Vision: The Extraordinary Collection of Theodore and Ruth Baum by sothebysmagazine

Detail: Lot 16, Fontana

Detail: Lot 12, Ruscha

Detail: Lot 3, Ryman

Front Cover: Art © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Inside Cover-Page 2: Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome Pages 3-4: Art © Ed Ruscha Pages 5-6: Art © 2026 Robert Ryman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Above: The Baum Residence, Palm Beach. From left: Lot 3, Ryman; Lot 19, Klein; Lot 5, Rothko. Art © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Art © 2026 Robert Ryman. Photograph by Diana Todorova

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N12505 “VISION”

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Contents 12 VISION: THE EXTRAORDINARY COLLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

22 EVENING AUCTION

198 DAY AUCTION

326 HOW TO BID

327 EXPLANATION OF SYMBOLS

329 INDEX OF ARTISTS

The Baum Residence, Palm Beach. From left: Lot 5, Rothko; Lot 215, Nara; Lot 228, Polke; Lot 22, Manzoni. Art © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Art © 2026 Yoshitomo Nara. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome. Art © 2026 Estate of Sigmar Polke / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Photograph by Diana Todorova

SOT HE BY’S

Opposite: Theodore and Ruth Baum

mbodying the acumen and insight of two collectors united by a singular vision, Theodore and Ruth Baum assembled an extraordinary collection of twentieth- and twenty-first-century art distinguished by beauty, sophistication, and intellectual rigor. Across the gracious interiors of their homes in New Jersey, New York City,

Southampton, and Palm Beach, their selection of each artwork reflected a cultivated eye, deep personal conviction, and an enduring curiosity about the art of their time. Ruth’s advice to her grandchildren to “find your passions because they will serve to fulfill a special place in your lives” resonates throughout the collection. Partners in life and in the deeply personal pursuit of collecting, Ted and Ruth created not only one of the most significant private collections of its kind, but an enduring testament to their life together: one that captures, with remarkable prescience, some of the defining artistic achievements of the past century. Natural tastemakers, Ted and Ruth brought the same curiosity and independence of mind to every aspect of their lives. Ted’s intellect, intuition, and appetite for innovation made him especially attuned to the radical possibilities of Contemporary art. Ted was a leading pioneer in the cable television industry. It was his vision that led Vikoa, Inc. and Helicon Cable Communications into the fast-growing communications field that revolutionized twentieth-century society. In 1968, Ted was inducted into the Young Presidents’ Association at the age of thirtythree and was acknowledged as “the engineering, manufacturing and financial genius” of the company. He was later elected a Cable Pioneer at the National Cable TV Center in recognition of his legacy and leadership in the industry. Ruth possessed an equally instinctive ability to shape the world around her, expressed both through her work with Ruth Baum Interiors and through the myriad philanthropic causes she championed. The qualities that defined them individually— Ted’s enthusiasm for new challenges and Ruth’s refined eye and talent for curation—found their fullest expression in the collection they built together. To enter one of the Baum homes was unquestionably to encounter art of museum quality, yet never at the expense of intimacy. Each room retained the effortless style, furthered by their exquisite taste for Chinese Ming furniture, Fine English furniture, antiquities, and Art Deco, in addition to Contemporary masterworks. The Baums blended art and interior design with panache, creating homes for family and visitors alike that welcomed you with warmth, elegance, and ease.

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

The Baum Residence, Palm Beach. From left: Lot 11, Pistoletto; Lot 23, Andre; Lot 213, Gormley; Lot 9, Mitchell; Lot 13, Wesselmann; Lot 468, Lou. Art © Estate of Joan Mitchell. Art © The Estate of Tom Wesselmann / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Art © Carl Andre / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Art © Antony Gormley 2026. Art © 2026 Liza Lou. All rights reserved. Art © 2026 Michelangelo Pistoletto. Photograph by Diana Todorova

The enduring legacy of the Collection of Theodore and Ruth Baum lies in both its exceptional breadth and in the artistic dialogue it sustains across generations, movements, and geographies. Spanning the visionaries of American abstraction, the innovations of Pop, Minimalism, and Conceptualism, and the radical experimentation of Italian Arte Povera and the daring provocations of Contemporary Pop, the collection brings together best-in-class examples of artists who fundamentally redefined Postwar art. The Baums selected a deeply personal constellation of artists engaged in conversation with one another, each work challenging and illuminating its counterpart. Like many great collectors, the Baums began modestly in the late 1970s with a John Sloan sketch which Ruth acquired from a charity auction, leading to other drawings and watercolors on paper by twentieth-century Modern artists such as Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso. However, the Baums quickly found their true passion for collecting in 1983, when they encountered a radiant red-andorange painting by Mark Rothko from 1967, their first contemporary art acquisition. They had imagined acquiring “one great painting.” In the Rothko, they believed they had found it. Instead, the painting became the catalyst for an extraordinary decades-long collecting journey. “The Rothko hit us. That was it,” Ruth later recalled. “We were children of the ’60s, and the art of that period spoke to us.” Both anchor and impetus, the Rothko established the emotional and intellectual coordinates from which the collection would grow. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Baums’ New Jersey home came to include works by Joan Mitchell, Sam Francis, Hans Hofmann, Adolph Gottlieb, and Franz Kline, creating a rich dialogue around the achievements of Postwar American abstraction.

SOT HE BY’S

“

ind your passions because they will serve F to fulfill a special place in your lives.” RUTH BAUM Although the Baums initially worked with New York dealers and benefited from the guidance of curator, dealer, and advisor Jeffrey Deitch, they quickly developed into collectors of striking independence. They relied on their own evolving aesthetic judgment, sophisticated sense of style, and meticulous research. By the end of the 1990s, their interests had expanded beyond Abstract Expressionism into the movements that followed. The acquisitions of outstanding works by Tom Wesselmann and Roy Lichtenstein marked an important new chapter, opening the collection to American Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptualism. Works by Josef Albers, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Claes Oldenburg, Ad Reinhardt, James Rosenquist, George Segal, and Wayne Thiebaud soon followed, forming an extraordinary panorama of mid-century American innovation. This classic pantheon of midcentury American art was crowned by the inclusion of two masterworks: Ed Ruscha’s Dimple, in its audacious red palette, which paid tribute to Ted’s love of witty wordplay, and Andy Warhol’s The Scream (After Munch), one of the most iconic examples of Pop appropriation of earlier imagery. Contemporary accounts of the acquisition noted that an anonymous telephone bidder, Ted Baum, had prevailed over a bidder renowned for possessing one of the world’s foremost collections of Warhol. When confronted with a work they believed to be truly exceptional, they were fearless in their determination to collect it. Active patrons of various art institutions, the couple served on boards and committees at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Parrish Art Museum in New York, and opened their Palm Beach home for dinners and tours to benefit the American Friends of the Israel Museum and the Norton Museum of Art. Their most transformative and enduring legacy may be in their winter home of Palm Beach, where Ruth joined the Board at the Norton Museum of Art in 2007 and was a Co-Chair and Founding Member of the Contemporary and Modern Art Council. In 2008, the Baums funded the first Contemporary Curator at the Norton Museum of Art, later to be followed by the naming of the Theodore and Ruth Baum Gallery in recognition of their support toward the reopening of the Museum’s expanded building in 2019. Ruth was elected a Lifetime Trustee the following year. Over the last twenty years, Ruth prioritized local philanthropy as an impactful way to enhance public life in her community, including organizations such as the Palm Beach Zoo & Conservation Society, the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Drama Works, Planned Parenthood, and The Council for a Beautiful Israel. Beginning in the late 1990s, a 1989 abstraction by Gerhard Richter and a boldly slashed red Concetto spaziale, Attese by Lucio Fontana from 1960 were among the first works of the European avant-garde to enter the collection. With characteristic determination and discernment, the Baums assembled an exceptional group of European postwar masterworks over the ensuing years. Three important works by Piero Manzoni were joined by further examples by Fontana, an iconic work in International Klein Blue by Yves Klein, and two paintings by Richter from the 1960s. This extraordinary sequence culminated in the acquisition of Alberto Burri’s phenomenal 1954 GA1. Their interest in ZERO was equally prescient. Ted and Ruth were among the earliest

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Opposite: Theodore and Ruth Baum

and only American collectors to recognize the significance of the movement. Across Europe and America alike, the Baum Collection moved beyond the conventional boundaries of movements and schools to reveal affinities that are now fundamental to our understanding of Postwar art. Once acquired, each work began a new life within the Baums’ homes. Living among these masterpieces, they curated inspiring and defining installations: a Postwar painting placed beside an ancient Chinese object, a radical sculpture against fine European furniture, a work of uncompromising abstraction before the expansive view of the ocean. Continually balanced by intellectual rigor, from Mario Merz’s Iguana to Carl Andre’s Steel-Magnesium Plain and the social symbolism of David Hammons’ Basketball and Bricks, the Baums pursued not just a survey of art of their time, but a gathering of voices that continually questioned, expanded, and redefined the possibilities of their respective creative genres. The Baum Collection reveals a sustained fascination with artists who looked both backward and forward, challenging inherited traditions even as they extended them. This choreography of intertwined and competing sensibilities speaks to the Baums’ refined eye for the necessary friction from which new meaning and appreciation emerges. Few collectors of their time dared to pursue such ambitious juxtapositions, and fewer still achieved them with comparable breadth, coherence, and conviction. Paramount to the Baums’ singular eye was this instinct for artists in dialogue. While Rothko, Albers, and Klein are united in their tributes to color’s pure impact, Kline and Mitchell answer with the palpable force of painterly expression and gesture upon the canvas. Reflected in Warhol and Lichtenstein, Contemporary artists reimagine antecedent masterpieces through the irreverent and transformative language of Pop. In Ryman’s and Richter’s entirely new conception of painting through medium, vignettes of color transform into immersive worlds of unmediated visual abstraction. Echoes of Fontana’s iconic disruptions of the canvas, witnessed across multiple mediums within the Baums’ collection, reverberate throughout the collection from the raw burlap punctuated with red and gold in Burri to the folds and fibers of Manzoni. Across seemingly distinct movements and visual vocabularies, the collection is united by a conviction that artistic innovation emerges through provocation and response. In assembling one of the most distinguished private collections of Postwar and Contemporary art in America, the Baums advanced an argument of their own: that artists often understood as oppositional were, in fact, grappling with remarkably similar impulses. Across abstraction and Pop, Europe and America, materiality and image, their collection reveals artists united by a desire to portray a rapidly developing world through radically different means. Its achievement therefore lies not only in the caliber of the individual works, but also in its capacity to illuminate connections that might otherwise remain unseen. When Ruth remarked that “the fact is, you love things that you don’t get easily,” she spoke not only to the couple’s intrepid pursuit of extraordinary works, but to the enduring love for challenge that animated their collecting from the beginning. Within the intimacy of their homes, the Baums transformed collecting into an act of sustained inquiry and vision, collapsing conventional boundaries across oceans, cultures, and paradigms, and ultimately revealing that the greatest collections do not simply preserve art history, but breathe new life into it.

SOT HE BY’S

The Baum Residence, Southampton. Left: Lot 7, Warhol. Photo © Anastassios Mentis. Art © 2026 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Art © 2026 Al Held Foundation, Inc. / Licensed by ARS, New York, NY

EVENING AUCTION 16 NOVEMBER 2026 6 PM

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE PROPERTY IN THIS SALE, PLEASE VISIT SOTHEBYS.COM/N12505

The Baum Residence, Southampton. From left: Lot 205, Takis; Lot 2, Albers; Lot 211, Reinhardt. Photo © Jerry Rabinowitz. Art © 2026 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Art © 2026 Takis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Art © 2026 Estate of Ad Reinhardt / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Art © 2026 John McLaughlin. Art © 2026 Enrico Castellani / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

ROY LICHTENSTEIN 1923 - 1997

T WO PA INTING S : S L E E PI N G M US E (ST U DY) signed and dated ‘83 (on the reverse) cut painted paper, cut printed paper, aluminum foil, acrylic, marker and graphite on board image: 35 by 46 in. 88.9 by 116.8 cm. board: 38 ¾ by 49 ¾ in. 98.4 by 126.4 cm. Executed in 1983.

$ 1,500,000-2,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E Leo Castelli Gallery, New York (LC D-399) James Goodman Gallery, New York William Pall Gallery, New York Ira J. and Marilyn Hechler, Roslyn Heights (acquired from the above in June 1986) James Goodman Gallery, New York William Pall Gallery, New York Keitelman Gallery, Brussels (acquired from the above in May 1999) Christie’s New York, 16 November 2000, lot 155 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED Roslyn Harbor, Nassau County Museum of Art, Long Island Collections: The Gilded Age to the 1990s, May - September 1993, p. 78, illustrated in color and p. 109 (text)

L I T E R AT U R E Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 26, illustrated in color (detail) and p. 28 (text) Andrea Theil, ed., Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné, New York 2023 - ongoing, RLCR 3284, illustrated in color (online) (accessed 30 October 2026)

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

SOT HE BY’S

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Roy Lichtenstein Two Paintings: Sleeping Muse (Study)

“

I am nominally copying, but I am really restating the copied thing in other terms.” ROY LICHTENSTEIN QUOTED IN: LAWRENCE ALLOWAY, ROY LICHTENSTEIN, NEW YORK, 1983, P. 106

oy Lichtenstein’s Two Paintings:

York, 1983, p. 106) In artworks referencing

Sleeping Muse (Study) condenses

Cézanne, Picasso, Mondrian, and Van Gogh,

a century of modern art into a

he repackaged objects of highculture with the

single, intricately layered image,

vividness and flattened clarity of consumer

embodying the investigation of materiality

goods. Two Paintings: Sleeping Muse (Study)

and image-making at the heart of the artist’s

marks the same achievement, disregarding the

practice. Held in the Baum collection for nearly

perceived divide between avant-garde art and

three decades, the present work belongs to

popular culture.

Lichtenstein’s celebrated works of the 1980s,

The central reference in the present work

in which art history becomes an artistic subject

is the revolutionary Sleeping Muse, created

in itself. In this meticulously resolved 1983

by the Romanian pioneer of Modernism

collage,

celebrated

Constantin Brancusi in 1909. Initially conceived

bronze sculpture Sleeping Muse appears

as a marble portrait before being cast in bronze,

beneath the curving silhouette of a paper

Brancusi’s sculpture reduces the human head

cutout by Henri Matisse, with the edge of an

to an elliptical form resting precariously on one

Abstract Expressionist canvas encroaching

rounded cheek. As a consummate example

at right. This captivating collage brings

of Roy Lichtenstein’s masterful engagement

together three mediums—sculpture, paper,

with and reorientation of the art historical

and painting—rendering each in Lichtenstein’s

canons, from 1983 at once beautifully evokes

signature black outlines, graphic patterns, and

and radically advances Constantin Brancusi’s

bold, planar application of color.

paradigmatic Sleeping Muse from 1910.

Constantin

Lichtenstein’s

Brancusi’s

result

Composed of elegantly refined contours which

of reappropriations of his own oeuvre and

practice

the

enclose a void, Sleeping Muse achieves a sense

the canon, as well as exploration across

of volume precisely through the absence of

media and form. Lichtenstein insisted that

mass in the two-dimensional collage, probing

appropriation was a form of transformation,

the boundaries of the discipline of sculpture.

saying, “I am nominally copying, but I am really

Capturing the essence of Brancusi’s form with

restating the copied thing in other terms.”

bold lines which evoke those of mid-century

Through that process, “the original acquires

comic strips, Lichtenstein fuses the visual

a totally different texture.” (the artist quoted

vernacular of pop culture with an iconic symbol

in: Lawrence Alloway, Roy Lichtenstein, New

of Modernism.

SOT HE BY’S

Lichtenstein radically reverses this spatial

The same year Lichtenstein created

activation. His muse cannot be seen in the

this work, he also depicted Sleeping Muse

round but instead appears within a painted

in patinated bronze. Although cast in the

picture frame. The artist captures light through

same material as Brancusi’s most well-known

black lines, complicating the conventional

iteration of Sleeping Muse, Lichtenstein’s

relationships between shade and hue to

interpretation retains the essential qualities

establish the illusion of volume despite the

of a drawing: its shallow, hollow configuration

absence of mass. Brancusi relied on medium—

of lines occupies three dimensions without

the physical solidity and manipulability of marble

taking up actual space. Two Paintings: Sleeping

and bronze—whereas Lichtenstein relies on

Muse (Study) adds another level of remove,

media—the channels through which intangible

further flattening this sculptural form into two

images are circulated and recognized. The

dimensions. Moving from Brancusi’s original

original sculpture’s kaleidoscope of reflections

muse in three dimensions to Lichtenstein’s

fades into a network of symbols, stitched

own straddling of two and three dimensions in

meticulously together with collaged paper, as

bronze to this collage in two dimensions charts

in Matisse masterworks such as The Sadness

a path from Modernism to Pop. The present

of the King from 1952.

work references both the artist himself and

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Above: Constantin Brancusi, Sleeping Muse, 1910. Art Institute of Chicago. Image © Art Institute of Chicago / Arthur Jerome Eddy Memorial Collection / Bridgeman Images. Art © Succession Brancusi - All rights reserved (ARS) 2018 Opposite left: Pablo Picasso, The Dream, 1932. Private Collection. Image © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images. Art © 2026 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Opposite right: Henri Matisse, The Sadness of the King, 1952. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris. Image © Bridgeman Images. Art © 2026 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

his predecessor, two individuals separated by

Although many of his most well-known pieces

nearly a century who were both interested in

are known for suppressing visible evidence of

rendering objects through their most basic

their construction, this example reveals the

geometric forms.

artist’s hand at work: the viewer can picture

The motif of the sleeping head also subtly

him shifting the compositional elements until

recalls Lichtenstein’s own Sleeping Girl of

they lock into place. The result is handmade,

1960. That image from a generation earlier

but its style masquerades as mechanical.

features a blonde woman whose tilted head is

Two Paintings: Sleeping Muse (Study)

tightly cropped to fill the canvas, her features

reaffirms Lichtenstein’s status as an icon

reduced to archetypal attributes of American

of twentieth-century Modernism. The artist

beauty standards: long golden hair, fluttering

distills Brancusi’s sculpture, Matisse’s cutout,

black eyelashes, full red lips. Returning two

and an anonymous Abstract Expressionist

decades later to another sleeping female

painting

subject, the artist appropriates his own

elements. By withholding access to the original

oeuvre. The ancient Greek idea of the muse—a

objects through his central painted frame,

goddess who inspires artistic production—

Lichtenstein reveals how widespread concepts

here becomes an endlessly reproducible icon,

of art depend on memory, reproduction, and

equally at home in a museum or a comic book.

tradition. Two Paintings: Sleeping Muse (Study)

As a physical object, the collage deepens

is a seminal example of Lichtenstein’s career-

questions of materiality and the creative

long engagement with paragons of the canon

process. Lichtenstein carefully cut pieces of

and Contemporaneous visual culture through

painted and printed paper, arranging them

his distinctive Pop idiom and revolutionary

across a board to fashion a map of seams

reassessment of its form, content, and

that serve as witnesses to his decisions.

meaning.

into

their

most

recognizable

SOT HE BY’S

JOSEF ALBERS 1888 - 1976

HO M AG E TO TH E SQUA R E : S E N T I N E L I I signed with the artist’s monogram and dated 68 (lower right); signed, titled, dated 1968 and variously inscribed (on the reverse) oil on Masonite 48 by 48 in. 121.9 by 121.9 cm. Executed in 1968. This work will be included in the Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings by Josef Albers currently being prepared by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, and is registered under JAAF 1976.1.905.

