sotheby's to offer property from the estate of theodore j. forstmann - spring 2012

8/2/2019 Sotheby's to Offer Property from the Estate of Theodore J. Forstmann - Spring 2012

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/sothebys-to-offer-property-from-the-estate-of-theodore-j-forstmann- 1/5

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

New York | +1 212 606 7176 | Diana Phillips | [email protected] | Lauren Gioia | [email protected] | Darrell Rocha | [email protected]

London | +44 (0)20 7293 6000 | Matthew Weigman | [email protected] | Simon Warren | [email protected]



2

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,



3

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.



4

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



5

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

# # #

sotheby's to offer property from the estate of theodore j. forstmann - spring 2012

Documents