On Thursday, Christie’s introduced that it’s going to promote dozens of works by artists together with Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Giacometti, and Piet Mondrian from the gathering of the late Barnes & Noble founder—and former ARTnews Top 200 collector—Leonard Riggio.
Valued at $250 million, the 30 or so works will go below the hammer throughout the home’s upcoming spring gross sales in New York.
The e-book mogul’s spouse, Louise, is downsizing from their Park Avenue residence—the place the trove of works held court docket—after he handed final 12 months.
“That is powerful for me to say goodbye to outdated buddies, however I cannot put them in storage,” she stated of the artworks, as reported by the New York Instances. “They should be seen.”
A Mondrian work that hung within the vestibule of the Riggio’s lux residence is because of be the public sale’s headline act, with a reported excessive estimate of over $51 million. (An identical portray by the artist titled Composition No. II offered for that report value at Sotheby’s in 2022.)
Christie’s gained the tender after a bidding conflict with Sotheby’s. Based on the New York Instances, in a curious transfer, the latter home reportedly enlisted mega-gallery Tempo to appeal Louise Riggio, though Sotheby’s and Tempo have to this point declined to remark.
“We now have a longstanding relationship with Christie’s,” she stated.
As ARTnews’ Daniel Cassady wrote last week, Leonard Riggio “was a profound collector of the Minimalists and a driving drive behind the institution of Dia:Beacon in Upstate New York.” Among the many treasures Riggio stored at his Bridgehampton house was Richard Serra’s 300-ton metal sculpture Sidewinder (1999), which was seen from house because of Google Earth satellites.
The Riggio sale shall be a take a look at for the artwork market’s well being after a number of years of disappointing public sale outcomes, not helped by international battle, final 12 months’s US presidential marketing campaign, and now, it appears, President Donald Trump’s plan to impose widespread tariffs.
Christie’s CEO Bonnie Brennan described the Riggios as “true collectors.”