$ 1,500,000-2,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E Estate of the artist Josef and Anni Albers Foundation Waddington Galleries, London Acquired from the above in January 2002 by the present owner

EXHIBITED New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, New Paintings by Josef Albers, April May 1968 New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, Josef Albers: The 48 × 48” Homage to the Square, November - December 1993, no. 10, n.p. (text) Institut Valencià d’Art Modern Centre Julio González, Josef Albers: Vidrio, Color y Luz, November 1994 - January 1995 Château de Plieux, Josef Albers au Château de Plieux, July September 1998, no. 48, p. 47 (text)

L I T E R AT U R E Sarah Firshen, “Waterfront Idyll: Minimalist Art and Far-Flung Antiques Cohabitate in a Modern ‘Box’ by the Sea,” Hamptons Cottage & Gardens, Vol. 8, No. 1, June 2009, p. 65, illustrated in color

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

SOT HE BY’S

Josef Albers Homage to the Square: Sentinel II

xecuted in 1968, Josef Albers’ Homage to the Square: Sentinel II is an outstanding example from the artist’s most celebrated

series. Composed of three concentric squares rendered in luminous shades of scarlet, the painting epitomizes Albers’ lifelong exploration of the expressive and perceptual possibilities of color. Layers of nuanced crimson coalesce to create a composition that is at once deceptively simple and intellectually profound. Held in the esteemed collection of Theodore and Ruth Baum for nearly three decades, and with comparable examples represented in numerous prestigious collections such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate, London; and Center Pompidou, Paris, the Homage to the Square series stands as the culmination of Albers’ pioneering research into chromatic perception, securing his position as one of the Twentieth Century’s most influential artists, educators, and theorists. The root of Albers’ practice is based on the principles of form and color he cultivated throughout his time at the Bauhaus in the 1920s. After becoming the first student to assume a teaching position in 1923, he began

Josef Albers teaching a class at Yale University, New Haven, 1955. Photo by John Cohen / Getty Images Above right: Paul Klee, May Picture, 1925. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

to develop his own chromatic theory, eventually leading to the Homage to the Square series, started in 1949. This highly celebrated group was an exploration of the behavior of colors when they are situated against one another within one of four predetermined templates of nested squares. Albers would create numerous paper studies of these chromatic contrasts,

SOT HE BY’S

“

I n visual perception, a color is almost never seen as it really is – as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.” JOSEF ALBERS, INTERACTION OF COLOR, NEW HAVEN, 2006, P. 1

devising

and

variation in form, space, and composition,

generating magnificent painted compositions.

optimal

optical

solutions

allowing color alone to command the visual

“The painter chooses to articulate with or

experience. Painted with pigment directly from

in color. Some painters consider color an

the tube and using a palette knife on textured

accompaniment of, and therefore subordinate

Masonite, Homage to the Square captures

to, form or other pictorial content. To others,

the essence of red in extraordinary depth,

and today again, in an increasing number, color

reverberating with the suffusive authority of the

is the structural means of their pictorial idiom.

color—in its scarlet authority, the presence and

Here color becomes autonomic. My paintings

stature of the present work evoke the same all-

are representative in the latter direction. I am

consuming chromatic power of Henri Matisse’s

interested particularly in the psychic effect-

The Red Studio from 1911. Albers’ minute

esthetic experience caused by the interaction

shifts in hue, saturation, and intensity go on to

of colors.” (the artist quoted in: Diane Waldman,

produce a mesmerizing optical tension as the

“Preface and Acknowledgments,” in: Exh. Cat.,

nested squares appear to advance toward and

New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,

recede from the picture plane at the same time.

Josef Albers: A Retrospective, 1988, p. 12)

The hypnotic vermillion squares transform

Homage to the Square: Sentinel II was

before the viewer’s eyes, exemplifying Albers’

created in one of the series’ three-square

interest in the permutability of color. “Stressing

configurations. Here, Albers eliminates all

(dominance) of the boundaries influences

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

the direction in which we read the colors:

abstract expressionism and the preciousness

concentrically or excentrically, outwards or

of gesture-and yet his Homage to the Square

inwards, away from or towards us.” (the artist

paintings are a unique artistic statement, a

quoted in: Eugen Gomringer, Josef Albers, New

sort of anti-gesture, but a gesture all the

York, 1968, p. 138)

same.” (Kelly Feeney, “Josef Albers: Seen

At the heart of his philosophy was the

and Unseen,” in: Exh. Cat., Alexandria, Art

conviction that color could never be understood

Services International, Josef Albers: Works

in isolation. Instead, Albers believed every hue

on Paper, 1991, p. 8) Subtle, meticulous, and

derives its identity from its relationship to those

profound, Homage to the Square: Sentinel II

surrounding it, making perception itself the

represents Josef Albers’ mastery of color. The

true subject of his work. As he observed in his

impact of his innovations and seminal series

foundational text, Interaction of Color, “If one

is immeasurable; however, his pivotal role in

says ‘Red’... and there are fifty people listening,

the course of modern art history was formally

it can be expected that there will be fifty reds in

recognized in 1971 when he became the first

their minds.” (the artist quoted in: Josef Albers,

living artist to receive a solo retrospective at

Interaction of Color, New Haven 2006, p. 3) This

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His reach

belief transformed color from a purely aesthetic

spread to countless artists, including those

device into a psychological and experiential

whom he taught personally at Black Mountain

phenomenon. His paintings therefore become

College, such as Robert Rauschenberg, Cy

carefully orchestrated experiments in which

Twombly, and Kenneth Noland. Stemming

the viewer actively participates, completing the

from a desire to control color’s infinite

work through the act of perception.

possibilities, Albers mastered every aspect of

“In many ways Albers sought to demystify,

color theory. This remarkable skill manifests

if not the art of his day, certainly the practice

with quiet reverence in the red glow of Homage

of art making. He avoided the individualism of

to the Square: Sentinel II.

Opposite Left: Henri Matisse, The Red Studio, 1911. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY Right: Robert Delaunay, First Disc, 1912. Private Collection. Image © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images

SOT HE BY’S

ROBERT RYMAN 1930 - 2019

UNTITL E D signed (on the reverse) oil on unstretched sized canvas 15 by 14 ½ in. 38.1 by 36.8 cm. Executed circa 1961. This work will be listed as number 61.026 in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being organized by David Gray.

$ 2,000,000-3,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E The artist Galerie Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf (acquired from the above in 2001) Acquired from the above in June 2001 by the present owner

EXHIBITED Düsseldorf, Galerie Konrad Fischer, Early and Recent Paintings, August - October 2001

L I T E R AT U R E Dorothee Fischer, ed., Galerie mit Bleistift Fischer: Ausstellungen bei Konrad Fischer, Volume 2: Düsseldorf, November 1992 – Oktober 2007, Bielefeld 2007, p. 136 (text)

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

SOT HE BY’S

Robert Ryman Untitled

luminous

flurry

petal-

like swathes set against raw, unstretched canvas, Untitled is a timeless testament to Robert

Ryman’s radically innovative practice. Executed circa 1961, the present work dates from a critical early period in the artist’s career, during which he began investigating the expressive possibilities of surface and medium through

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Below: Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield with Reaper, 1889. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Image © Bridgeman Images

his singular painterly intervention and deeply

obscuring it. For Ryman, white was not an

personal technique. Here, vigorous strokes of

absence of color but a means of clarifying the

white dance across a fervid underpainting of

material and perceptual conditions of painting.

orange and yellow, announcing the distinctive

He admired its capacity to interact candidly

visual language that would come to define his

with its surroundings, support and underlying

practice. Through its emphatic materiality,

colors, without imposing an illusionistic

Untitled explores the inherent character and

image. Through white, Ryman presented paint

vitality of paint itself, inviting the viewer to

at its most immediate, allowing its density,

encounter the hand of one of the Twentieth

texture, and reflectivity to become the work’s

Century’s most consequential painters. Untitled

principal subject. The ample, staccato strokes

is further distinguished by its exceptional

taper just before the perimeter of the canvas,

provenance, having been held in the Baum

progressively thinning to reveal the raw surface

collection for nearly three decades.

and accentuate the hilly terrain constructed

Across the present work, Ryman builds a

by the paint. Favoring the neutrality of the

topography of kinetic ridges and crests upon

square, Untitled exemplifies Ryman’s early

a raw, unstretched canvas. Over an animated

consolidation of the physical parameters that

ground of fiery orange, he vigorously layers

would sustain his practice and his enduring

daubs of velvety white impasto, tempering

decision to place supreme emphasis upon

the radiating energy beneath without entirely

material, surface, and environment.

SOT HE BY’S

Ryman’s paintings are emblems of

the image—the end product,” Ryman explained.

their own making, revealing his sustained

(the artist quoted in: Robert Storr, On the Edge:

exploration of medium as a tangible and active

Contemporary Art from the Werner and Elaine

presence. Untitled sublimely records the artist’s

Dannheisser Collection, New York, 1998, p. 114)

somatic engagement through its controlled

Dating from the formative years of his career,

application, each stroke building upon the last

Untitled is a rare and early articulation of his

in a continuous rhythm of invention. As Robert

lifelong commitment to working predominantly

Storr observed: “Rymans are the product of

in white and to rendering the constituent

the fingers and the hand, not the arm. Gesture,

elements of painting fully visible. Exploring the

for him, served paint rather than the painter;

complexities of light, stroke, color, composition,

painting was a question of application rather

density, texture, reflectivity, and scale, the

than of ‘action.’ Contrary, then, to Harold

present work anticipates the development of the

Rosenberg’s view of abstraction as an exercise

revolutionary principles that would define his

in the rhetoric of self-affirmation, Ryman

mature oeuvre. Although frequently associated

understood it even at that formative state as

with Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism,

a problem of material syntax. What paint had

Ryman resisted such classifications. Instead,

to say was its own name, and it said it best

he continually reinvented the conditions of

in measured tones.” (Robert Storr quoted in:

painting itself, pushing against the artistic

Exh. Cat., London, Tate Gallery, Robert Ryman,

conventions of his time through sustained

1993, p. 15) A self-described realist, Ryman

investigations into material and the experiential

sought to work with real light, real space, and

qualities of the medium. In Untitled, Ryman

real surface. He rejected pictorial illusion and

crystallizes the foundations of his artistic

had no desire to employ paint as a means of

philosophy, testing the properties of paint and

representing anything beyond itself. “There is

its response to his hand while establishing

never a question of what to paint but only how

the conceptual and material trajectory of the

to paint. The how of painting has always been

decades that followed.

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Left: Jasper Johns, White Target, 1957. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Image © Whitney Museum of American Art / Licensed by Scala / Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Right: Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition: White on White, 1918. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Image © Fine Art Images / Bridgeman Images

Captivated by the modern masters Henri

of Rothko, whose paintings demonstrated

Matisse, Paul Cézanne, and Mark Rothko,

how color and surface could transform their

Ryman used his earliest paintings to explore

surrounding environment without recourse

the qualities he most admired in their work

to figuration. Ryman pursued a comparable

through an entirely original visual language.

immediacy, while redirecting attention from the

Having moved to New York with the intention of

emotive field of the image toward the physical

becoming a jazz musician, he worked as a guard

facts of paint, support, and light.

at The Museum of Modern Art from 1953 until

A meditation on the act of painting itself,

1960. Surrounded by the defining achievements

Untitled is an outstanding early example

of preceding artistic generations, Ryman

of Ryman’s lifelong investigation into the

developed his practice through sustained

objective properties of paint. Activated by its

and attentive looking. In the present work, he

environment and preserving the measured

draws upon aspects of each of these formative

serenity of the artist’s process, the present

influences while transforming them into a

work serves as an exceptional record of the

language distinctly his own. Ryman admired the

inquiry that would define his practice. It

apparent ease of Matisse’s paintings, seeking

challenges the notion of painting as merely

a comparable natural dynamism in his own

an end product, becoming an index of its own

mesmerizing white strokes. From Cézanne, he

creation. Through its extraordinary physical

absorbed an acute sensitivity to the handling

presence, Untitled fundamentally reorients

of paint and the expressive capacities of the

the viewer’s understanding of what a painting

medium. Yet perhaps the most profound

may be: a vital conjunction of paint, surface,

conceptual impact came from his close study

light, and space.

Right: Willem de Kooning, Excavation, 1950. The Art Institute of Chicago. Image © The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

SOT HE BY’S

LUCIO FONTANA 1899 - 1968

CO NCE TTO SPA Z I A L E , N EW YO R K 5 incised with the artist’s signature (lower right) copper 46 ⅜ by 22 ⅝ in. 117.8 by 57.5 cm. Executed in 1962.

$ 2,000,000-3,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Galleria Il Punto, Turin

Enrico Pellegrini, “Buchi e tagli di Lucio Fontana,” Edizioni Quaderni di Studio, No. 5, 20 May 1966, p. 23, illustrated

Cohen Collection, Turin (acquired by 1974)

Acquired from the above in December 2004 by the present owner

Jan van der Marck and Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: Essays par Jan van der Marck et Enrico Crispolti, Vol. I, Brussels 1974, no. 62 ME 1, pp. 134-35 (text)

EXHIBITED

Enrico Crispolti, ed., Lucio Fontana: Catalogue raisonné des peintures, sculptures et environnements spatiaux, Vol. II, Brussels 1974, no. 62 ME 1, p. 122, illustrated

Galerie Karsten Greve AG, St. Moritz

Milan, Galleria dell’Ariete, Lucio Fontana, New York, June 1962, no. 12 Palazzo Reale Comune di Milano, Lucio Fontana, April - June 1972, fig. 161, p. 210, illustrated Boissano, Centre International d’Expérimentation Artistique MarieLouise Jeanneret, Omaggio a Fontana, July - August 1983, no. 6, p. 13, illustrated Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle and Vienna, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Lucio Fontana: Retrospektive, June 1996 - January 1997, no. 83, p. 220 (text) Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Lucio Fontana, April - June 1998, no. 4/P/30, p. 289, illustrated in color

Enrico Crispolti, ed., Fontana, Catalogo generale, Vol. II, Milan 1986, no. 62 ME 1, p. 409, illustrated Angela Vettese, Lucio Fontana. I tagli, Cinisello Balsamo 2003, p. 49, illustrated in color Enrico Crispolti, ed., Lucio Fontana, Catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, Vol. II, Milan 2006, no. 62 ME 1, p. 596, illustrated and p. 1025 (text) Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 108, illustrated in color

New York, Andrea Rosen Gallery, Sterling Ruby/Lucio Fontana, September - October 2011

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

SOT HE BY’S

Lucio Fontana Concetto spaziale, New York 5

R Above: Alfred Stieglitz, From My Window at An American Place, North, 1931. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY

adiating

with

extraordinary

The occasion for Fontana’s New York visit—

Fontana’s

his first and only trip to the United States—was

Concetto spaziale, New York 5

his solo exhibition at Martha Jackson Gallery.

brilliance,

Lucio

is a resplendent example from

The show focused on his recent body of Venezie

his distinguished Metalli series. Held in the

oil paintings, characterized by their thick layers

esteemed Baum collection for over twenty

of pigment. New York City contradicted all his

years and among the earliest works in which

inspiration from Venice entirely. Fontana was

Fontana embraced metal as his primary

captivated by the never-ending bustle of the

medium, New York 5 marks the beginning of

city, the modernity of Manhattan, and most of

a profound creative transformation after the

all, the glistening glass towers that scraped the

artist’s pivotal 1961 trip to New York City. Its

sky. After visiting the Seagram Building during

luminous copper surface scintillates as light

his trip, he wrote, “yesterday I went to the top

catches the constellation of scratches, bends,

floor of the most famous of the skyscrapers...

and the jagged central incision anchoring the

the one made of bronze and gilded glass...

composition. Evoking the soaring silhouette

It seemed to contain the sun...” (the artist

of a skyscraper, Concetto spaziale, New York 5

quoted in: Exh. Cat., New York, Solomon R.

captures the frenetic energy of both New York

Guggenheim Museum, Lucio Fontana: Venice/

City and Fontana’s artistry.

New York, 2006-07, p. 42)

SOT HE BY’S

Left: Constantin Brancusi, The Bird in Space, 1941. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris. Image © Bridgeman Images. Art © Succession Brâncuși- All rights reserved (ARS) 2026 Opposite: Lucio Fontana in his studio, 1964. Image © Ugo Mulas © Ugo Mulas Heirs. All rights reserved. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

Deeply inspired by New York’s iconic towers, Fontana returned to Italy in 1962 determined to create a work which captured their monumental presence. However, Fontana could only ask himself, “How can one paint this terrifying New York?” (the artist quoted in: Exh. Cat., New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Lucio Fontana: Venice/New York, 2006-07, p. 45) Fontana felt that canvas could not allow him to replicate the brilliant aura of the buildings he so admired, but suddenly, a new idea dawned on him. The artist began experimenting with sheets of metal from his studio. As he tried scratching, puncturing, and bending the metals, he saw that “no other material captures the sense of this Metropolis made of all glass, of windowpanes, of orgies of light, and the dazzle of metal.” (the artist quoted in: Exh. Cat., New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Lucio Fontana: Venice/ New York, 2006-07, p. 45) A striking testament to Fontana’s technical ingenuity and artistic vision, Concetto spaziale, New York 5 transforms an industrial sheet of copper into a work of remarkable luminosity and sculptural vitality. At the center of Concetto spaziale, New York 5, a bold and visceral vertical gash exposes the copper’s raw, ruptured edges. Framing the perforated metal, Fontana incised a precisely defined rectangle, reinforcing the verticality of the composition and quietly evoking New York’s colossal skyscrapers. Atop the rectangle, a flurry of linear scratches compound and radiate across the surface, recalling the sunlight glinting from the city’s glass towers. Together, these incisions, indentations, and bends animate the once-static sheet of copper, turning it into a 48

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

SOT HE BY’S

Above: Giacomo Balla, Dynamic Expansion and Speed, 1913. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome. Image © Stefano Baldini. All rights reserved 2026 / Bridgeman Images Opposite: The Baum Residence, Palm Beach. Lot 4, Fontana (62 ME 1). Photo by Diana Todorova. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

dynamic sculptural object that shifts with every

coexistence with nature. This aspiration is

change in light and viewpoint. As illumination

especially significant in the context of New

plays across its scored metal surface, Concetto

York City, an environment defined not by lush

spaziale, New York 5 glitters, allowing the

natural landscapes, but by endless innovation,

viewer to experience the city’s dazzling skyline

towering architecture, and unrelenting vibrant

through Fontana’s eyes.

energy. In the midst of this urban spectacle,

Concetto spaziale, New York 5 stands as a

Fontana found simplicity in a new form: by

magnificent example of Fontana’s persistent

reducing his experience of the city to its most

efforts in expanding the possibilities of art

essential spatial elements. The vertical forms

beyond the traditional canvas. As the founder of

of skyscrapers, the glow of steel and glass

the Spatialism movement, Fontana believed in

in sunlight, and the city’s unique energy are

activating space, light, and material as central

condensed into the singular, decisive moment

features of an artwork rather than viewing

of Concetto spaziale, New York 5 central

them as passive elements. His encounter

cut. To this end, Fontana transforms the

with New York City only enhanced these

complexity of modern life into a clear visual

ideas, offering a new version of modernity.

language, demonstrating that even in the

Rather than simply capturing architecture,

most technologically advanced environments,

Fontana was concerned with communicating

the path towards harmony lies in stripping

sensations. These Spatialist ideals reach their

lived experience down to its purest essence.

ultimate synthesis in Concetto spaziale, New

Through the lustrous copper surface, the

York 5 and the Metalli series, which distill the

violent incision, and the lambent reflections

full breadth of his artistic language into the

across the metal, Concetto spaziale, New York

extreme yet necessary act of a single linear

5 translates Fontana’s view into a physical and

tear breaking through matter and transforming

emotional experience. Beyond a reflection of

it into space. Rather than functioning as an

New York, the present work is a manifestation of

act of destruction, the incision becomes an

Fontana’s desire to capture the modern world

additive gesture of liberation, bringing a flat

and preserve it in a new artistic reality. Held in

surface into the third dimension. Through

important museum collections worldwide and

this radical intervention, Fontana rejects the

paired with its widespread impact on post-war

traditional limits of artistic creation, replacing

European art, Fontana’s Metalli have achieved

representation with direct spatial engagement.

an esteemed status within the artist’s career.

