Sotheby’s has snagged a cache of works from the collection of late New York dealer Allan Stone, who died in 2006 at the age of 74. The offerings will go on the block in a two-part sale on May 9 in New York, the night before the contemporary art auctions.
The lots are divided into Volume 1, containing art he bought and sold by such artists as de Kooning, Kline, Gorky, Cornell and Chamberlain, and Volume 2, featuring 20 paintings and drawings by California artist Wayne Thiebaud, whom Stone championed, along with other West Coast artists like Robert Arneson, when the New York School was still dominant. The two groups have a pre-sale estimate of $35 million.
Top lots include de Kooning’s Event in a Barn of 1947, which is expected to bring between $5 million and $7 million, and Thiebaud’s 1961 canvas Pies, which has an estimate of $2.5 million to $3.5 million.
The works are on a pre-auction tour. They can be viewed at the Hong Kong Convention & Expo Center (Apr. 1–5), Sotheby’s London (Apr. 14–18), in Los Angeles and San Francisco (venues and dates TBA), and Sotheby’s New York (May 6–9).
An earlier group of 60 works from Stone’s collection was auctioned at Christie’s in 2007, garnering $52.4 million. Stone’s collecting affinities are also revealed in May by a show at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn.: “Power Incarnate: Allan Stone’s Collection of Sculpture from the Congo,” on view May 14-Sept. 4.
Willem de Kooning, Event in a Barn, 1947. Courtesy Sothebys.
