Emily Fisher Landau Collection Fetches $406 Million, Led by $139.4 Million Picasso

Overall, the sale realized US$351.6 million, before fees, solidly in the middle of a presale estimate range, which doesn’t account for fees. 

None of the works owned by the late art patron and collector Fisher Landau had appeared at auction before, and most were bought years ago. She purchased the Picasso in 1968 from Pace Gallery in New York, for instance. 

An active board member at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York for about 30 years, Fisher Landau was known as a friend and champion of many artists, including several whose works were represented in the sale such as Martin, Ed Ruscha, Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, and Mark Tansey, among many others. In 2010, she donated nearly 400 works of art to the Whitney.

The result for Picasso’s 1932 exuberant painting, Femme à la montre, which includes fees, is the second highest achieved for a work by the artist at auction. The highest price was US$179.4 million, realized in 2015 at Christie’s in New York for The Women of Algiers (Version ‘O’), 1955. 

According to Sotheby’s, the only other 1932 work by Picasso of similar quality to come to market in recent years was Nude Green Leaves and Bust, which achieved US$106 million at a Christie’s auction in May 2010. Picasso was prolific that year, painting several notable works that were the subject of a 2018 exhibition at the Tate in London. 

Elsewhere, the auction delivered solid results, at times with lively bidding, even as many final prices were at the lower end of expectations. Still, those prices were considered by some to be ambitious. The Picasso, for instance, had a lofty estimate in the neighborhood of US$120 million; the final hammer price, before fees, was US$121 million. 

The fact none of these works had been seen at auction before, and were owned by a prominent, renowned collector, likely boosted interest in the sale. Its performance also reflected the fact that all the works were guaranteed, with 21 backed by third parties through irrevocable bids. 

Still, the result boded well after a weaker sale of contemporary and ultra-contemporary art at Christie’s on Tuesday evening, where the priciest lot of the auction, an untitled work by Cy Twombly from his Bacchus series, sold below estimates for a hammer price of US$17 million, or nearly US$20 million with fees. 

The story was different Wednesday evening as an 1968 untitled Twombly from the artist’s Blackboard series that was previously owned by Robert Rauschenberg sold for US$23 million, nearly US$26.7 million with fees. The result was within a presale estimate range.

Jasper Johns’ Flags set a record for a “flags” work by the artist—a theme he has returned to again and again throughout his career. The 1986 painting fetched US$37 million, or US$41 million with fees; Mark Tansey’s Triumph over Mastery II, 1987—purchased by Fisher Landau that same year—attracted lots of bidding that went on for nearly six minutes. The 8-foot-tall oil-on-canvas depicting a painter erasing Michaelangelo’s image of Christ in The Last Judgment with a roller, sold for US$10 million, or US$11.8 million with fees. 

One work that fell shy of presale estimates was Mark Rothko’s Untitled, 1958, a painting from the artist’s Seagram Mural series, which sold for US$19 million, or US$22 million with fees, below a presale estimate between US$30 million and US$40 million. The work did not have an irrevocable bid by a third party.