Fontana envisions a future in which

With its iridescent and alluring form, Concetto

humanity can break free from the bonds

spaziale, New York 5 encapsulates the very

that bind it to materiality and rise to a

best of the radical aesthetic central to Lucio

dimension of simplicity, harmony, and

Fontana’s seminal series. SOT HE BY’S

MARK ROTHKO 1903 - 1970

UNTITL E D oil on paper mounted on canvas 40 ½ by 26 in. 102.9 by 66 cm. Executed in 1967. The following work is being considered for inclusion in the forthcoming Mark Rothko Online Resource and Catalogue Raisonné of works on paper, compiled by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

$ 10,000,000-15,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Noah Goldowsky, New York

Rebecca Cochran et al., “The Top Collections: From 250 Collectors,” Art & Antiquities, March 2008, p. 108, illustrated in color and p. 109 (text)

Jeffrey Byers, New York Robert Elkon Gallery, New York Galerie Beyeler, Basel (acquired from the above in 1970) H.-J. von Cotzhausen, Mülheim (acquired from the above in 1971) Annely Juda Fine Art, London (acquired from the above) Chasa Holdings, Jersey (acquired from the above) Annely Juda Fine Art, London (acquired from the above) Marie-Suzanne Feigl Galerie d’Art Moderne, Basel (acquired from the above in 1980)

Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum Have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 110 (text) Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 27, illustrated in color (detail) and p. 28 (text)

Solomon & Co. Fine Art, New York Acquired from the above in July 1983 by the present owner

EXHIBITED Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Towards Abstract Art, December 1977 - January 1978, no. 3 (text)

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

SOT HE BY’S

Mark Rothko Untitled

mbued with glowing hues of fiery scarlet

and Ruth Baum, Untitled is a landmark example

and brilliant tangerine floating above a

from the esteemed collection it has resided in

raw, earthy ground, Untitled from 1967

for nearly half a century.

affirms the prominence of Mark Rothko’s

Executed during the final years of his career,

paintings on paper as among the most intimate

this work recalls one of Rothko’s last great

and distilled expressions of his artistic thesis.

periods of luminous color before the palette

Executed just three years before the artist’s

of his final paintings dimmed considerably.

passing in 1970, the present work ranks among

Grounded in golden and blush tones, luminous

the greatest of Rothko’s mature paintings on

passages of crimson red and tangerine orange

paper, distinguished by the unique vibrancy

framed by a bed of rose pink and wisps of

that has been remarkably preserved. Untitled’s

cream lie upon the paper mounted to canvas,

feathery edges surround the two color fields

ready to burst with the chromatic intensity

in Rothko’s characteristic painterly technique,

that transcends mere scale, exuding palpable

here with exceptional elegance, resulting in the

warmth and revealing Rothko’s unparalleled

chromatic brilliance, emotional immediacy, and

command of color as an expressive vehicle.

meditative power that define Rothko’s greatest

Red examples from this period possess the

achievements. Invoking a magnetic field of

force of compressed infernos of visual impact,

radiant hues, Untitled demonstrates Rothko’s

appearing almost red hot to the touch, or as

unique

radiant sunbursts drawn directly out of the sky.

ability

emotional

harness

visual

force

extraordinary his

Following the completion and widespread

masterful command of color. As the first

appreciation of the historic series of paintings

contemporary work ever acquired by Theodore

for the Seagram Building in New York in the late

and

through

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Above: Arshile Gorky, Water of the Flowery Mill, 1944. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 The Arshile Gorky Foundation /Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Opposite:: Roman Hall of the Great Fresco Lustration, 1st century B.C. Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii. Image © Andrea Jemolo. All rights reserved 2026 / Bridgeman Images

1950s, today known as the Seagram Murals,

philosopher Kierkegaard, whom Rothko and his

Rothko’s engagement with red in his works

friends deeply admired, wrote movingly of red,

on canvas and paper alike attracts a specific

in terms that call to mind Rothko’s painting.

reverence within his oeuvre. The artist infused

‘The result of my life is simply nothing, a mood,

a unique living essence into his red works,

a single color. My result is like the painting of

saying he wanted these works to have such a

the artist who was to paint a picture of the

“presence” that “when you turned your back to

Israelites crossing the Red Sea. To this end, he

the painting, you would feel that presence the

painted the whole wall red, explaining that the

way you feel the sun on your back.” (the artist

Israelites had already crossed over, and that

quoted in: James E. B. Breslin, Mark Rothko: A

the Egyptians were drowned.’ (Diane Waldman,

Biography, Chicago, 1993, p. 275)

Mark Rothko, London, 1978, pp. 57-58)

“Red is the color that fascinates Rothko

In Untitled, these incandescent hues

above all others. No other color appears so

achieve a remarkable harmony between

insistently in his oeuvre from the time of the

intensity and repose, creating an image that

multiforms. It dominates Rothko’s work of the

simultaneously commands attention and

fifties and sixties and, in fact, was the color of

invites contemplation. The present work

his last painting. Red is so potent optically that

embodies the visual resonance and emotional

it overwhelms or obliterates other hues unless

essence of Rothko’s acclaimed large-scale

it is diluted or controlled by juxtaposing it, as

canvas works encapsulated in an intimate,

Mondrian did, with equally strong colors, such

immersive format. Indeed, Untitled epitomizes

as black and white, or the other primaries yellow

the best of this body of work as described

and blue. But Rothko frequently uses it alone,

by Clearwater: “Thus with their symmetry,

altering its tonality according to the emotion

tidy execution, and minimal gesture, the

he wishes to express. Perhaps Rothko was so

small works on paper often seem to be

drawn to red because of its powerful and basic

more quintessential Rothko than many of

associations: it is identified with the elements

his canvases.” (Bonnie Clearwater, Exh. Cat.,

and ritual - with fire and with blood - and thus

Washington, D.C. (and traveling), Mark Rothko:

with life, death, and the spirit. The Existentialist

Works on Paper, 1984-86, p. 39) While Rothko’s

SOT HE BY’S

Abstract Expressionist peers like Franz Kline

with each other. Rothko’s compositions

and Willem de Kooning deconstructed the

achieve a transformative sense of harmony

picture plane through an ostensibly unbridled

and balance through the subtle asymmetries

gestural fortitude, Rothko tested the absolute

and idiosyncrasies of their forms. Devoid of

limits of abstraction through radiant zones of

representation, the subject of Rothko’s work

pure color, hovering in metaphysical tension

becomes the pure expression of color and light.

Mark Rothko’s studio at 222 Bowery. Photo by Herbert Matter. Courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries (M1446 Herbert Matter papers, circa 1937-1984, box 153, folder 33, Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA). Art © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

“

aradox and splendor—the two poles that border his life’s P work—are here summed up. Rothko more than any artist I have known succumbed to the lure of light, light that, as the Byzantine inscriptions said, can be contained but never captured really.” DORE ASHTON, “INTRODUCTION,” IN: EXH. CAT., WASHINGTON, D.C., NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART (AND TRAVELING), MARK ROTHKO: WORKS ON PAPER, 1984-86, P. 9

clearing away that his life’s work represents.” (Dore Ashton, “Introduction,” in: Exh. Cat., Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art (and traveling), Mark Rothko: Works on Paper, 198486, p. 9) Begun in the early 1930s and typically executed at a more intimate scale, Rothko’s works on paper, such as Untitled, afford a closer engagement with their viewers. As head author of the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of works on paper, Adam Greenhalgh notes, “This focus on public versus private is relevant because Rothko was extremely careful, controlling even, about how his works were displayed and to whom they were sold. The relationship between a work of art and a receptive viewer was quite possibly his most abiding concern.” Indeed, for Rothko, the viewer’s close engagement with his works was foundational to their meaning, and his works on paper championed that philosophy. Across his career, Rothko continually Rothko, like many of his peers, transitioned

returned to color as the primary means

to working at a smaller scale in the final years

through which to communicate the breadth

of his life. Paper was a foundational medium

of human emotion. His works do not depict

for Rothko throughout his career, operating as

feeling so much as embody it, translating states

an essential vessel for channeling chromatic

of ecstasy, melancholy, contemplation, and

force. As Dore Ashton observed, “Rothko more

wonder into radiant chromatic relationships.

than any artist I have known succumbed to

The present work stands among the most

the lure of light… light that envelops us and is

powerful examples of this achievement.

all things that are not… It was most certainly

Standing as one of the final red works on paper

his experience with the paradoxical nature of

of Rothko’s life, the present work seems to

paper—absorbing and reflecting at the same

pulse with life, offering an all-encompassing,

time—that set him on his course to the great

sun-bathed meditation upon each glimpse.

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

GERHARD RICHTER b. 1932

GRAT 3 signed, dated 1989 and numbered 689-3 (on the reverse) oil on canvas 24 ¼ by 32 ¼ in. 61.6 by 81.9 cm. Executed in 1989.

$ 3,000,000-4,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Galerie Rolf Ricke, Cologne

Exh. Cat. (and catalogue raisonné), Bonn, Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Gerhard Richter: 1962-1993, Vol. I, 1993-94, no. 689-3, pp. 118, 142, illustrated in color

Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London Gallery HAM, Nagoya Jinno Collection, Nagoya Christie’s New York, 13 November 1998, lot 140 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED Tokyo, National Museum of Modern Art, Gerhard Richter, November December 1989

Gerhard Richter, Zhengzhou 2001, no. 19, n.p., illustrated in color Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 109, illustrated in color Dietmar Elger, ed., Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 4: Nos. 652-1 - 805-6, 1988-1994, Ostfildern 2015, no. 689-3, p. 217, illustrated in color

Cologne, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Aus meiner Sicht (From My Point of View), November 1989 - January 1990, p. 166, illustrated (in installation) Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Bonne, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland; Stockholm, Moderna Museet; and Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Gerhard Richter, September 1993 - August 1994, no. 689-3, pp. 118, 142, illustrated in color and p. 179 (text) (Bonn); p. 134, illustrated in color and p. 182 (text) (Madrid) Tokyo, The National Museum of Modern Art and Kyoto, The National Museum of Modern Art, A Perspective on Contemporary Art: Painting ‒ Singular Object, November 1995 - February 1996, no. 24, p. 64, illustrated in color

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

SOT HE BY’S

Gerhard Richter Grat 3

Opposite: Gerhard Richter photographed in Cologne, Germany, 1989. Photo by Chris Felver/Getty Images. Art © Gerhard Richter 2026 (28102026) Left: Gerhard Richter, Townscape (P1) [Stabtbild (P1)], 1968. The Art Institute of Chicago. Image © The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY. Art © Gerhard Richter 2026 (28102026)

xecuted in 1989 and one of only

in the artist’s landmark 1993 retrospective at

five works from this group, Grat

the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris,

3 stands as an exceptionally rare

Grat 3 exemplifies the inventive complexity,

synthesis of Gerhard Richter’s twin

technical mastery, and intellectual ambition

artistic pursuits of landscape and abstraction.

that have established Richter as one of the

Occupying a pivotal position within the artist’s

most influential painters of the postwar era.

oeuvre, the present work belongs to a body of

Further

paintings that bridges the distance between

provenance, having remained in a single

Richter’s celebrated photorealistic landscapes

private collection for nearly three decades, the

and the revolutionary abstract paintings that

present work bears witness to one of the most

would define his mature practice. Featured

significant and consequential moments in the

alongside three other works from the series

artist’s career.

distinguished

its

exceptional

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Executed squeegee

using

Richter’s

technique,

demonstrates

signature

present

extraordinary

work

Practice of Painting: Writings and Interviews 1962-1993, London, 1993, pp. 119-20)

balance

The movements of the squeegee “seem

between control and chance that came to

strangely empty, since they behave visibly

define his mature abstraction. Methodical

indifferently to what they uncover, pull along,

layers of paint are pulled, scraped, and revealed

wipe, and cause to emerge.” (Gregor Stemmrich

across the surface, creating the impression

quoted in: Exh. Cat., Cologne, Museum

of a limitless pictorial space, seemingly

Ludwig (and traveling), Gerhard Richter Large

unencumbered by scale and absent any overt

Abstracts, 2009, p. 31) Entitled after the natural

trace of the artist’s hand. The implement

form of a ridge, whether mountainous or

facilitated his desire to introduce spontaneity

minuscule, Grat 3 occupies the terrain between

and chance into his creative approach, as the

two of Richter’s most important bodies of work:

artist himself stated, “it is a good technique for

the photorealistic landscapes that established

switching off thinking.” (Dietmar Elger, Gerhard

his early reputation and the monumental

Richter, A Life in Painting, Chicago, 2009, p. 251)

abstractions that secured his place among

and “letting a thing come, rather than creating

the most influential painters of the twentieth

it—no assertions, constructions, formulations,

century. The Grat series accomplishes the best

inventions, ideologies—in order to gain access

of both approaches, distilling the essence of

to all that is genuine, richer, more alive: to

landscape into a kaleidoscopic field of color,

what is beyond my understanding.” (the artist

texture, and movement that remains wholly

quoted in: Hans Ulrich Obrist, ed., The Daily

distinct within Richter’s wider corpus.

the

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

“

he semblance that concerns Richter is of a ‘second nature’… a culture-becomeT nature bathed in the glow of the media, a semblance permeated with photographic, televisual, and now digital visualities.”

HAL FOSTER, “SEMBLANCE ACCORDING TO GERHARD RICHTER” IN: BENJAMIN BUCHLOH, ED., GERHARD RICHTER: OCTOBER FILES, MASSACHUSETTS, 2009, P. 126

The

Above: Anselm Kiefer, Monsalvat, 1996. Cincinnati Art Museum. Image © Cincinnati Art Museum / John J. Emery Fund / Bridgeman Images. Art © Anselm Kiefer Opposite: David Caspar Friedrich, Morning Mist in the Mountains, 1808. Staatliche Museen Heidecksburg Rudolstadt. Image © HIP / Art Resource, NY

was

Richter’s approach is revered for its progressive

affirmed in 1993, when the artist’s Paris

significance

the

series

vision that signified a critical departure from the

retrospective, featuring four of the five Grat

iconic geometricity that is the characteristic

paintings, received widespread critical acclaim.

manifestation of modernist abstraction and a

Reviewing the exhibition, critic Doris von

rejection of the expressionistic intentions of the

Drathen observed that “there are exhibitions

movement’s Postwar practitioners. Richter’s

that, like great milestones, reset the standards

unique painterly abstraction is the remarkable

in contemporary art. Richter’s retrospective,

product of a deep and clear understanding of

launching now at the ARC in Paris, is of this

these modes of abstraction and a response to

quality.” (Doris von Drathen quoted in: Dietmar

the tension between them and their contrasting

Elger, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting,

histories. Whereas the fundamental roots of

Cologne, 2002, p. 323) Presented within this

the abstraction of Kandinsky and Malevich,

landmark retrospective, Grat 3 belongs to a

for example, were founded on linear and

body of work that encapsulates the innovation,

systematic qualities in terms of conception and

ambition, and restless experimentation that

production, Richter’s introduction of chance

characterize Richter’s greatest achievements.

into his creative process radically undermines

Celebrated as a pioneer of abstract art,

these relatively contrived approaches.

SOT HE BY’S

He does not, however, rely entirely on gestural techniques as had been introduced by the action painting of Jackson Pollock, but maintains a consistent structure and attention to minute detail in his noncompositional works, essentially producing a sort of calculated chaos. “Richter’s deployment of texture, structure, and gesture in painting deliberately suspends itself between scientific and expressive conceptions of painterly process. It is oscillating with the same deliberation, between painting as an act and painting as an accident, between composition as a result of mere chance encounters of materials and structures, and composition as the tracing of a subject’s residual intentionality.” (Benjamin Buchloh, “Working on the Picture: The Discretion of Gerhard Richter” in: Exh. Cat., Cologne, Museum Ludwig (and traveling), Gerhard Richter Large Abstracts, 2009, p. 11) In this celebrated example from a pivotal moment within the artist’s oeuvre, Grat 3 crystallizes Richter’s enduring pursuit of bringing seemingly irreconcilable representation and abstraction, nature and artifice, control and chance. The painting distills the artist’s transition from the hyperrealistic visions of landscape that first earned him acclaim to the abstract languages that would come to define his mature practice. As Richter explained in a 1986 interview with Buchloh, “What I am trying to do in each picture is to bring together the most disparate and mutually contradictory elements, alive and viable, in the greatest possible freedom.” (the artist quoted in: Dietmar Elger and Hans Ulrich Obrist, eds., Gerhard Richter – Text: Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961 – 2007, London, 2009, p. 187) More restrained in palette than the chromatically charged abstractions of the following decades, the Grat series pays subtle homage to the mountains, clouds, and oceans that serve as the artist’s enduring muses. Neither wholly landscape nor wholly abstraction, Grat 3 announces an artist forging a radically new understanding of painterly possibility, transforming the visual memory of nature into a composition of extraordinary depth and possibility.

Opposite: Art © Gerhard Richter 2026 (28102026)

SOT HE BY’S

The present work installed in Gerhard Richter at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, September 1993 - August 1994. Photo courtesy Moderna Museet. Art © Gerhard Richter 2026 (28102026)

ANDY WARHOL 1928 - 1987

T HE SCR E A M ( A F T E R M U N C H ) signed and dated 84 (on the overlap) acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas 52 by 38 in. 132.5 by 96.5 cm. Executed in 1984.

$ 4,000,000-6,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Private Collection

Nicolas Beytout, ed., “Collectionner l’art contemporain en Floridie,” Connaissance des Arts, December 2008, p. 111, illustrated in color

Christie’s London, 6 December 1985, lot 93 May-Britt Bøe, Oslo Sotheby’s London, 21 June 2006, lot 36 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED Hovikodden, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Andy Warhol, May September 1994 (on the exhibition poster) New York, 1018 Art, Andy Warhol: Warhol’s Munchs, September November 2007, illustrated in color (on the cover of the exhibition announcement)

Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum Have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 112 (text) and n.p., illustrated Sarah Firshen, “Waterfront Idyll: Minimalist Art and Far-Flung Antiques Cohabitate in a Modern ‘Box’ by the Sea,” Hamptons Cottage & Gardens, Vol. 8, No. 1, June 2009, p. 64, illustrated in color and p. 67 (text) Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 30, illustrated in color (detail)

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

SOT HE BY’S

Andy Warhol The Scream (After Munch)

istinguished

within

exceptionally

rare

Warhol’s series

sensibilities converge. Translating Munch’s most

emotionally charged image into fluorescent

the canvas that most closely

color and silkscreened layers, Warhol created

echoes the coloration of Munch’s

a new Scream for a mass-media audience—

original painting, Andy Warhol’s The Scream

repackaging a motif of existential anxiety into a

(After Munch) blends two artists whose

seductive, reproducible, unmistakably Pop icon.

public identities appear radically different in a

Warhol’s fascination with Munch developed

dialogue about legacy, creativity, and emotional

over two decades. When the Norwegian art

expression. Munch has long been regarded as the

historian Per Hovdenakk visited Warhol’s New

archetypal introspective artist, exploring private

York City studio in 1963, the artist expressed a

experiences of loneliness and psychological

particular admiration for Munch’s experimental

distress,

himself

printmaking. That interest deepened during a

as the consummate observer of fame and

1973 trip to Oslo, when Warhol visited the Munch

depersonalized surfaces. In this extraordinarily

Museum and began to collect the Norwegian

rare canvas, executed in 1984, the two

artist’s prints. For a twentieth-century American

while

Warhol

fashioned

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Above: Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893. National Gallery, Oslo. Image © HIP / Art Resource, NY

visionary captivated by celebrity images, the

saturate modern culture. Munch conceived The

nineteenth-century Norwegian artist offered

Scream as part of his Frieze of Life, an 1890s

a revelation: an art that expressed intense

cycle of works that he imagined as a secular

and specific emotions but still resonated with

altarpiece possessing the gravity of sacred art.

audiences across time and place.

