandra Todorovic
As the first chills and storms of winter 2025 are fast upon us, November is turning out to be a scorcher of a month on the New York auction block. This week Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Phillips and Bonhams will, between them, offer for sale hundreds of major works of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Art. Aside from the sheer volume, this season promises to be exceptional, for the most part, due to one factor: the number of high-profile art collections with an astounding quality of art works. It is a story of provenance, pedigree and unparalleled calibre and, in spite of the global insecurity, it is expected that new auction records will be reached. The auction executives are boldly banking on it with already record-breaking pre-sale estimates.
Turning on its head the artworld gloom that has been setting in over the past year, Sotheby’s announcements of major private collections consigned for the autumn season came in one on the heels of another. The fabled Leonard A. Lauder art trove, described by the auction house as ‘a one-in-a-generation collection of 20th century masterpieces’, not only opens Sotheby's auction week, it launches its new headquarters in the historical Breuer building on Madison Avenue. Billionaire businessman and philanthropist Leonard A. Lauder, who died in June this year, was the son of Estée Lauder and brother of Ronald Lauder, co-founder and president of the Neue Galerie, which showcases his own major art collection and is situated just a few blocks up on 5th Avenue. Led by the monumental and exquisite portrait of Elisabeth Lederer by Gustav Klimt, the group also includes two beautiful landscapes by Klimt as well as notable works by Picasso, Matisse, Munch, Calder and Agnes Martin, among others.
An exceptionally rare still-life of books by Van Gogh, first exhibited at the 1888 Salon des Indépendants, and Matisse’s strikingly modern painting ‘Leda and the Swan’ are the highlights of the collection of Cindy and Jay Pritzker, also going under the hammer this season. Known for their philanthropy and public engagement, the Pritzkers’ name is heavily emblazoned across Chicago’s civic institutions: the Jay A. Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, the Pritzker Garden at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Pritzker Family Children’s Zoo, to name a few.
So why is it that the name Lauder or Pritzker adds to the value or desirability of these exquisite works of art, and what makes the collections worth more than the sum of their parts? Instinct might tell us that offering so many masterpieces in a single auction week bears the risk of ‘flooding’ the market, but while the intrinsic value of each of these works without doubt lies in a complex web of qualities and their unique historical, cultural, aesthetic, intellectual and emotional significance, a distinguished provenance adds to a work’s desirability in multiple ways.
In recent years, the significance of provenance has been discussed primarily in the context of its role of establishing authenticity, as well as ascertaining that a work has not been subject to looting or a coerced sale in the Nazi era. If we look beyond these essential practical aspects of provenance, we will see that there are other, more subtle elements at play. For one thing, if a work comes from a major collection that took decades if not half a century to assemble, it is likely that it has not been on the market for a considerable amount of time. This implies both rarity and freshness, qualities increasingly valued by buyers.
In 2013, it was announced that Leonard Lauder had pledged his unparalleled Cubist art collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and it is now part of the museum’s permanent holdings. Purchasing a work of art from the same distinguished trove brings an opportunity to fortify one’s own standing among the world’s rarest and most prestigious art collections, and creates valuable new connections and meanings.
By its nature, a work of art is firmly rooted in the historical and cultural moment of its creation. However, with time, as it passes through various hands or is included in exhibitions, new threads are woven into the fabric of its unique aura. With the passing of a collector, their ownership of a work of art becomes part of cultural history; a potential new owner now gets a chance not only to become a temporary custodian of the work, but also to weave their own name into that historical context, into the artwork’s story.
Another distinguished private collection, this one comprising many masterpieces of Surrealist art, will be offered at Sotheby’s under the title ‘Exquisite Corpus’, a pun on the Surrealists’ collaborative game cadavre exquis (‘exquisite corpse’). Seminal works by major artists including Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Frida Kahlo, Dorothea Tanning, René Magritte, Yves Tanguy and many others are the backbone of the collection that was lovingly assembled some fifty years ago and last publicly exhibited over a quarter of a century ago. Whilst this collection is sold anonymously, it illustrates the key importance of a different aspect of provenance - the earliest ownership of a work of art, after it left the artist’s studio.
Whilst works of modern and Surrealist art often went straight to the artists’ dealers such as the now-legendary Alexander Iolas or Pierre Matisse, both of whom were instrumental in promoting European avant-garde artists in America, there are many works here with diverse and colourful provenance. Dorothea Tanning’s ‘Interior with Sudden Joy’ was first owned by William N. Copley, one of the early patrons of the Surrealists who supported them both through collecting their art and exhibiting it at his eponymous Beverly Hills gallery, and who himself was a painter of erotic imagery. The first owner of Max Ernst’s ‘J’ai bu du tabourin, j’ai mangé du cimbal’ was Gypsy Rose Lee, one of Ernst’s first significant American clients best known as a popular burlesque entertainer, an often-arrested striptease dancer and one of the most flamboyant and decadent personalities of her time. She was not only painted by Ernst in a stunning oil ‘Gypsy Rose Lee’ of 1943, but was also photographed for Paris Match surrounded by her art collection, including the Ernst that now hangs at Sotheby’s - an auction cataloguer’s dream find!
Another art patron painted by a Surrealist friend was the French architect and interior designer Emilio Terry, the first owner of Dalí’s ‘Symbiose de la tête aux coquillages’, one of the collection’s highlights. Magritte’s ‘La Révélation du présent’ was first in the collection of E.L.T. Mesens, a Belgian artist and writer who was one of Magritte’s closest friends and associates and who came up with titles for many of his compositions. The list could go on, providing a ‘Who’s Who’ of intellectuals and patrons gathered around Surrealist circles, but let’s finish with Giorgio de Chirico’s ‘Le Muse inquietanti’, which was commissioned from the artist by none other than the movement’s leader and theorist André Breton, arguably the holy grail of provenance for a Surrealist work of art.
It’s an autumn of coveted provenances, and not only for the art: there is Sotheby’s newly launched headquarters, the famous historical Breuer building on Madison Avenue. Built by Marcel Breuer & Associates and known to this day by the name of its avant-garde creator, the Breuer was originally designed for the Whitney Museum of American Art, which occupied the building from its inauguration in 1966 until 2014. It was Marcel Breuer’s first museum commission, and is today his only remaining work in Manhattan. The Bauhaus-trained architect designed the Whitney building in Brutalist style, defined by its simple geometric shapes, its top-heavy form that defies traditional rules of architecture, and its use of exposed raw concrete.
By the time of its relocation from considerably smaller and inadequate premises to the monumental and ground-breaking Breuer building in 1966, the Whitney Museum had accumulated an impressive and ever-growing art collection. Jacqueline Kennedy, who was among its board members, was in attendance at the opening ceremony. Almost half a century later, as Whitney outgrew the building and moved to its current premises in the Meatpacking District, the Breuer building became known as Met Breuer, housing the Metropolitan Museum’s contemporary art collection between 2016 and 2020. In 2021 the building reopened as Frick Madison, temporary home of the Frick Collection during the renovation of its own historic premises a few blocks away.
The Frick vacated the Breuer building last year and moved back into its newly renovated home. By relocating to the Breuer - at the heart of the Museum Mile - Sotheby’s is not only moving its international headquarters into the epicentre of the art world, at a short distance from many of New York’s major museums as well as commercial galleries. It is also positioning itself within a unique lineage of distinguished art institutions that have occupied the Breuer building over the nearly sixty years of its existence - a provenance of giants. Renovations completed and pictures hung, on 8th November Sotheby’s opened the doors to its new galleries. The rest shall become history.