“One should no longer paint interiors with men

The immediate catalyst for The Scream

reading and women knitting,” he wrote. “They

(After Munch) was a 1982 exhibition at the

must be living individuals who feel, suffer,

newly opened New York location of Galleri

love, and breathe.” (Edvard Munch quoted in:

Bellman, owned by Norwegian dealer Tor

Exh. Cat., Ishøj, Denmark, ARKEN Museum

Uppstrom. The show assembled 126 paintings

of Modern Art (and traveling), Echoes of the

and prints by Munch, including a rare

Scream, 2001, p. 14) The Scream emerged from

lithograph of The Scream lent by the Munch

a psychological experience Munch recorded in

Museum. After Warhol repeatedly visited the

an 1895 edition of the work.

exhibition, Uppstrom commissioned him to

“I was walking along the road with two

create fifteen paintings after four Munch prints:

friends. / The Sun was setting – The Sky turned

Madonna, Self-Portrait with Skeleton Arm,

a bloody red /, And I felt a whiff of Melancholy

The Brooch (Eva Mudocci), and The Scream.

– I stood Still, / deathly tired – over the blue-

Warhol opted to recreate the lithograph of The

black / Fjord and City hung Blood and Tongues

Scream instead of the painting—the already

of Fire / My Friends walked on – I remained

reproduced version of an image destined to

/ behind – shivering with Anxiety – I / felt

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Above: Francis Bacon, Study After Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953. Des Moines Art Center. Image © Des Moines Art Center. Image Source: Bridgeman Images. Art © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved. / DACS, London / ARS, NY 2026 Opposite: Roy Lichtenstein, Woman with Flowered Hat, 1963. Private Collection. Art © 2026 Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS

the great Scream in Nature” (Edvard Munch,

Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci, the same

inscribed on the reverse of The Scream, 1895).

silkscreen treatment as Marilyn Monroe and

Warhol incorporated his silkscreen technique

Coca-Cola bottles. John Cage once observed

and hand-painted acrylic elements to preserve

that “Warhol has shown through repetition

Munch’s undulating contours. He painstakingly

that there is no repetition in art.” (John Cage

prepared transparencies slightly larger than

quoted in: Jörg Schellmann, Andy Warhol: Art

Munch’s prints, which he then transferred onto

from Art, Cologne, 1994, p. 9) The Scream

canvases over twice the size of the original

(After Munch) demonstrates how mechanical

lithographs. Warhol’s waving lines maintain

and repetitive processes continue to remake

Munch’s emotional intensity, while shades

meaning. Each of Warhol’s five canvases of

of orange, blue, turquoise, and yellow in his

The Scream, an unusually small number for

characteristic saturated color palette recast the

him, alters the emotional register of Munch’s

image as an object of consumption rather than

composition. The central figure appears

contemplation. Simultaneously incorporating

alternately incandescent, ghostly, and artificial,

Munch’s subject and Warhol’s style, The

while the fjord in the background dissolves into

Scream (After Munch) pairs a signature image

a succession of psychedelic bands.

with the signature artist to create a timeless study of the human experience. In the early 1980s, Warhol turned away from

contemporary

culture

Compared to his other encounters with canonical artists, Warhol’s treatment of Munch

toward

reveals a more intimate dimension in his own

the

work. “If you want to know all about Andy

history of art itself. His Details of Renaissance

Warhol,” the artist famously maintained, “just

Paintings series gave Old Masters, including

look at the surface of my paintings and films

SOT HE BY’S

and me, and there I am. There’s nothing

twentieth-century

behind it.” (the artist quoted in: Klaus Honnef,

technologies, collapsing the perceived division

Andy Warhol: Commerce into Art, Cologne,

into a seamless study of the expressive core

2000, p. 45) By reproducing another artist’s

behind a mechanical facade.

American

consumer

expression of terror, Warhol hints at the fears

Today, Munch’s image appears on mugs,

concealed under his carefully constructed

T-shirts, advertisements, and inflatable figures.

persona. He uses Munch’s panic as a vessel

Warhol both anticipated this transformation

through which to contemplate his own

and helped make it possible. By treating

concerns about mortality, alienation, and the

Munch’s anguished figure with the same

evanescence of fame. “The reason I’m painting

chromatic glamour he brought to movie stars

this way is that I want to be a machine,”

and soup cans, the New York City Pop pioneer

Warhol once explained. (the artist quoted

elevated the screaming motif within the canon

in: David Bourdon, Warhol, New York, 1995, p.

even as he revealed its latent promise as a

140) The Scream (After Munch) complicates

commercial product. Held in the esteemed

that impersonal quality through an image of

collection of Theodore and Ruth Baum for two

overwhelming human feeling. While Munch

decades, The Scream (After Munch) represents

relied on lithography to multiply his expression

a profound convergence between two artists

of private anguish, Warhol employed silkscreen

who understood that modern life depends

to expose its potential as public spectacle.

on shared images of hidden emotions—and

This dialogue bridges nineteenth-century

who created symbols that speak to global

Norwegian handmade print techniques and

audiences on an individual level.

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Above Left: Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1985, Private Collection. Sold at Sotheby’s New York in May 2012 for $119.9 million. Art © 2026 The Munch Museum / The Munch-Ellingsen Group / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Above Right: Andy Warhol, The Scream (After Munch), 1984. Private Collection. Sold at Sotheby’s London in September 2025 for $8.8 million. Art © 2026 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Opposite: The Baum Residence, Southampton. Photo © Anastassios Mentis. Art © 2026 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

“

ndy Warhol looks a scream / A Hang him on my wall” DAVID BOWIE, ANDY WARHOL FROM THE ALBUM HUNKY DORY, 1972 (SONG)

MARISOL 1930 - 2016

MA DISON AVE N U E acrylic and graphite on wood and plaster with potted plant and metal hardware 69 ½ by 19 ½ by 13 in. 176.5 by 49.5 by 33 cm. Executed in 1961-62.

$ 200,000-300,000

P ROV E N A N C E Victoriano Alberto and Sonja de Zorrilla, New York Christie’s New York, 11 November 2004, lot 237 (consigned by the estate of the above) MB Financial Bank, Rosemont (acquired at the above sale) Sotheby’s New York, 16 May 2007, lot 197 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED New York, Stable Gallery, Marisol, May 1962, no. 6

L I T E R AT U R E José Ramón Medina, Marisol, Caracas 1968, p. 147, illustrated in color (detail) and p. 193 (text) Delia Solomons, "Marisol's Antimonument: Masculinity, PanAmericanism, and Other Imaginaries," The Art Bulletin, Vol. 102, No. 3, September 2020, p. 106, illustrated (installed in New York, Stable Gallery, 1962), and p. 126 (text)

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

osed in parodical stiffness and feigned propriety, Madison Avenue exemplifies

Marisol’s

lifelong

investigation of gender, class, and

social performance within the mid-century Manhattan scene. Portraying a woman walking her husband like a dog down the famed Upper East Side avenue, the present work speaks to the conflicting statuses of women within the household, the institution of marriage, and the high-society public. These conflicts of social performance mediated through alternative bodily forms were not out of place—they were the very questions of identity Marisol grappled with throughout her lifetime. Even her own Self Portrait (1961-62) exhibits no less than seven faces, in addition to multiple bodies and limbs. This abundance of self-representation is her effort to locate her mind and body alongside the Freudian conception of the uncanny double. Born in Paris to a wealthy Venezuelan family, Marisol’s early life was characterized by privilege and extensive travel; the family lived in Europe, Caracas, New York, and Los Angeles throughout her childhood and adolescence. However, Marisol encountered tragedy early in life; at the age of eleven, her mother committed suicide, an event that would lead Marisol to vow near silence for a number of years. She would pivot to art in her quiet solitude, later studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Arts Students League in New York. In the late 1950s, Marisol rose to prominence and fame in the white male-dominated New York Pop scene, becoming the first woman to both exhibit at and be given a solo show at the legendary Leo Castelli Gallery the year it opened in 1957. Known as a savvy ‘it-girl’ crowned as the “first woman artist with glamor” by friend Andy Warhol, Marisol also became a major society figure featured in fashion magazine spreads. Finding parody and humor alongside her explorations of the dynamic power shifts between her and her peers, Marisol uniquely and presciently mediated these alongside the male-dominant Pop sphere of the early sixties, asserting figurative sculpture’s contributions to the artistic conversation surrounding image, media, and a modern New York.

The present work installed in Marisol at the Stable Gallery, New York, May 1962. Art © Estate of Marisol / Buffalo AKG Art Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

JOAN MITCHELL 1925 - 1992

GR E E N BOOK O F BA R BA RA GU EST titled (on the stretcher) oil on canvas 90 by 79 in. 228.6 by 200.7 cm. Executed in 1960.

$ 12,000,000-18,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

The artist

Sidney Tillim, “In the Galleries: Joan Mitchell,” Arts, Vol. 35, Nos. 8-9, May-June 1961, p. 85 (text)

Xavier Fourcade, Inc., New York Acquired from the above in November 1986 by the present owner

Irving Sandler, “Reviews and Previews: Joan Mitchell,” ARTnews, Vol. 60, No. 3, May 1961, p. 11, illustrated

EXHIBITED

James Monte, “Reviews: Directions – American Painting, San Francisco Museum of Art,” Artforum, Vol. II, No. 5, November 1963, p. 45, illustrated

New York, Stable Gallery, Recent Paintings by Joan Mitchell, April May 1961 Los Angeles, Dwan Gallery, Joan Mitchell, September - October 1961 Carbondale, Southern Illinois University, Mr. and Mrs. John Russell Mitchell Gallery, Joan Mitchell: Paintings, 1951–1961, November December 1961 Cambridge, The New Gallery, Hayden Library, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Paintings by Joan Mitchell, April 1962, no. 9 San Francisco Museum of Art, Directions – American Painting, September - October 1963 Helsinki, United States Ambassador’s Residence, Art in Embassies, June 1965 - July 1968

James R. Mellow, ed., “The Gallery World,” Arts Yearbook, New York: The Art World, Vol. 7, 1964, p. 112, illustrated (installed in New York, Stable Gallery, circa 1964) Judith Bernstock, Joan Mitchell, New York 1988, pp. 57, 208 (text) Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, pp. 113-14, illustrated in color (detail) Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 31 (text)

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

SOT HE BY’S

Joan Mitchell Green Book of Barbara Guest

nnouncing vigorous brushstrokes

that synthesized the physicality of Abstract

of amethyst, fuchsia, lime green,

Expressionism with a profound sensitivity to

and

nature, memory, and place.

stark

onyx

black, Joan

Mitchell’s Green Book of Barbara

Entitled with reference to Mitchell’s friend,

Guest from 1960 stands as an exceptional

art critic, and poet Barbara Guest, the present

example from the artist’s first mature period

work is a rare example of a title that provides

in Paris. Executed at a pivotal moment in

a glimpse into Mitchell’s inner circle rather

Mitchell’s career, the present work captures the

than referencing landscapes or natural forms.

fearless gestural bravura of an artist forging an

Barbara Guest occupied a similar space within

entirely new mode of abstraction, realized with

the New York circle of artists as Mitchell, both

exceptional force, confidence, and chromatic

moving to New York within the same year and

intensity. Originally held in the artist’s own

socializing among the same painters and poets.

collection, since 1986, this work has remained

Mitchell befriended many poets, including Frank

in the extraordinary collection of Theodore and

O’Hara, whose poem also shares a title with a

Above: Claude Monet, Iris, c. 1924-25. Private Collection. Sold at Sotheby's Paris in October 2026 for $56.2 million

Ruth Baum. The present work embodies all the

Mitchell work from 1957, To the Harbormaster.

artistic vigor and assurance that distinguished

Guest credited much of her poetic development

Mitchell’s practice at the very climax of her

in her early years in New York to the art

mature practice. Following a transformative

scene within which she explored new creative

Opposite: Joan Mitchell in her studio, Paris, September 1956. Photo by Loomis Dean / The Life Picture Collection via Shutterstock. Art © Estate of Joan Mitchell

visit to Paris in 1955, the landscapes of France

philosophies and sources of inspiration. “In

would become an enduring source of inspiration

the youth of my poetry I was fortunate to be

throughout her career. By 1960, Mitchell had

surrounded by painters in the art movement

arrived at a wholly individual pictorial language

of Abstract-Expressionism, and I learned from

SOT HE BY’S

them. First I noticed these painters appeared

forged a distinctive position alongside other

to have a lot more joy than did the poets. They

Abstract Expressionist giants such as Willem de

were more playful! Their ideas were exploding

Kooning and Jackson Pollock. While de Kooning

on the canvas, and they had a sense of freedom

reintroduced the figure into the language of

the poets were only beginning to learn from

abstraction and Pollock pursued continuous

them… The entire city of New York liked their

movement through his all-over fields of drip

art. More importantly, the air around them was

paintings, Mitchell returned repeatedly to the

hesitating as it turned into the moment. The idea

landscape as a conceptual and emotional

of a moment with its special apparatus is a good

touchstone. Her paintings balance explosive

thing for poetry also.” (Barbara Guest, Forces of

energy with compositional control, translating

Imagination: Writing on Writing, Berkeley, 2003,

remembered sensations of nature into dynamic

p. 102)

arrangements of color, rhythm, and gesture.

This combination of playfulness and

Mitchell’s mark-making, however, was

gravitas that Guest distills is keenly applicable in

“more calculating, more consciously in search

the visual experience of Green Book of Barbara

of beauty than her predecessors,” artists

Guest. The late 1950s and early 1960s are

like Jackson Pollock, who allowed his drips

widely recognized among the most significant

to be unqualified, spontaneous expressions

years of Mitchell’s early oeuvre, giving rise to

of his inner creative drive. (Klaus Kertess,

such landmark works as City Landscape (1955)

Joan Mitchell, New York, 1997, p. 22) She

in the Art Institute of Chicago, Hemlock (1956)

methodically sketched before she started

in the Whitney Museum of American Art, and

painting, and she was constantly evaluating

Blue Tree (1964) in the Worcester Art Museum.

and judging her canvases throughout her

The present work belongs to this extraordinary

process. Further, Mitchell never adopted

moment of artistic flowering, when Mitchell

Pollock’s practice of laying his canvases on

was producing some of the most ambitious

the floor while applying paint; instead, Mitchell

and innovative paintings of her career. Mitchell

stood her canvases upright, allowing gravity

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Above: Jackson Pollock, Lavender Mist: Number 1, 1950. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Image © Bridgeman Images. Art © 2026 Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Opposite: Lee Krasner, The Seasons, 1957. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Image © Whitney Museum of American Art / Licensed by Scala / Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

“

ike Athena sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus, this L self-styled ‘lady painter’ had come abreast with her erstwhile peers to such an extent that it might be no great exaggeration to regard Mitchell in these years as the foremost female American abstractionist.” DAVID ANFAM, JOAN MITCHELL: PAINTINGS FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE LAST CENTURY, 1953-1962, NEW YORK, 2017, P. 7

to influence the downward flow of paint,

that would come to define many of her greatest

resulting in the smudges, drips, and pools of

masterpieces.

color that lend Green Book of Barbara Guest

intensity are produced structurally… by a whole

its remarkably dynamic surface. Across the

series of oppositions: dense versus transparent

canvas, Mitchell’s signature feathery strokes

strokes; gridded structure versus more chaotic,

punctuate the pictorial field, while surrounding

ad hoc construction; weight on the bottom of

passages of pigment drift, expand, and contract

the canvas versus weight at the top; light versus

with palpable vitality. Muted gemstone and

dark; choppy versus continuous brushstrokes;

earthy tones ebb and flow across the surface

harmonious

as flashes of fuchsia and olive animate the

of hue—all are potent signs of meaning and

composition with lyrical intensity.

feeling.” (Linda Nochlin quoted in: Exh. Cat.,

“Meaning

and

clashing

and

emotional

juxtapositions

The painting’s chromatic orchestration

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art,

achieves a remarkable equilibrium between

The Paintings Of Joan Mitchell, 2002, p. 55)

spontaneity and structure, immersing the

Mitchell embarked upon her artistic training

viewer in a visual experience that is at once

in 1947 at the Art Institute of Chicago, where

immediate and deeply sustained. Painted

she first encountered the works of such artists

during Mitchell’s first years in Paris, Green

as Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, and Henri

Book of Barbara Guest possesses the sense

Matisse, the masters who would inspire her

of expansiveness and atmospheric resonance

work throughout her career. Upon moving to

SOT HE BY’S

“

hy from this window am I watching leaves? W Why do halls and steps seem narower? Why at this desk am I listening for the sound of the fall of color, the pitch of the wooden floor and feet going faster? Am I to understand change, whether remarkable or hidden, am I to find a lake under the table or a mountain beside my chair, and will I know the minute water produces lilies or a family of mountaineers scales the peak?” BARBARA GUEST, THE LOCATION OF THINGS, 1960

Eleanor Ward with the present work at Stable Gallery, New York. Photo by Mottke Weissman. Art © Estate of Joan Mitchell

New York in 1952, Mitchell was a rare female

“[Mitchell’s paintings] are meaning and

presence in the otherwise male-centric world

therefore do not have a residue of meaning

of the New York School. She moved in the

which can be talked about.” (John Ashbery,

same avant-garde circles as Jackson Pollock,

“An Expressionist in Paris,” ARTnews, April

Franz Kline, and Hans Hofmann, and was

1965, n.p.) Over the course of a career that

included in the seminal Ninth Street Show

reshaped the possibilities of postwar painting,

organized by Leo Castelli in 1951. Following

Mitchell expanded the ambitions of Abstract

her first solo exhibition at the New Gallery in

Expressionism

1952, Mitchell entered the artistic discourse

established by her contemporaries. Though

surrounding Abstract Expressionism as a

rooted in lived experience and inspired by

key voice, described as “one of America’s

landscape, her paintings transcend direct

most brilliant ‘Action-Painters.’ At a time

description, existing instead as independent

when many young artists are withdrawing

visual events whose meaning resides fully within

introspectively from the bold experimentation

their formal and emotional presence. Neither

of their elders … her art expands in the wake of

an expression of pure emotional impulse

her generous energy.” (Irving Sandler, “Young

nor an abstraction derived from figurative

Moderns and Modern Masters: Joan Mitchell,”

inspiration, Green Book of Barbara Guest

ARTnews, March 1957, p. 32) This moment

exemplifies Mitchell’s innovation in transforming

heralded a transformative period in Mitchell’s

memory, sensation, and nature into a majestic

career, during which she moved back and

orchestration of color, gesture, and space.

forth between New York and Paris, seamlessly

Executed at the dawn of one of the most

blending the expressive abstract machismo of

important decades of her career, the present

the New York School with an elegant European

work stands as a vivid testament to the authority

fidelity to nature.

and enduring power of Mitchell’s vision.

beyond

the

boundaries

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Above: Barbara Guest, Poems: The Location of Things, Archaics, The Open Skies, 1962

ELLSWORTH KELLY 1923 - 2015

RE D W HITE signed with the artist’s initials, dated 58 and numbered 141 (on the reverse) oil on canvas 28 by 42 in. 71.1 by 106.7 cm. Executed in 1958.

$ 3,000,000-4,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E Galerie Maeght, Paris Arthur Tooth and Sons, Ltd., London E. J. Power, London (acquired from the above in November 1958) David Richardson, London (acquired from the above by 1978) Waddington Galleries, London (acquired in July 1998) Stephen Mazoh, Rhinebeck, New York (acquired by July 2000) Grant Selwyn Fine Art, New York Judith Neisser, Chicago (acquired from the above in 2003) Acquired from the above in September 2005 by the present owner

EXHIBITED Paris, Galerie Maeght, Ellsworth Kelly, October - November 1958, no. 13, n.p. (text) (titled Direction Out) London, Arthur Tooth & Sons, Ltd., American Abstract Painters, January - February 1961, no. 4, n.p. (titled Direction Out)

L I T E R AT U R E Yves-Alain Bois, Ellsworth Kelly: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Reliefs, and Sculpture, Volume Two, 1954-1958, Paris 2015, no. 236, pp. 85, 280, 344, 346-49, 352-53, 364, 367, 380 (text), p. 345, illustrated in color, and fig. 22, p. 381, illustrated (installed in Paris, Galerie Maeght, 1958)

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

SOT HE BY’S

Ellsworth Kelly Red White

xecuted during Ellsworth Kelly’s

of visual tension whilst never relinquishing

most pivotal decade, Red White

the essential flatness of the composition. Red

stands as one of the artist’s

White encapsulates Kelly’s radical rethinking of

most dynamic and conceptually

abstraction and reveals how the artist pushed

ambitious canvases. At once energetic and

the boundaries of spatial relationships, laying

carefully balanced, and held in this exceptional

the groundwork for many formal innovations

private collection for over two decades,

that would define postwar American art.

the present work distills the artist’s lifelong

The present work reflects the profound

investigation of the essential relationships

impact of Kelly’s years in Paris, a period during

between shape, color, and perception, guided

which he distilled his visual language into the

by his direct observations of his surroundings,

rigorous, reductive vocabulary that would

in this case, some pieces of collage on his studio

define his seven-decade career. While studying

floor. Emerging as a bold red form that fractures

at the École des Beaux-Arts, he deepened his

and expands across the white ground, Kelly

engagement with Byzantine and Romanesque

transforms the canvas into a dynamic arena

frescoes, captivated by their flattened forms

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Above: Ellsworth Kelly at Galerie Maeght, Paris, 1958 © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery Opposite: Piet Mondrian, Composition No. II, 1930. Private Collection. Sold at Sotheby’s New York in November 2022 for $51 million

“

I n my own work, I have never been interested in painterliness (or what I find is) a personal handwriting, putting marks on canvas. My work is a different way of seeing and making something and which has a different use.” ELLSWORTH KELLY, “NOTES OF 1969” IN: KRISTINE STILES AND PETER SELZ, THEORIES AND DOCUMENTS OF CONTEMPORARY ART, BERKELEY, 1996, P. 93

and clear contours. The architecture of Paris

Kelly’s Parisian years were propelled by

also inspired him, where the interplay of light

his burgeoning relationships with the vibrant

and shadow transformed familiar structures

avant-garde community, where artists such as

into strikingly abstract compositions that

Georges Vantongerloo, Merce Cunningham and

resonated with his own perceptual approaches

Constantin Brancusi encouraged him to shed

to art. In a 1950 letter to John Cage, Kelly called

his early training rooted in gestural brushwork

for a return to more immediate experiences

and pursue other avenues of abstraction.

of the art form, writing: “I am not interested

Among

in painting as it has been accepted for so

encountered, Henri Matisse proved particularly

long—to hang on walls of houses as pictures.

revelatory, especially through his late cut-outs

To hell with pictures… We must make our

with their flattened forms and bold chromatic

art like the Egyptians… It should meet the

relationships. Yet while Matisse physically

eye—direct.” (the artist quoted in: Exh. Cat.,

constructed his compositions through collage,

New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,

Kelly took a more radical approach in Red

Ellsworth Kelly: A Retrospective, 1996, p.

White, beginning with the visual phenomenon

11) This conviction would remain central to

of overlapping forms and then stripping away

Kelly’s practice, informing his pursuit of forms

all evidence of layering, compressing depth

grounded in pure visual experience.

into a single image. In doing so, Kelly sought to

the

European

modernists

SOT HE BY’S

Ellsworth Kelly at his Coenties Slip Studio in New York, 1961. Photo by Fritz Goro via Shutterstock. Art © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery

eliminate the artist’s hand altogether, replacing

elements. The vivid red possesses a remarkable

composition and gesture with forms derived

physical presence, asserting itself with a vitality

directly from observation.

that recalls the artist’s celebrated explorations

Following his return to New York in

of primary and high-keyed color. Ultimately,

1954, Kelly joined the vibrant Coenties Slip

Red White introduces a brisk new dynamism in

community where he translated the lessons

the artist’s pictorial language.

of Paris onto an increasingly ambitious scale.

Shortly after Red White was completed in

Offering a refreshing alternative to the gestural

the fall of 1958, it was flown to Paris to be shown

and impasto-driven surfaces that dominated

at Galerie Maeght, Kelly’s first solo show at the

New York painting, his works were rooted in

gallery. Considered a turning point in Kelly’s

precise observations of naturally occurring

career, the show was an immense success,

abstraction, distilled to their most essential

exhibiting some of Kelly’s most significant

forms. In doing so, Kelly grounded abstraction

early canvases, including Broadway and West

in the visible world while advancing a distinctly

Side. International collectors flocked to Paris,

postwar exploration of perception, space, and

leaving only eight paintings unsold; the present

representation.

work was one of the eight works purchased by

The origins of Red White can be traced to

the pioneering collector of American art, E. J.

a chance encounter in Kelly’s studio, when

Power, who was said to have been so excited

he encountered pieces of leftover collage

by the show that he attempted to buy three

overlapping on the floor. Intrigued by the

more works. More than a masterful exercise

illusion of spatial layering created by these

in form and color, Red White stands among

stacked paper fragments, Kelly sought to

the most compelling statements of Kelly’s

preserve the visual tension of the motif while

early artistic vision. Emerging from a simple

eliminating any sense of depth. By submerging

studio observation, the canvas is charged with

the intersecting forms into a monochromatic

a remarkable force and vitality, generating a

red field, he unified the image and allowed

palpable sense of movement while remaining

the singular form to animate the composition.

emphatically flat. Through the commanding

The deliberate horizontal format and exclusion

interplay of shape, scale, and color, Red White

of curved contours further underscore his

reveals Kelly’s singular ability to imbue the

desire to avoid anthropomorphic associations

most reduced forms with an enduring sense of

and reduce the image to its essential formal

life and presence.

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECT ION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Below: Carmen Herrera, Untitled, 1952. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY. Art © Estate of Carmen Herrera

SOT HE BY’S

Third Avenue train in the Coenties Slip, New York. Photo by Charles Phelps Cushing/ClassicStock/Getty Images

MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO b. 1933

T UR ISTA VE R D E signed twice, titled, inscribed 1962-1974, numbered N. 111 Numero centounidici and variously inscribed (on the reverse) silkscreen on polished stainless steel 90 ½ by 47 ¼ in. 229.9 by 120 cm. Executed in 1974, this work is unique.

$ 600,000-800,000

P ROV E N A N C E Private Collection, Rome (acquired directly from the artist) Sotheby’s Milan, 23 November 1993, lot 163 (consigned by the above) Berardo Collection, Lisbon (acquired at the above sale) Private Collection, Portugal (acquired from the above) Waddington Galleries Ltd., London Acquired from the above in October 2003 by the present owner

EXHIBITED Lisbon, Centro Cultural de Belém, The POP ‘60s: Transatlantic Crossing, September - November 1997, no. 242, p. 248, illustrated in color

L I T E R AT U R E Robert Violette, ed., The Berardo Collection, New York 1996, no. 123, p. 272, illustrated in color Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 111, illustrated in color Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 31, illustrated in color

102

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

SOT HE BY’S

103

The present work illustrated in the Baum Residence, Palm Beach. Art © Estate of Joan Mitchell. Art © Carl Andre / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Art © Antony Gormley 2026. Art © 2026 Michelangelo Pistoletto. Photograph by Diana Todorova

“

I t is to be noticed that Pistoletto, instead of accepting the illusion of adding a subjective image within the arc of all the possible representations, has taken from the range of existing images a means of representation that can be verified through visual certainty. Instead of setting out from the blankness of a white canvas, he started with a surface full of images, a mirror…” TOMMASO TRINI QUOTED IN: EXH. CAT., NEW YORK, SIDNEY JANIS GALLERY, NEW PAINTINGS BY PISTOLETTO, NOVEMBER 1974, N.P.

adically challenging the visual

reflect, to mirror the viewer,” Pistoletto later

experience of both sculpture and

explained, “I decided to make a better reflection

painting, Michelangelo Pistoletto’s

with another material: polished stainless steel...

Mirror Paintings inject a fourth

The mirror becomes like a film that moves

dimension into these planes, questioning not

in the present forever and the fixed figure is

only the visual experience of sculpture, but

a photogram of it.” (the artist quoted in: Exh.

the temporal impression of a reflective work,

Cat., London, Serpentine Gallery, Michelangelo

created anew upon each viewer’s perception

Pistoletto: The Mirror Of Judgment, 2011, p. 18)

and reception of the work. In a metaphysical

More than a mere technical innovation, the

viewer experience, Pistoletto makes tangible

mirror embodies a philosophical proposition:

the Observer Effect in that this work is, in fact,

the collapse of the distinction between artwork

more than simply dynamic, but truly a different

and the surrounding world, between figure

object each second it exists.

and ground, between image and viewer. In the

Pistoletto’s breakthrough came in 1961

present work, the image of this foreign woman

when, painting a self-portrait on a dark,

is still, but the world around her and the viewer

reflective background, he caught sight of his

within it are in perpetual motion. The result is a

own face on the surface. What followed was a

work that reconstitutes itself in real time, held

redefinition of both medium and message. His

in the same renowned private collection for

Quadri specchianti, of which Turista Verde is an

over two decades. The present work becomes

exceptional example, constitute a rupture in

a living surface, a generative field in which each

the pictorial field: no longer is the background a

viewer sees themselves reflected—not simply

passive context but an active site of interaction.

physically, but psychologically, doubled, and

“Because when the background started to

momentarily transformed.

SOT HE BY’S

105

ED RUSCHA b. 1937

DIMP L E signed and dated 1964 (on the reverse) oil on canvas 28 by 30 in. 71.1 by 76.2 cm. Executed in 1964.

$ 10,000,000-15,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E Charles Cowles, New York John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco Magnus Bromander, Goteborg (acquired from the above in 1973) Dickinson Roundell, London Acquired from the above in February 2002 by the present owner

L I T E R AT U R E Sam Hunter, “Narrative Art,” Critical Perspectives in American Art, Amherst 1976, p. 53 (text) Pat Poncy, ed., Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Volume One: 1958-1970, New York 2003, P1964.11, p. 142 (text) and p. 143, illustrated in color Christopher Bollen, “An Interview with Ed Ruscha,” The Believer, March 2006, p. 47 (text) and p. 51, illustrated in color Jerelle Kraus, All The Art That’s Fit to Print (And Some That Wasn’t): Inside The New York Times Op-Ed Page, New York 2009, p. 209 (text) Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 31, illustrated in color (inverted) Jeffrey Weiss, “Words in Space,” in: Exh. Cat., New York, The Museum of Modern Art (and traveling), Ed Ruscha / Now Then: A Retrospective, 2023-24, p. 159 (text)

108

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

SOT HE BY’S

10 9

Ed Ruscha Dimple

Ed Ruscha in his Los Angeles Studio, 1985. Photo by Arnold Newman Properties/Getty Images. Art © Ed Ruscha

“

f particular interest is Ruscha’s concentration on virtually O disembodied block lettering and layout, presented in the slick graphic idiom of the advertising media where the artist briefly worked as a commercial artist. It is only a short step to the isolation of lettering in the decontextualized sign of Dimple.” SAM HUNTER, “NARRATIVE ART,” CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES IN AMERICAN ART, AMHERST, 1976, P. 53

he scarlet, sans serif characters of

each clamoring with an elemental graphic

“dimple” fill the pure white field of Ed

force. Perhaps nowhere is this more viscerally

Ruscha’s eponymous masterwork

impressed than in his C-clamp paintings, which

from

character

assert the word as both concept and object;

emblazoned with crisp, surgical precision. That

1964,

each

the image as one to be simultaneously read

is, however, until the final letter “e,” whose

and observed. Further testament to Dimple’s

mechanical order is stretched, squinched, and

incredible significance is its provenance,

compressed to the verge of illegibility by an

having remained in the collection of Ruth and

industrial C-clamp, warping the image with

Theodore Baum for over two decades.

the shrewd genius of the artist’s semiotic

Theatrical and cinematic, clever yet

subversion. Heralding not only a milestone in

incisive, Dimple sees Ruscha spell out its

Ruscha’s aesthetic and theoretical evolution

title in a bright, bold, and simplified typeface,

but also the emergence of the then-nascent Pop

echoing the commercial design of storefronts,

and Conceptual art movements, Dimple is one

signs, and windows. The letters remain flat,

of only 7 paintings featuring the tremendously

lying prone on the canvas as though simply

rare and important C-clamp motif, two of

enlarged for a billboard or poster. This playful

which reside in The Menil Collection in Houston

enlargement and the authority of the written

and the Museum Brandhorst in Munich. The

word, however, is undermined by the metal

present work is also notably one of just four

clamp that clenches the elastic skin of the final

works featuring this text, three of which feature

“e,” radically disrupting the ostensible flatness

the very clamp that ironically dimples the rote

of the text and giving it a sculptural physicality

plasticity of the script itself. Ruscha’s early text

and surreal bent. The C-clamp—a utilitarian

paintings from the 1960s remain the artist’s

metal device of mechanics and carpentry—

greatest contribution to the canon of Postwar

introduces a trompe l’oeil effect that elevates

painting, through which ordinary language is

text into object, language into art, colloquialism

transformed into arresting visual statements,

into critique: as art historian Sam Hunter

SOT HE BY’S

111

observes in the catalogue raisonné entry for the

the flat picture plane.” (Sam Hunter, “Narrative

present work, “Of particular interest is Ruscha’s

Art,” Critical Perspectives in American Art,

concentration on virtually disembodied block

Amherst, 1976, p. 53) As with the very best of

lettering and layout, presented in the slick

Ruscha’s seminal Text paintings, here the artist

graphic idiom of the advertising media where

transfigures the word “dimple” into a vehicle

the artist briefly worked as a commercial artist.

for his formal and conceptual investigations, a

It is only a short step to the isolation of lettering

signature interplay of semiotics that has since

in the decontextualized sign of Dimple. Here

shaped the cornerstone of his prolific career.

the Surrealist attitude is made manifest by

Ruscha’s Text Paintings of the 1960s were

the curious addition of a trompe l’oeil clamp

born out of his first road trip to California,

which crumples one of the letters. Pictorially, a

traveling to art school from Oklahoma on the

double meaning results from the intrusion of a

fabled Route 66. Ruscha, whose brief origins

modelled object in the context of a flat lettered

were as a commercial artist, found inspiration

sign, for the illusionist device not only hints at

in the stunning omnipresence of advertising

irrational violence, but violates the sanctity of

billboards, which spoke to America’s rising tides

112

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

of prosperity and consumerism. These colossal,

vernacular and graphics as his staple subject

de-contextualized words and the constant

matter, Ruscha would cunningly manipulate

barrage of images projecting onto the endless

the core tenets of Surrealism to reinterpret

expanse of the mythical West would constitute

the aesthetics of commercial Americana at

a major influence on his visual vernacular,

its height during the mid-twentieth century.

resulting in a career-long obsession with text

“I like the idea of a word becoming a picture,

and image. In Dimple, Ruscha plays with this

almost leaving its body, then coming back and

notion—that of painting as object and illusion,

becoming a word again,” the artist remarked,

with words functioning as visual constructs—in

“I see myself working with two things that

his most literal expression to that point. Indeed,

don’t even ask to understand each other” (the

the Surrealist facets of paintings like Dimple

artist quoted in: Thomas Beller, “Ed Ruscha” in:

can be directly attributed to a strong presence

Alexandra Schwartz, ed., Leave Any Information

of European Surrealism in Los Angeles during

at the Signal: Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages,

the late 1950s, Ruscha first arrived in the

Cambridge, 2002, p. 282)

city and would witness key exhibitions of Man

Ruscha’s Text Paintings furthermore stand

Ray, Yves Tanguy, and René Magritte at the

as among the most foundational bodies of

Copley Gallery. However, adopting everyday

work in the early Pop movement. Ruscha’s

Opposite: Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup with Can Opener, 1962. Private Collection. Image © HIP / Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Right: Roy Lichtenstein, I Can See the Whole Room! ... And There’s Nobody in It!, 1961. Private Collection. Art © 2026 Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS

SOT HE BY’S

1 13

distinct, boundary-blurring practice distilled

Dimple monumentalizes the mundane,

the spirit of American consumerism and

standing as the height of Ruscha’s pioneering

mass media into a revolutionary interplay

and singular mode of painting that brought

between language and text, sign and symbol,

imaginative freedom to the regimented order

expression and image. Like Andy Warhol’s

of printed matter. An early paragon of Ruscha’s

Campbell’s soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles,

iconic early 1960s output, Dimple marks a

Ruscha adopted as his subject matter an

critical turning point in art history, during

eclectic vocabulary of common words sourced

which the tradition of painting collides with the

from his everyday surroundings. “There are

cacophonous visual deluge of contemporary

things that I’m constantly looking at that I feel

culture. “The term Pop Art made me nervous

should be elevated to greater status, almost to

and ambivalent,” Ruscha reflected, “It actually

philosophical status or to a religious status,”

goes beyond painting. It was culture, and it

said Ruscha, “That’s why taking things out

was so many other modes of making art …

of context is a useful tool to an artist. It’s the

A Pop artist can be anyone who has thrown

concept of taking something that’s not subject

over a recent set of values.” (the artist quoted

matter and making it subject matter.” (the artist

in: Exh. Cat., Washington, D.C., Hirshhorn

quoted in: Richard D. Marshall and Ed Ruscha,

Museum and Sculpture Garden, Ed Ruscha,

Ed Ruscha, New York, 2005, p. 133) Squeezed

2000, p. 150) In Dimple Ruscha not only

to reverberate with Ruscha’s acerbic wit and

throws over the authority of the written word

whimsy, Dimple refuses a straightforward

but indeed the tenets of traditional painting

reading, instead interplaying motifs of “high”

altogether, a triumphant, winking assertion

and “low” culture with an aesthetic irony that

of the values and vision that would define

summarizes the artist’s enduring legacy and

Ruscha’s titanic career.

Pop as a whole.

114

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Above left: René Magritte, Le masque vide, 1928. Kunstsammlung NordrheinWestfalen, Düsseldorf. Art © 2026 C. Herscovici, Brussels / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Above right: Edwaert Collier, Trompe l’oeil with Writing Materials, c. 1702. Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Image © Bridgeman Images

Ed Ruscha’s C-Clamp Paintings

From 1958 to 2011, Ed Ruscha executed only 7 text paintings with the clamp motif, all painted in 1964. Furthermore, there are only 4 Dimple paintings: executed in 1964, three bear the C-clamp motif, with one other featuring text only. Testament to their incredible significance in Ruscha’s oeuvre, examples of these works belong in The Menil Collection, Houston and Museum Brandhorst, Munich.

DIMPLE, 1964 29 BY 30 IN. THE PRESENT WORK

SECURING THE LAST LETTER (BOSS), 1964 59 BY 55 IN. PRIVATE COLLECTION, NEW YORK SOLD IN NEW YORK FOR $39.4 MILLION IN NOVEMBER 2023

116

NOT ONLY SECURING THE LAST LETTER, BUT DAMAGING IT AS WELL (BOSS), 1964 59 BY 55 IN. MUSEUM BRANDHORST, MUNICH

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

DIMPLE, 1964

SQUEEZING DIMPLE, 1964

28 BY 30 IN. PRIVATE COLLECTION, CALIFORNIA

28 ¼ BY 29 ⅞ IN. PRIVATE COLLECTION, NEW YORK

HURTING THE WORD RADIO #1, 1964

HURTING THE WORD RADIO #2, 1964

59 ⅛ BY 55 ⅛ IN. THE MENIL COLLECTION, HOUSTON

59 BY 55 IN. PRIVATE COLLECTION SOLD IN NEW YORK FOR $52.5 MILLION IN NOVEMBER 2019

SOT HE BY’S

1 17

TOM WESSELMANN 1931 - 2004

STIL L L IF E # 2 2 signed, titled, dated 10/62 and variously inscribed (on the reverse) acrylic, enamel, paper collage and wood with metal brackets, radio and plastic bottle on panel 36 by 48 by 4 in. 91.4 by 121.9 by 10.2 cm. Executed in 1962. This work is included in the Tom Wesselmann Digital Corpus published by the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, and will be included in their forthcoming Tom Wesselmann Digital Catalogue Raisonné.

$ 1,500,000-2,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Green Gallery, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

Slim Stealingworth, Tom Wesselmann, New York 1980, p. 27, illustrated

Arnold Glimcher, New York (acquired from above in November 1962) Waddington Galleries, Ltd., London Private Collection (acquired from the above in July 1989) Christie’s New York, 14 May 1999, lot 726 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED New York, Green Gallery, Wesselman Collages/Great American Nude & Still-Life, November - December 1962, illustrated (on exhibition poster) Paris, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann &..., October 2024 - February 2025, p. 158, illustrated in color and illustrated in color (in video teaser for the exhibition)

Rebecca Cochran et al., “The Top Collections: From 250 Collectors,” Art & Antiquities, March 2008, p. 78, illustrated in color (detail) and p. 109, illustrated in color Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum Have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 113, illustrated in color Exh. Cat., New York, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, Tom Wesselmann, 2016, pp. 16-17, illustrated in color (installed in New York, Green Gallery, 1962 with the artist) Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 31, illustrated in color (inverted) Davor Dimić, dir., “POP FOREVER, Tom Wesselman &..., Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris 2025, Full exhibition overview,” c0ntemporary Art TV, 5 January 2025, 14:55, illustrated in color (installed in Paris, Fondation Louis Vuitton, 2024) (video) Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Tom Wesselmann Catalogue Raisonné Project, 21 October 2026, ref. no. TWDASV, no. CSL22, illustrated in color (online) (accessed 21 October 2026)

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Tom Wesselmann Still Life #22

The artist with the present work at the Green Gallery, New York, December 1962. Photo by Jerry Goodman. Image courtesy of The Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc., New York, 2026. Art © Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

I Above: The source image for the lower left element of the present work. The face of America is… advertisement, Canady Dry, 1962

1956 to study at Cooper Union, Wesselmann

painting, collage, and assemblage, Tom

spectacular

combination

encountered Abstract Expressionist pioneers

Wesselmann’s Still Life #22 recasts the

like Motherwell and de Kooning for the first

established tradition of still-life painting

time, yet ultimately understood that they

in the pop language of American consumer

had reached their limits in innovation, and he

culture. A landmark example from the artist’s

would thus have to explore different avenues

earliest and most groundbreaking body of work,

of expression. Wesselmann sought to renew

his still life series embodies the audacious

art genres like still life and nude painting

visual language through which Wesselmann

by infusing them with the visual language

established his place in the canon of American

of postwar consumer culture. His still lifes

Pop Art. Combining the flat picture plane

reconciled the traditions of European painting

with three-dimensional elements, including

with the imagery and vitality of contemporary

a functioning radio, Wesselmann transforms

American consumer life, positioning himself

the traditional genre into a vibrant, immersive

simultaneously within a centuries-old tradition

composition collapsing distinctions between

and at the forefront of Pop Art.

fine art and popular culture. Held in the Baum

In the early 1960s, as the hegemony of

Collection for nearly three decades, the present

abstraction came to its end, a new generation

work encapsulates the evolving landscape

of artists began to question what the place of

of Pop imagery and its establishment within

the original, autographic work of art was within

the artistic canon. Settling in New York in

a society where everything was producible and

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reproducible. Wesselmann joined the emerging group of artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and James Rosenquist who looked to the imagery of everyday life, approaching the modern subject matter with an enthusiasm that

was

both

celebratory

and

deeply

visual. He was less interested in critiquing consumer culture than in exploring its formal possibilities, finding beauty in the bold colors, sharp graphics, and seductive advertising that stocked the American home. The present work derives much of its visual power from Wesselmann’s masterful orchestration of color. Sourced from the ready-made objects, Still Life #22 imbues the vivid orange of the Canada Dry soda bottle across the composition, setting it against brilliant passages of blue, creating a composition animated by complementary chromatic relationships. Yet the work’s ambition extends well beyond its palette. Throughout the series, Wesselmann became increasingly engaged with questions of space and the expansion of painting beyond the confines of the picture plane. The incorporation of ready-made and collaged elements reflects his desire to blur the boundaries between art and life, creating works that confront the viewer immediately. It also reflects his increasing concern with the relationship between subject matter and abstract content, believing that the found objects vividly intensified the objective content of his works, which he would attempt to balance out through painterly elements. As Slim Stealingworth later recalled, “During 1962 Wesselmann became more and more interested in form extensions. A kind of floodgate had opened, and he became interested in breaking out of his other restrictions about painting. The use of sound, light, TV, etc. expanded and intensified the painting situation. [ ... ] He used color to defuse the intrusive intensity of three-dimensional objects and disseminate that intensity throughout the painting.” (Slim Stealingworth

[Tom

Wesselmann],

Wesselmann, New York, 1980, p. 27)

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Tom

Above: Tom Wesselmann, Still Life #30, 1963. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY. Art © Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY Opposite top: Andy Warhol, Green Coca-Cola Bottles, 1962. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Image © Whitney Museum of American Art / Licensed by Scala / Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Opposite bottom: Robert Indiana, The Figure Five, 1963. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Image © Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC / Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 Morgan Art Foundation Ltd. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

In Still Life #22, Wesselmann assembles a

figures allowed Wesselmann to reinforce

constellation of instantly recognizable objects

the relationship between consumer and

and images: commercial packaging, food

commodity, painting a more accurate portrait

products, domestic appliances, and patriotic

of the cultural environment that defined

motifs coexist within a highly structured

middle-class postwar America. Still Life #22

pictorial field. A bottle of orange soda stands

stands as a compelling example from the

prominently at the center, flanked by a radio

daring series that established Wesselmann

and a bottle of pills, while the lower register is

as one of the pioneers of American Pop Art.

anchored by a child swigging another Canada

Bridging the visual seduction of advertising,

Dry beverage, this time in its iconic green

the familiarity of domestic objects, and the

bottle. Sourced directly from a Canada Dry print

legacy of the still life tradition, he constructs

advertisement he encountered on the subway,

an image that feels both deeply rooted in

the dynamic action not only captures the

its specific moment and strikingly timeless.

increasingly rapid creation and dissemination

Unfolding before the viewer as a masterfully

of mass imagery, but also introduces a distinctly

orchestrated assemblage, Still Life #22

human presence into the work. Unusual within

triumphantly

the still life tradition, the inclusion of human

singular contribution to Twentieth-Century art.

encapsulates

Wesselmann’s

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“

hen I made the decision in 1959 that I W was not going to be an abstract painter; that I was going to be a representational painter...I only got started by doing the opposite of everything I loved. And in choosing representational painting, I decided to do, as my subject matter, the history of art: I would do nudes, still-lifes, landscapes, interiors, portraits, etc...” TOM WESSELMANN QUOTED IN: MARC LIVINGSTONE, “TOM WESSELMANN: TELLING IT LIKE IT IS” IN: EXH. CAT., TOKYO, ISETAN MUSEUM OF ART, TOM WESSELMANN, A RETROSPECTIVE SURVEY 1969-1992, 1993, P. 21

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DAVID HAMMONS b. 1943

BASK E TBA L L AN D BR I C KS signed and dated 06 (on the reverse) charcoal on paper in artist’s frame with bricks frame: 82 ¼ by 55 ¼ in. 208.9 by 140.3 cm. overall: 89 ½ by 72 ½ by 19 ⅞ in. 227.3 by 184.2 by 50.5 cm. (installation dimensions variable) Executed in 2006.

$ 2,500,000-3,500,000

P ROV E N A N C E Acquired directly from the artist in May 2006 by the present owner

EXHIBITED West Palm Beach, Norton Museum of Art, 2015-16 (extended loan) West Palm Beach, Norton Museum of Art, Going Public: Florida Collectors Celebrate the Norton, February - June 2019

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David Hammons Basketball and Bricks

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“

I t’s an anti-basketball sculpture. Basketball has become a problem in the black community because kids aren’t getting an education. They’re pawns in someone else’s game ... you should have higher goals in life than basketball.” DAVID HAMMONS QUOTED IN: EXH. CAT., NEW YORK, MOMA PS1, DAVID HAMMONS: ROUSING THE RUBBLE, 1991, P. 29

Opposite: David Hammons in Harlem, New York, 1990s. Photo by Anthony Barboza/Getty Images

cross assemblage and sculpture,

of paper, leaving the circular ghosts of charcoal,

printmaking, performance, and

or in others, the dirt of Harlem. Propped askew

installation, the life and work of

on a pile of bricks, the totemic, ornate gilt

David Hammons has resisted

frame is thus destabilized, the work of High Art

establishment, permanence, categorization,

precariously balanced on ostensible rubble.

and,

commodification.

Testament to the significance of the Basketball

Simultaneously incisive and evasive, shrewd

Drawings in Hammons’ oeuvre, they are

and frank, the artist’s corpus of Basketball

widely represented in prestigious institutional

Drawings succinctly embodies the very themes

collections, including The Cleveland Museum

that have given rise to one of the most inventive,

of Art, Saint Louis Art Museum, Buffalo AKG

inimitable voices of the past century: Black

Art Museum, and the Pinault Collection, Paris.

cultural iconography, historical permanence,

Longstanding supporters of Hammons, Ruth

race and politics, and a searing refutation of

and Theodore Baum acquired Basketball

the artistic canon and commercial art world. In

and Bricks directly from the artist upon its

Basketball and Bricks from 2006, among the

execution in 2006. Hammons personally

most accomplished examples from this body

installed the work in their New York apartment

of work, we see Hammons reach his zenith.

and visited the couple in Palm Beach, reflecting

Here, the atmospheric, diffuse abstraction that

a relationship that extended well beyond their

blooms across the composition is the result not

passion for his work. The Baums subsequently

of a brush, pencil, or stick of Conté crayon but

placed this work on extended loan to the Norton

the repeated dribbling of a basketball on a sheet

Museum of Art.

above

all,

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Above: David Hammons, Untitled, 1969. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 David Hammons / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Standing at monumental scale, the sheet

Hammons’ work is its direct engagement and

of Basketball and Bricks is filled with the

preoccupation with race, class, and the Black

spectral chiaroscuro of hundreds of obsidian

American experience. “The bones, sans the

impressions. That

abstraction

missing/consumed barbecue, type of hair and

evokes the fluttering gesture of a Philip

grease…” Kellie Jones writes, “were employed

Guston or the absorptive, high-throttle

by Hammons specifically as intimate and

fullness of a Jackson Pollock. Like Pollock,

personal comments on the [African American]

who often placed his canvases on his barn

culture.” (Kellie Jones, “The Structure of Myth

studio floor to fling paint around and all over

and the Potency of Magic” in: Exh Cat., New

his pictures, Hammons’ process of dribbling a

York, MoMA PS1, David Hammons: Rousing

basketball on paper presents a radical gesture

the Rubble, 1991, p. 24) Indeed, while the pile

whose performance is forever ossified on flat

of bricks poses a sarcastic, cunning play on

ground. Yet Hammons ultimately parodies

words—the colloquialism for an unfulfilled

Formalism’s delight in nonrepresentation,

shot, or “throwing a brick”—it also imbues the

anti-narration, and abstraction’s apocryphal

work with a greater literal and metaphorical

promise of objectivity—what does Hammons

dimensionality. Hammons first introduced the

say by, for years, refusing to create flat,

theme of basketball to his work in the early

traditional, and hangable works only to disrupt

1980s, beginning with seminal performances

their sanctity by teetering them on found

such as his 1982 Human Pegs, Pole Dreams, and

bricks, suitcases, water bottles, and boulders?

continuing through to his 1987 Public Art Fund

Hammon’s work here does not merely offer an

installation Higher Goals in Brooklyn’s Cadman

extension of an extant canonical lineage: what

Plaza. The use of the basketball here, even if

is so radical, revolutionary, and defiant about

divorced from its image and haunted only by its

nebulous

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impression, suggests the limitations for young

legendary “Bliz-aard Ball Sale” in 1983, the

Black Americans pursuing professional athletic

performance piece during which he sold

careers. Rather, Hammons’ work exposes

snowballs outside of Cooper Union, to spray-

the exploitative nature behind these paths to

painting and singeing expensive fur coats for

so-called enlightenment—sports and the arts

a 2007 show. Here, by forcibly reconciling art

alike. In describing Higher Goals, a group of five

and athletics, drawing and dribbling, Hammons

sculptures composed of bottle cap-studded

challenges the accepted notions of artistic

telephone poles mounted with basketball

creation. “Hammons,” Lowery Sims observes,

backboards, hoops, and nets, Hammons

“confronts

remarked, “It’s an anti-basketball sculpture.

perception of the dear, the beautiful, and

Basketball has become a problem in the black

transforms our perception of and reception

community because kids aren’t getting an

to the humble detritus of our society, and in

education. They’re pawns in someone else’s

doing so parodies the emphasis placed on the

game. That’s why it’s called Higher Goals. It

value of objects over and above their meaning.”

means you should have higher goals in life than

(Lowery S. Sims, “Art as a Verb: Issues of

basketball.” (the artist quoted in: Exh. Cat., New

Technique and Content” in: Exh. Cat, Baltimore,

York, MoMA PS1, David Hammons: Rousing the

Maryland Institute College of Art, Art as a

Rubble, 1991, p. 29)

Verb: The Evolving Continuum, 1988-89, n.p.) In

our

commodity-predicated

Hammons’ undermining of artistic tradition

Basketball and Bricks, Hammons situates the

continues a storied personal legacy of cultural

work in reality, only to remind us that what is

and capitalist commentary: from his now-

precious is always precarious.

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V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

ALBERTO BURRI 1915 - 1995

GA 1 oil, gold paint, fabric collage and Vinavil on burlap 39 ½ by 34 in. 100.3 by 86.4 cm. Executed in 1954.

$ 4,000,000-6,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Alfredo Delli, Milan

Milton Gendel, “Burri makes a picture,” ARTnews, Vol. 53, No. 8, December 1954, p. 68 (text)

Sotheby’s London, 21 October 1999, lot 28 (consigned by the above) Private Collection, Europe (acquired from the above) Sotheby’s London, 24 October 2005, lot 13 (consigned by the above)

James Johnson Sweeney, Burri, Rome 1955, no. 16, p. 39, illustrated Cesare Brandi, Burri, Rome 1963, no. 136, p. 198, illustrated

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Paolo Levi, “Nuove Glorie e Vecchie Storie,” Architectural Digest, 1988, pp. 20-24, illustrated

EXHIBITED

Nemo Sarteanesi, Burri: Contributi al Catalogo Sistematico, Città di Castello 1990, pl. 155, no. 54.8, p. 46 (text) and p. 47, illustrated in color

Prato, Museo Pecci, Burri e Fontana 1949-1968, April - June 1996, no. 21, p. 116, illustrated

Fiorella Minervino, “La mostra che Burri non voleva,” Corriere della Sera, Vol. 121, No. 104, 1 May 1996, p. 27 (text) Silvia Sperandio, “Alberto Burri and Lucio Fontana,” Atelier Magazine of International Art, No. 830, October 1996, p. 8 (text) Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, “Labirinto Burri,” Quadri & Sculpture, Vol. 4, No. 22, October - November 1996, p. 52, illustrated in color Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 111, illustrated in color Bruno Corà, ed., Alberto Burri: General Catalogue, Painting 1945– 1957, Vol. I, Città di Castello 2015, no. 451, inv. no. i.548, p. 192, illustrated in color Rita Olivieri and Chiara Sarteanesi, eds., Alberto Burri: General Catalogue, Chronological Repertory 1945–1994, Vol. VI, Città di Castello 2015, no. 451, inv. no. i.548, p. 86, illustrated in color

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Alberto Burri GA1

highly accomplished example from

including

Alberto Burri’s canonical Sacco

Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern

paintings, GA1 from 1954 proffers

Art, New York; Tate, London; Centre Pompidou,

the

Solomon

Guggenheim

the artist’s revolutionary, remedial

Paris; and the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-

vision of art in the wake of war, a hauntingly

Westfalen, Dusseldorf, among others. Held in

beautiful indictment of what the painterly

the Collection of Theodore and Ruth Baum

surface had become in an uncharted age. Here,

for over two decades, GA1 and Burri’s corpus

each sheet of acetate, every stroke of oil, and

of Sacchi inaugurate new possibilities in the

torn, tattered patches of burlap construct not

purpose and practice of painting.

only a canvas but stitch together a world,

With a career marked by ceaseless

exploring the poetics of material degradation in

material exploration, Alberto Burri produced

an ingenious act of creative invention. Together,

several poetic, protean series of highly tactile

the Sacco works stand as an epic, unflinching

works, all investigating form and structure

challenge to the sanctity of the picture plane

using unconventional painterly supports.

after global calamity—no longer pure, pristine

These notably began with the found burlap

portals into a manicured composition, the

sacks of his Sacchi, followed by the insulation

Sacchi bear the wounds of conflict, using the

material in his Cellotex works begun in the

aesthetics and mechanics of destruction and

late 1960s, to the wood veneer, cold-rolled

discarded material to produce a profoundly

steel, and plastic sheeting of his Combustioni.

generative body of work. Examples from this

It is the Sacchi, however, that remains the

series are widely represented in prestigious

most critically acclaimed. Executed from

institutional collections around the world,

1950 to 1956, Burri’s Sacchi suture together

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Above: Pablo Picasso, Still-Life with Chair Caning, 1912. Musée Picasso, Paris. Image © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Opposite: Alberto Burri in New York, 1955. Photo by Arnold Newman Properties/Getty Images

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“

urri, however, was intent on addressing what painting (the body) B had become. For him, art was an act of rescue and recovery, and purity was never an option.” JOHN YAU, “ALBERTO BURRI’S CHALLENGE,” HYPERALLERGIC, 25 OCTOBER 2015 (ONLINE)

fragments of used, utilitarian burlap sacks,

Johnson Sweeney, legendary director of the

thus transforming them into a visceral, living

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York,

flesh impressed by its own corporeal weight.

observed, “He vitalizes the dead materials in

As with many of the works from this series,

which he works, makes them live and bleed;

GA1 was likely constructed from bags salvaged

then sews up the wounds evocatively and as

from the mill in his hometown, Città di Castello.

sensuously as he made them…He is an artist

Burri’s use of burlap is highly charged, having

with a scalpel–the surgeon conscious of what

been a material Burri encountered as medical

lies within the flesh of his compositions and

personnel during World War II, and again as

moved by it to the point that he can make the

a prisoner of war. The fabric—one used for

observer also sensitive to it… [Burri] knows

tents and curtains, as camouflage for helmets,

and feels with intense visualization what lies

trucks, and munitions—is transformed at

within the fleshy surface of his compositions

Burri’s command, working with an impassioned

and [is] an artist who is able to suggest this

yet sensitive redemptive resonance as he

to the sympathetic observer.” (James Johnson

literally stitches back the ruinous remains of

Sweeney quoted in: Exh. Cat., New York,

wartime. “Burri transmutates rubbish into a

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Alberto

metaphor for human, bleeding flesh,” James

Burri; The Trauma of Painting, 2015-16, p. 55)

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V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

The construction of GA1 was meticulous but

as pictures, but neither state of existence—

iterative, as Burri worked between the front and

coarse matter or abstract composition—

reverse of the composition to create something

dominates the other.” (Emily Braun, “Touch

resolved in its absolute entirety—much like the

and Empathy,” in: Exh. Cat., New York, Solomon

ethos of the body of work as a whole. He weaves

R. Guggenheim Museum, Alberto Burri: The

burlap with black fabric, secures assemblages

Trauma of Painting, 2015-16, p. 46)

with Vinavil, and sews the pieces together with

Burri, who was trained as a doctor and

meandering trails of brown thread, leaving

spent time in a Texan prisoner of war camp

the “GENOA” stamp prominent on the burlap.

during the Second World War, was no stranger

Layered throughout the materials’ edges are

to the upheavals of war during his lifetime. The

bright daubs of brilliant vermilion oil, beautifully

composition is thus reminiscent of living flesh:

yet hauntingly evoking an image of physical

it becomes a sentient surface. Time and time

trauma, akin to a bloody gash shrouded in

again, Burri reminds his viewer that he is the

gauze. GA1 is undeniably grounded in both the

artist of wounds, a title that underscores his

ontology of the material and the ontology of

place within the canonical narrative of post-war

painting, simultaneous yet distinct. Despite

artists who sought to collapse and recalibrate

the semblance of dissolution, the sacks

the identity of the painted surface as it had

hold together fragments of fabric braced by

been previously understood. Much like his

stitched and glued seams with a restorative

contemporary Lucio Fontana, and the sharp

resilience. As Emily Braun, co-curator of

incisions of his Tagli, Burri radically challenged

Burri’s watershed Guggenheim retrospective

pre-existing definitions of painting through the

in 2015-16, observed, “[the Sacchi] test the

purity and subversion of his sutured surfaces.

limits of their materials and of their identity

Retrofitted with paint, an image of remediation

Above Opposite: Alberto Burri, Nero Cretto, 1976. Private Collection. Sold at Sotheby’s New York in May 2025 for $3.1 million. Art © 2026/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome Right: Alberto Burri, Rosso Plastica 5, 1962. Private Collection. Sold at Sotheby’s London in October 2016 for £4.7 million. Art © 2026/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

SOT HE BY’S

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surfaces in the face of damage, reconstructing

Combines to Michelangelo Pistoletto’s rag

the discipline of painting after the world has

works, the Sacchi paintings immortalize the

waged war on itself. “If Titian transformed oil

artist’s radical manipulations of matter that

paint into robust flesh, and Georges Seurat

would influence generations to come. The

turned it into particles of light,” John Yau

magnificent precarity of GA1’s absorptive and

observed, “World War II turned painting into a

all-consuming surface is redolent with Burri’s

permanently torn, scarred and seared body.

sensitivity to flesh, earth, time, and history:

It is painting’s permanently damaged body

isolating age from image, scar from body,

that Burri stitched together as well as burned,

GA1 sees the artist at his very best, breaking

sewed, cut, hammered, and glued. For him,

art historical precedent to repair a damaged

destruction and creation were inseparable.”

world order. “The painting leads you, it is true,”

(John

the artist once reflected, “but at the same

Yau,

“Alberto

Burri’s

Challenge,”

time it is always you who leads it. … Allow

Conflict, material, and memory collide in

yourself to be led, by all means, but it is up to

one of the most important bodies of work

you to decide when it is finished.” (the artist

to come out of the Postwar years: Burri’s

in 1955, quoted in: Giuliano Serafini, Burri: La

Sacchi.

misura e il fenomeno, Milan 1999, p. 225)

From

Robert

Rauschenberg’s

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141

LUCIO FONTANA 1899 - 1968

CO NCE TTO SPA Z I A L E , AT T ES E signed, titled, numbered 1 + 1 - 771AE and marked with the artist’s fingerprint (on the reverse) waterpaint on canvas 36 ⅝ by 45 ⅝ in. 93 by 115.9 cm. Executed in 1960. This work is accompanied by a photo-certificate of authenticity issued by the Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milan.

$ 4,000,000-6,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E McRoberts & Tunnard, London Miles Breedan, London Sotheby’s London, 29 June 1989, lot 541 (consigned by the above) Larsen Kunsthadel AB, Sweden (acquired at the above sale) Private Collection Sotheby’s London, 15 October 1992, lot 349 (consigned by the above) Sun Art Corporation, Geneva (acquired at the above sale) Private Collection, Italy Sotheby’s London, 25 October 2000, lot 39 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

L I T E R AT U R E Enrico Crispolti, ed., Lucio Fontana, Catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, Vol. I, Milan 2006, no. 60 T 162, p. 508, illustrated

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Lucio Fontana Concetto spaziale, Attese

F Above: Cy Twombly, Leda and the Swan, 1962. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY. Art © Cy Twombly Foundation Opposite: Lucio Fontana, 1960. Photo by Charles Wilp. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

our striking lacerations command

declares before the entire world that the canvas

Lucio Fontana’s vibrant crimson

is no longer a pictorial vehicle and asserts that

canvas

spaziale,

easel painting, a constant in art heretofore, is

Attese, transforming its pristine

Concetto

called into question. Implied in this gesture

surface into a site of tension, movement, and

is both the termination of a five-hundred-

discovery. Concetto spaziale, Attese belongs

year evolution in Western painting and a new

to Fontana’s seminal Tagli series, begun in

beginning, for destruction carries innovation

1958 when he revolutionized the definition of

in its wake.” (Erika Billeter in: Exh. Cat., New

painting by transforming the pictorial plane

York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Lucio

with his slashes through canvas. Executed

Fontana: Venice/New York, 2006-07, p. 21)

in 1960 and held in the Baum collection for

The ethos behind Concetto spaziale, Attese,

nearly three decades, Concetto spaziale,

and the Tagli series was initially developed in

Attese is an early example from the series

his 1946 Manifesto Blanco. It was in this text

that captures Fontana’s founding role in

that Fontana developed the idea of Spatialism.

Spatialism, grounded in the belief that the

Seeking to go beyond the previous limits of

canvas could become more than a surface for

painting, Fontana sought to create a dialogue

representation. Fontana’s innovations with the

with the dimensionality of the medium. Inspired

Tagli series propelled the possibilities of art

by Futurism, Fontana explained, “We refuse

forward. “With one bold stroke,” art historian

to think of science and art as two distinct

Erika Billeter observed, “he pierces the canvas

phenomena... Artists anticipate scientific

and tears it to shreds. Through this action he

deeds, scientific deeds always provoke artistic

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145

deeds.” (the artist quoted in: “Primo Manifesto

Highlighting

the

materiality

the

dello Spazialismo (First Spatialist Manifesto)”

composition through his violent intervention,

in: Exh. Cat., London, Hayward Gallery, Lucio

Fontana’s

Fontana, 1999-2000, p. 185) With the influence

interpretations of a ‘figure-ground’ relationship;

of his Manifesto Blanco, the first of the Tagli

rather than achieving the illusion of perspectival

paintings were created at the end of 1958,

depth, Fontana’s slashes create forms within

partly in response to the developments in the

the canvas that truly embody a third dimension

international Contemporary art scene. Bridging

of space. Fontana’s explorations into the

the saturated monochromatic intensity of Yves

unexplored territory of the broken canvas were

Klein’s blue canvases with Jackson Pollock’s

also broadly relevant to the world events of

unfettered physical action, the Tagli represent

the 1950s and 60s, as he developed the Tagli

the start of a new visual language for Fontana.

alongside the concurrent advances in space

While Pollock’s painterly drip technique left

travel. Beginning in 1955, the ‘Space Race’

an indexical record of his every movement,

set the moon as the next frontier for human

Fontana’s gesture departed from this proclivity

exploration and dominated the global political

toward additive mark-making, instead replacing

and social zeitgeist. Consequently, Fontana

it with a vandalistic destructiveness.

sought to emulate the burgeoning scientific

14 6

cuts

challenge

classical

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Left: Mark Rothko, Brown and Blacks in Reds, 1957. Private Collection. Sold at Sotheby’s New York in May 2026 for $85.8 million. Art © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Right: Pierre Soulages, Peinture 195 x 130 cm, 4 août 1961, 1961. Private Collection. Sold at Sotheby’s New York in November 2021 for $20.1 million. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

“

ith the slash I invented a formula that I don’t think I can perfect. W I managed with this formula to give the spectator an impression of spatial calm, of cosmic rigour, of serenity in infinity.” LUCIO FONTANA QUOTED IN: ENRICO CRISPOLTI, ED., LUCIO FONTANA, CATALOGO RAGIONATO DI SCULTURE, DIPINTI, AMBIENTAZIONI, MILAN, 2006, P. 105

and technological developments in his artistry.

Rather, it emerges from Fontana’s delicate

To this end, the telleta (the strips of black

negotiation between calculated intention

gauze placed behind each cut) are as integral

and the unpredictable nature of a cut. Here,

to the interpretation of Concetto spaziale,

Concetto spaziale, Attese balances between

Attese as the sculptural cuts themselves. They

the engineered and the aleatory, allowing the

allude to the intense black and endless void

composition to appear effortless, as though

of the cosmos. Fontana directly referred to

the canvas had opened of its own accord.

this influence, citing that, “The discovery of

Completing the work, Fontana attached

the Cosmos is that of a new dimension; it is

strips of black gauze behind his cuts,

the Infinite: thus I pierce the canvas, which

transforming each aperture into a gateway to

is the basis of all arts and I have created an

an imperceptible depth. Although its fiery red

infinite dimension… which for me is the basis

commands immediate attention, the quiet

for all Contemporary Art.” (the artist quoted in:

sophistication of Fontana’s artistry ultimately

Exh. Cat., New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim

defines the extraordinary power of Concetto

Museum, Lucio Fontana: Venice/New York,

spaziale, Attese.

2006, p. 19)

Emerging from a delicate balance between

Rendered in a sumptuous, velvety red, Concetto

spaziale,

Attese,

control and impulse, Concetto spaziale,

immediately

Attese is a truly remarkable example from

captivates with the extraordinary richness

Fontana’s most prolific body of work. As

of its monochromatic surface. This saturated

a critical part of Spatialism and a major

expanse of color is a result of Fontana’s

inspiration to artists such as Piero Manzoni

meticulous staining process. The canvas is

and Constantin Brancusi, the Tagli have been

first soaked in emulsion paint, producing a

cemented as a pivotal contributor to the

seamless swath of color that conceals the

development of post-war and contemporary

physicality of the cotton canvas, making way

art. Rhythmically traversing the immaculate

for his decisive intervention: swiftly drawing

plane of searing red, the four exquisitely

a knife across the canvas in a series of

precise incisions of Concetto spaziale, Attese

irrevocable gestures. In Concetto spaziale,

epitomize the very essence of Lucio Fontana’s

Attese, two longer slashes gracefully frame a

iconic career, allowing the canvas to become

smaller pair, creating a striking equilibrium.

a threshold for the exploration of space, light,

However, this harmony is not predetermined.

and endless possibility.

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PIERO MANZONI 1933 - 1963

AC HROM E signed and dated ‘61 (on the reverse) fiberglass on velvet-covered board 40 ½ by 28 ½ by 9 in. 102.9 by 72.4 by 22.9 cm. framed under Plexiglas: 40 ⅞ by 28 ⅞ by 9 ¼ in. 103.8 by 73.3 by 23.5 cm. Executed in 1961.

$ 700,000-1,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Galerie Mathias Fels, Paris

Germano Celant, Piero Manzoni: Catalago generale, Milan 1975, no. 8 fv, p. 215, illustrated

Private Collection (acquired from the above) Michael Werner Gallery, New York Acquired from the above in July 2001 by the present owner

EXHIBITED London, Serpentine Gallery, Piero Manzoni, February - April 1998, pp. 184, 287 (text) and p. 185, illustrated in color (incorrectly numbered 24fv)

Freddy Battino and Luca Palazzoli, Piero Manzoni. Catalogue raisonné, Milan 1991, no. 809 BM, p. 397, illustrated Germano Celant, Piero Manzoni, Catalogo generale, Vol. I, Milan 2004, no. 990, p. 333, illustrated in color Germano Celant, Piero Manzoni, Catalogo generale, Vol. II, Milan 2004, no. 990, p. 539 (text) Brioni Fer, The Infinite Line: Re-Making Art After Modernism, New Haven 2004, no. 24, p. 38 (text) and p. 41, illustrated Exh. Cat., Naples, MADRE Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina, Piero Manzoni, 2007, no. 248, p. 253, illustrated and p. 390 (text) Exh. Cat., New York, Gagosian, Piero Manzoni: A Retrospective, 2009, no. 306, pp. 290, 344 (text) and p. 291, illustrated in color Germano Celant, Su Piero Manzoni, Milan 2014, p. 169, illustrated Exh. Cat., Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, Achrome. Piero Manzoni, la peinture sans couleur, 2016, p. 125, illustrated in color Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 30, illustrated in color

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1 51

Piero Manzoni Achrome

thereal and alluring, Piero Manzoni’s

meaning ‘without color’, these works are

Achrome from 1961 is a remarkable

unrelated to any pictorial phenomenon or

example from one of the artist’s

anything extraneous to the painted surface.

most celebrated series. Distilling

By dislocating artistic agency and gesture

Manzoni’s contributions to Postwar Italian art,

from the surface of his works, Manzoni sought

the Achrome challenged media and form to

to eschew representation and thereby obtain an

elevate their core, nonrepresentational tenets.

entirely self-generated metaphysical image of

As seen in the present work, which shapes

absolute purity. Such aesthetic preoccupations

fiberglass like a hypnotic, spectral cloud, this

were vital tenets of the ZERO art movement, of

series emerged within the post-war appetite

which Manzoni was a crucial part. Emerging from

for artistic innovation and hails from the pivotal

the devastation of World War II, these artists

years in Manzoni’s radical career.

aimed to explore the relationship between art

Constituting a primordial sign, the Achrome

and nature against the backdrop of a new age

does not signify or represent anything but its

of technology, further seeking to overturn the

own existence—each work possesses its own

boundaries of painting and supplant tangible

autonomy. In the present work, an array of

and fixed appearances in art. Achrome was

pristine white fibers appear to float within a

executed at the pivotal moment of the group’s

green velvet-lined box frame. Here, Manzoni

first solo and group exhibitions held in Milan

elevates the fibers into the realm of fine art,

in 1960, the height of the ZERO movement’s

as the pilose form becomes an immaculate

advancements.

sculptural element. As curator Jon Thompson

referentiality, Achrome can be seen as a paragon

Expressly

eschewing

any

has elucidated, the Achrome are material

of Manzoni’s ground-breaking visual oeuvre.

tautologies and refer only to themselves as

During a tragically brief life cut short at the age

reiterations of their own composition. (Jon

of only thirty, Manzoni adopted a revolutionary

Thompson, “Piero Manzoni: Out of Time and

conceptual approach to making and viewing art,

Place,” in: Exh. Cat., London, Serpentine Gallery,

emphasizing the surface and materials as the

Piero Manzoni, 1998, p. 43) Etymologically

true subject of the work.

“

white that is not a polar landscape, not a material A in evolution or a beautiful material, not a sensation or a symbol or anything else: just a white surface that is simply a white surface and nothing else (a colourless surface that is just a colourless surface).” PIERO MANZONI, “FREE DIMENSION” IN: EXH. CAT., LONDON, SERPENTINE GALLERY, PIERO MANZONI, 1998, P. 132

GERHARD RICHTER b. 1932

GE B IRG E signed, dated 68 and incorrectly numbered 179/2 (on the reverse) acrylic and charcoal on canvas 40 ¼ by 36 ¼ in. 102 by 92 cm. Executed in 1968.

$ 2,000,000-3,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

The artist

Exh. Cat., Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Gerhard Richter, Bilder 1962-1985, 1986, p. 75, illustrated

Private Collection, Bern Galerie Buchmann, Basel Private Collection, Switzerland (acquired from the above circa 1986)

Exh. Cat. (and catalogue raisonné), Bonn, Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Gerhard Richter: 1962-1993, Vol. III, 1993-94, no. 179-3, p. 27, illustrated in color

Sotheby’s London, 22 June 2005, lot 19 (consigned by the above)

Kunstzeitung, September 2005, p. 29, illustrated

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Exh. Cat., Bern, Galerie Kornfeld, Alois Lichtsteiner, 2007, p. 114, illustrated in color

EXHIBITED Prague, Národní galerie v Praha, Gerhard Richter, April - September 2017, p. 73, illustrated in color

Dieter Weidmann, “Gerhard Richter,” Sammler Journal, June 2008, p. 41, illustrated in color Dietmar Elger, ed., Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1968, Vol. 1, Ostfildern 2011, no. 179-3, p. 364, illustrated in color Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 31 (text) and p. 33, illustrated in color

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Gerhard Richter Gebirge

from

painting, translating a time-honored artistic

Gerhard Richter’s first mountain-

tradition into the modern day. While Richter’s

inspired landscapes in 1968,

landscapes range from photorealistic to

Gebirge captures a transformative

abstract, he always worked from a photograph.

moment in the artist’s engagement with the

For Gebirge, Richter drew upon an image

natural world. Through its highly abstracted

cut from a book; however, throughout his

forms

palette,

career, the artist employed found imagery

Gebirge distills the elements of a landscape

from a wide variety of sources, including

into its most essential forms, creating an

magazines, newspapers, postcards, family

image that hovers between abstraction and

albums, and his own photography. As art

realism. Other examples from the Gebirge

historian Hubertus Butin notes, “these

series have been included in distinguished

paintings and drawings are not based on

exhibitions at the 1972 Venice Biennale and

the direct, immediate experience of a real

the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, while the

landscape but on the foundation of reality

present work has been held in the esteemed

mediated by…photography as the primary

Baum Collection for over two decades. At

medium of the production of images in our

once austere and deeply evocative, Gebirge

society.” (Hubertus Butin, “Gerhard Richter’s

exemplifies Richter’s extraordinary ability

Landscapes,” in: Exh. Cat. Kunsthaus Zurich,

to reimagine the conventions of landscape

Gerhard Richter: Landscape, 2021, p. 14)

156

remarkable

and

restrained

example

grisaille

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Through this process, Richter expands the

historical resonance of the landscape tradition

traditional understanding of visualization and

while challenging its capacity to convey a

representation. The layered transformation

singular, predetermined meaning.

from nature, to photograph, to reproduced

only white, grey, and black, Richter is able

image, to paintings reveals a complex path

to create a dimensional and atmospheric

between reality and its pictorial construction. In

depiction of a mountain scene. His meticulous

Gebirge, this multi-stage abstraction underlies

articulation of light and shadow creates an

the work’s existence on canvas, transforming

image of striking immediacy, transporting

a borrowed image into a meditation on

the viewer to this vast, frozen expanse. The

perception, memory, and representation.

composition’s forced perspective further

Unlike his artistic predecessors, Richter’s

magnifies the mountain’s imposing presence.

engagement with landscape was not intended

Its craggy surface, blurred through Richter’s

to communicate a fixed message or moral

controlled brushwork, occupies the majority

to the viewer. Instead, the artist’s work both

of the canvas, leaving only a narrow area of

responds to and subverts the conventions of

cloudless grey sky along the upper edge of the

German Romantic landscape painters, such as

canvas. The mountain’s peak nearly touches

Caspar David Friedrich, who sought to imbue

the top of the composition, and the tightly

the natural world with spiritual and religious

cropped perspective gives the impression of a

significance. Richter’s approach retains the

boundless, monumental terrain.

Using

Opposite: Casper David Friedrich, The Polar Sea, 1824. Hamburger Kunsthalle. Image © Bridgeman Images Right: René Magritte, Le Domaine d’Arnheim, 1949. Private Collection. Sold at Sotheby’s New York in May 2023 for $19 million. Art © 2026 C. Herscovici, Brussels / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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157

Gerhard Richter in Düsseldorf, 1971. Photo © bpk / Angelika Platen / Art Resource, NY

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V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

“

tightrope walk between A realism and abstraction, between the imitation of the landscape and the autonomous value of form.” HUBERTUS BUTIN, “GERHARD RICHTER’S LANDSCAPES,” IN: EXH. CAT., KUNSTHAUS ZURICH, GERHARD RICHTER: LANDSCAPE, 2021, P. 18

Richter’s

exceptional

ability

simultaneously replicate and abstract his source material shines in Gebirge. The painting unmistakably recalls the photographic image upon which it is based, yet a close examination reveals the artist’s deliberate process of construction. The snowy layer resting atop the mountain’s rocky surface was painted first, with the underlying rock formations carefully added afterward. By reversing the expected order of depiction, Richter demonstrates an extraordinary painterly understanding of visual perception. The artist states, “I don’t believe in the absolute picture. There can only be approximations, experiments and beginnings, over and over again.” (the artist quoted in: Hans Ulrich Obrist, ed., Gerhard Richter: The Daily Practice of Painting, London, 1995, p. 199) An exemplary work from Richter’s earliest exploration of the mountain landscape, Gebirge encapsulates the beginning of a lifelong engagement with the natural world and the possibilities of its representation. As both a significant work within Richter’s oeuvre and a work of the development of Postmodernism, Gebirge challenges traditional notions of originality,

authenticity,

and

perception.

Oscillating between recognition and dissolution, Gebirge demonstrates Richter’s investigation into the dynamism of pictorial representation, ultimately reconstructing the very mechanism of vision itself.

SOT HE BY’S

1 59

YVES KLEIN 1928 - 1962

IK B 175 signed and dated 57. (on the overlap) dry pigment and synthetic resin on canvas mounted on panel 19 ⅝ by 19 ⅝ in. 49.8 by 49.8 cm. Executed in 1957.

$ 1,800,000-2,500,000

P ROV E N A N C E Jacques and Madeleine Matarasso, Nice (acquired directly from the artist) Francis Briest Commissaire Priseur Paris, 27 October 2000, lot 74 (consigned by the above) Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne Acquired from the above in June 2002 by the present owner

L I T E R AT U R E Paul Wember, Yves Klein, Cologne 1969, p. 75 (text) Gérard-Georges Lemaire, Soto, La Differénce, Paris 1997, p. 18 (text) Loredana Parmesani, Art of the Twentieth Century: Movements, Theories, Schools and Tendencies, 1900-2000, Milan 2000, p. XL, illustrated in color Françoise de Perthuis, “The Little Matarasso Music,” L’Œil, No. 520, 1 October 2000 (text) (online)

EXHIBITED

Emily King, ed., Designed by Peter Saville, London 2003, p. 38, illustrated in color

Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Étienne Métropole, Figures de la négation, Avant-gardes du dépassement de l’art, November 2003 February 2004, p. 113, illustrated in color

Marcela Labraña, Ensayos sobre el silencio. Gestos, mapas y colores, Madrid 2017, no. 96, p. 212, illustrated in color

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V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

SOT HE BY’S

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Yves Klein IKB 175

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V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

“

ever using the line, one has been able to create in painting N a fourth, fifth, or whatever other dimension - only color can attempt to succeed in this exploit. The monochrome is the only physical way of painting - permitting us to attain the spiritual absolute. If we imagine that cinema always existed, that one only knew moving pictures, then the creator of a fixed image would today have been considered a genius!” YVES KLEIN, L’AVENTURE MONOCHROME: L’ÉPOPÉE MONOCHROME, PARIS, 1960, P. 164

I Opposite: Yves Klein’s Saut dans le Vide, Fontenay-aux-Roses, France, 1960. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo by Harry Shunk and Jean Kender. Photograph: ShunkKender © J. Paul Getty Trust. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

n its uncompromising field of pure

found himself gazing up at the sky and out

International Klein Blue, IKB 175

at the sea, confronting the vast blue void

embodies

proposition

that became his unshakable muse. He was

the

radical

at the heart of Yves Klein’s artistic

ultimately preoccupied with the singularity

project: that color alone could transcend

and profound impact uniquely accomplished

representation and gesture to become a

by the blues of the universe around him,

direct conduit to the immaterial. Executed

insisting that art, and the prevailing Realist

in 1957, just three years before his landmark

sensibilities of his time, make way for such

exhibition at Galleria Apollinaire in Milan

an undeniable force, one requiring no other

announced International Klein Blue to the

mode of realization beyond color itself. “And

world, the present work, held in the same

so I paint the pictorial moment that is born of

private hands for over two decades, stands

an illumination by impregnation in life itself.

among the earliest and purest articulations of

To feel the soul without explanation, without

the monochrome that would fundamentally

vocabulary, and to represent that feeling…

reshape the postwar understanding of

For me, the art of painting is to produce,

color, abstraction, and the sublime. The

to create freedom in the first material

“spiritual absolute” guided Klein’s short-

state.” (the artist quoted in: Yves Klein, “The

lived yet prolific six years of radical artistic

Monochrome Adventure,” in: Klaus Ottman,

exploration. Throughout his young adulthood,

ed., Overcoming the Problematics of Art: The

lying on grass and sandy beaches alike, Klein

Writings of Yves Klein, Putnam, 2007, p. 141)

SOT HE BY’S

163

Central to this schema of immaterial

They are about the individual looking

freedom was the color International Klein

at them and his or her experience with

Blue,

hue

the immaterial caused by the blue in the

developed by Klein. Blue stands as the

painting; Klein’s work… attempts to harness

cornerstone of the artist’s visual lexicon as a

a sacred power that creates that ‘degree of

representation of immateriality: “Blue has no

contemplation’ that allows color to transcend

dimensions. ‘It is’ beyond dimensions, while

‘pure sensibility.’” (Kerry Brougher, “Involuntary

the other colors have some. … All colors bring

Painting,” in: Exh. Cat., Washington, D.C.,

forth associations of concrete, material, and

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

tangible ideas, while blue evokes all the

(and traveling), Yves Klein: With the Void, Full

more the sea and the sky, which are what is

Powers, 2010, p. 31) Much as IKB employs pure

most abstract in tangible and visible nature.”

color to embody the sea and sky, the present

(the artist, “Speech to the Gelsenkirchen

work employs scale to distill the essence of

Theater Commission,” in: Klaus Ottman,

Klein’s artistic thesis. Measuring just 20 by

ed., Overcoming the Problematics of Art:

20 inches, this idealized field of a single color

The Writings of Yves Klein, Putnam, 2007, p.

draws the viewer ever closer until an intimate,

41) Klein rejects in bold defiance both the

almost magnetic or hypnotic encounter

notions of traditional representational art

encompasses the visual field entirely. These

and Abstract Expressionist aesthetics; his

quadrilateral monochromes formed the basis

work refuses to box itself in by the meaning of

of Klein’s landmark articulation of his new

decipherable symbols or the physical gesture

pictorial language.

ultramarine

resin-bound

of the artist, instead immersing the viewer

Reflecting upon the exhibition, Klein wrote,

in pure sensibility. Ultramarine transcends

“Each of these blue propositions, identical

beyond the artist and reaches towards, as

in appearance, was nonetheless perceived

Klein noted, “something far more important...

by the public as entirely different from the

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V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Opposite left: Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1968. Private Collection. Sold at Sotheby’s in November 2023 for $23.9 million. Art © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Opposite right: Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Last Judgment (detail), c. 1540. Image © Bridgeman Images Right: Yves Klein, Sculpture éponge bleue sans titre (SE 167), 1959. Private Collection. Sold at Sotheby’s New York in November 2025 for $19.1 million. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

others. Viewers moved from one to the next as they wished, instantly entering into a state of contemplation within the worlds of blue. Yet each blue world, though painted in the same blue and with the same technique, revealed itself to possess a distinct essence and atmosphere; none resembled the other, just as pictorial or poetic moments never resemble one another.” (the artist quoted in: Yves Klein, L’aventure monochrome: l’épopée monochrome, Paris, 1960, p. 145) Before the experimental sculptures and reimaginings of iconic forms that would characterize Klein’s later career, this series of swatch-like canvases declares the pigment itself to be subject, material, and meaning in one. His subsequent sculptural innovations would remain indebted to these foundational conceptual monochromes, extending their radical proposition into new forms while continually returning to the revelatory simplicity first realized here. In the present work, Klein demonstrates that a single field of color can transcend medium, scale, and objecthood, encompassing an entire world within one uncompromising vision.

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165

FRANZ KLINE 1910 - 1962

FI GUR E signed and dated ‘56 (on the reverse) oil on canvas 71 by 44 ½ in. 180.3 by 113 cm. Executed in 1956.

$ 4,000,000-6,000,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Sidney Janis Gallery, New York

Meyer Levin, Modern Art Has its Day, 1956, p. 2, illustrated (installed in New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, 1956)

Culver Orswell, Connecticut (acquired from the above in November 1956) deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts (acquired from the above as a gift in 1958) Sotheby’s New York, 2 May 1995, lot 9 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, Recent Paintings by Seven Americans, September - October 1956 New York, David Herbert Gallery, Initial Exhibition, October 1959, no. 8, n.p. (text)

Exh. Cat., New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, 8 Americans: Albers, de Kooning, Gorky, Guston, Kline, Motherwell, Pollock, Rothko, 1957, n.p., illustrated (installed in New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, 1956) Jayne Merkel, “Franz Kline. Cincinnati Art Museum,” Artforum, March 1986, p. 124, illustrated “Bilder zur Ausstellung, Teil I,” Vernissage, November 1994, p. 26, illustrated Carol Vogel, “Inside Art,” The New York Times, 10 March 1995, p. C26, illustrated Richard Eldridge, Leading a Human Life: Wittgenstein, Intentionality, and Romanticism, Chicago 1997, illustrated in color (on the cover) Exh. Cat., Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Franz Kline: 1910-1962, 2004-05, pp. 375, 392, 402 (text)

Durham, New Hampshire, Scudder Gallery and Small Gallery, Paul Creative Art Center, University of New Hampshire at Durham, A Century of American Art: 1866-1966, January - February 1966, no. 25, p. 25, illustrated

Sarah Firshen, “Waterfront Idyll: Minimalist Art and Far-Flung Antiques Cohabitate in a Modern ‘Box’ by the Sea,” Hamptons Cottage & Gardens, Vol. 8, No. 1, June 2009, p. 64, illustrated in color

Sandwich, Massachusetts, Heritage Museums and Gardens, Cape Cod as an Art Colony, April - October 1977, p. 17, illustrated in color

Robert Mattison, ed., Franz Kline Paintings, 1950-1962: Digital Catalogue Raisonné, ongoing, no. 101, no. FKJ4UDOC, illustrated in color (online) (accessed 30 October 2026)

Cincinnati Art Museum; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The Vital Gesture: Franz Kline in Retrospect, November 1985 - September 1986, no. 102, p. 106, illustrated Lincoln, Massachusetts, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Selections from the Permanent Collection, April - June 1990 Barcelona, Fundació Antoni Tàpies; London, Whitechapel Art Gallery; Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; and Saarbrücken, Germany, Saarland Museum, Franz Kline: Art and the Structure of Identity, March 1994 - February 1995, no. 35, p. 96, illustrated and p. 202 (text)

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167

Franz Kline Figure

over three decades, is distinguished within Kline’s oeuvre by the degree to which its abstraction feels unmistakably personified. Measuring nearly six feet, Figure possesses the commanding physicality of Kline’s most powerful canvases. A dense, muscular passage of black anchors the upper register, extending outward with rough, jagged edges that appear at once deliberate and urgent. The composition seems to stand before the viewer, not as a figure rendered from life, but as an abstract presence held in a state of charged becoming. In this respect, Figure occupies a particularly compelling position in Kline’s practice: it embraces the full force of abstraction while retaining the sensation of encounter. Kline’s paintings have often been discussed in relation to the urban environment, and the present work powerfully manifests the artist’s internalized response to the gritty, brash atmosphere of

mid-century New York. As Kline explained, igure, from 1956, is a commanding

“When I look out the window – I’ve always

early example of Franz Kline’s

lived in the city – I don’t see trees in bloom

celebrated

or mountain laurel. What I do see – or rather,

black-and-white explosive

not what I see but the feelings aroused in me

gestural velocity with the structural elegance

by that looking – is what I paint.” (the artist

that defines the artist’s mature practice.

quoted in: Exh. Cat., Washington, D.C., The

Executed at the very apex of the artist’s mature

Phillips Collection, Franz Kline: The Color

black-and-white abstraction, the present work

Abstractions, 1979, p. 16) In Figure, these

demonstrates Kline’s unparalleled ability to

feelings are not translated into any literal

transform the most elemental components of

cityscape, machine, or structure, but into an

painting into an image of extraordinary vitality

image of remarkable embodied force. The

and presence. Across the soaring vertical

painting is informed by the same energies

canvas, emphatic black strokes surge, collide,

that shaped Kline’s most iconic abstractions,

and stabilize against an activated white

the pace of the city, the force of modern

ground, creating a composition that is at once

construction, the thrust of industrial forms

rigorously architectural and unrestrainedly

and the immediacy of physical experience. Yet

dynamic. Figure, held in the extraordinary

here, those forces coalesce into something

collection of Theodore and Ruth Baum for

that feels almost animate.

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abstractions, fusing

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Above: Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Image © Philadelphia Museum of Art / The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950 / Bridgeman Images. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / Estate of Marcel Duchamp Opposite: Franz Kline in his studio, 1961. Photo by Fred W. McDarrah / The New York Historical via Getty Images. Art © 2026 The Franz Kline Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

This tension between abstraction and

language. In Figure, that process reaches a

figuration lies at the heart of Figure. Like

particularly resonant conclusion. However, the

the work of his contemporaries Willem de

painting never resolves into likeness; the bold

Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Joan Mitchell,

black forms only imply a body through their

Kline’s paintings possess an enduring power

rhythm, scale, and gravitational pull. The title

traceable to their fusion of painterly action

heightens this perception, giving language

and emotional intensity. However, Kline’s

to what the viewer instinctively senses: an

achievement was singular. More consistently

abstraction that has assumed the authority

than many of his fellow Abstract Expressionists,

of a figure. The present work also belies the

he was able to subsume references to the

persistent misconception that Kline simply

visible world into a wholly abstract pictorial

painted black strokes over white grounds.

Construction of a skyscraper at 59 Maiden Lane, New York, 1964. Photo by Martin Duckworth/ NFB/Getty Images

Rather, his compositions were built through

That sense of organization is central

a complex and highly intuitive alternation of

to the force of Figure. Though the painting

black and white, each color operating with

appears

equal force. In Figure, the white is not passive

its power lies in the precision of its internal

space, but an active agent that cuts into,

structure. The commanding upper black form

surrounds and shapes the black. It opens

is counterbalanced by the vertical thrust below;

passages of air, interrupts mass, and gives

the sweeping horizontal passage is stabilized

the black forms their monumental clarity. The

by the descending strokes; the white ground

result is a tautly unified composition in which

both absorbs and resists the black. Kline’s

figure and ground are continually shifting. As

genius was to make this compositional rigor

Kline himself explained, “These are painting

feel inseparable from action. As he observed,

experiences. I don’t decide in advance that

“the immediacy can be accomplished in a

I’m going to paint a definite experience, but

picture that’s been worked on for a long time

in the act of painting, it becomes a genuine

just as well as if it’s been rapidly.” (the artist

experience for me… I paint an organization

quoted in: David Sylvester, “Franz Kline,” 1960,

that becomes a painting.” (the artist quoted

in Interviews with American Artists, New Haven,

in: Katherine Kuh, The Artist’s Voice: Talks with

2001, p. 71) In Figure, the surface retains all the

Seventeen Artists, New York, 1962, p. 144)

urgency of the artist’s hand while achieving

172

immediate,

even

spontaneous,

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Above: Jackson Pollock, Number 17, 1951, 1951. Private Collection. Sold at Sotheby’s New York in November 2021 for $61.2 million. Art © 2026 Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Opposite: Nicolas de Staël, Parc des Princes, 1952. Private Collection. Image © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

the monumental equilibrium of a fully resolved

is,” in: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, ed., Franz

image. No less an observer than Elaine de

Kline: 1910-1962, 2004, p. 28) Although Figure

Kooning famously stated, “It was Kline’s unique

is structured around a powerful verticality

gift to be able to translate the character and

rather than a sweeping diagonal, it is similarly

the speed of a one-inch flick of the wrist to

animated by inner rhythm. Its black strokes

a brushstroke magnified a hundred times.”

seem to move with the force of a body shifting

(Elaine de Kooning quoted in: Exh. Cat.,

through space: leaning, bracing, rising and

Washington, D.C., Gallery of Modern Art, Franz

holding itself upright. The work is not merely

Kline Memorial Exhibition, 1962, p. 16) That

seen; it is encountered physically. Painted in

gift is brilliantly evident in Figure, where each

1956, Figure belongs to the decisive years in

stroke feels at once magnified, embodied, and

which Kline’s mature language had reached its

alive. The jagged edges, drips, and textured

greatest clarity and force. The liberation of line

passages retain the immediacy of physical

from likeness, the stark opposition of black and

action, while the scale of the composition

white, and the fusion of spontaneous gesture

transforms gesture into architecture. The result

with structural command all converge in the

is a painting that vibrates with visceral vitality,

present work.

its bold black forms appearing to press beyond

Its importance lies not only in its formal

the confines of the canvas even as they remain

strength, but in the rare emotional and bodily

held within its vertical field.

presence it achieves. Kline once stated, “If I

Dore Ashton’s description of Kline’s

feel a painting I’m working on doesn’t have

process is especially resonant in relation to

imagery or emotion, I paint it out and work

the present work: “Every nerve was enlisted

over it until it does.” (the artist quoted in:

while he was at work. His emphasis on ‘feeling’

Exh. Cat., Turin, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte

as the proper criterion for a painter was not

Contemporanea, Franz Kline 1910-62, 2004,

casual. Those great diagonals he favored

p. 110) Figure possesses both in abundance.

reflected his inner rhythms, his own way of

Its imagery is never literal, but it is deeply

vaulting into the grand spaces he envisioned.”

felt; its emotion is never sentimental, but it is

(Dore Ashton, “Kline as he was and as he

unmistakably present.

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173

The present work installed in The Vital Gesture: Franz Kline in Retrospect at Cincinnati Art Museum, November 1985 - September 1986. Photo courtesy Mary R. Schiff Library & Archives, Cincinnati Art Museum. Art © 2026 The Franz Kline Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

LUCIO FONTANA 1899 - 1968

CO NCE TTO SPA Z I A L E signed (lower right); signed, titled and dedicated a Jo (on the reverse) oil on canvas 24 by 18 ⅛ in. 61 by 46 cm. Executed in 1960.

$ 1,000,000-1,500,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Galleria Blu, Milan

Enrico Crispolti, ed., Lucio Fontana: Catalogue raisonné des peintures, sculptures et environnements spatiaux, Vol. II, Brussels 1974, no. 60 O 67, p. 76 (text) and p. 77, illustrated

Private Collection, Pavia Finarte Milan, 6 June 1989, lot 79 Private Collection, Milan Waddington Galleries, London Sperone Westwater, New York (acquired from the above in 2002)

Enrico Crispolti, ed., Fontana, Catalogo generale, Vol. I, Milan 1986, no. 60 O 67, p. 263, illustrated Enrico Crispolti, ed., Fontana, Catalogo generale, Vol. II, Milan 1986, no. 60 O 67, p. 769 (text)

Acquired from the above in March 2004 by the present owner

Enrico Crispolti, ed., Lucio Fontana, Catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, Vol. I, Milan 2006, no. 60 O 67, p. 427, illustrated

EXHIBITED

Enrico Crispolti, ed., Lucio Fontana, Catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, Vol. II, Milan 2006, no. 60 O 67, p. 1039 (text)

Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Fontana, September 1994 January 1995, no. 61, p. 109, illustrated in color

176

Sarah Firshein, “Waterfront Idyll: Minimalist Art and Far-Flung Antiques Cohabitate in a Modern ‘Box’ by the Sea,” Hamptons Cottage & Gardens, Vol. 8, No. 1, June 2009, p. 66, illustrated in color

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

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Lucio Fontana Concetto spaziale

“

e Spatialists feel W ourselves to be the artists of today, since the conquests of technology are by now at the service of the art we profess.” LUCIO FONTANA ET. AL., TELEVISION MANIFESTO OF THE SPATIAL MOVEMENT, 1952

ierced and slashed by the artist’s

Theodore and Ruth Baum, pioneering collectors

hand, Concetto spaziale is a gesturally

and philanthropists. Each of the Fontanas

intense and conceptually rigorous

included in the Baum Collection represents a

example

Fontana’s

distinct, significant moment from the artist’s

buchi series. Executed in 1960 on a canvas

career. The Baum Collection has held Concetto

covered in oil paint the color of tarnished silver,

spaziale for more than two decades, testifying to

the work marks a fundamental transitional

the couple’s immense commitment to curating

moment in Fontana’s practice, bridging the

a collection that represented contemporary art

punctured canvases of the Buchi series and the

at its intellectual pinnacle.

from

Lucio

material experimentation of the later metalli

In 1949, inspired by the dawn of the global

works; the work thus provides insight into

Space Age, Fontana abandoned traditional

Fontana’s constant conceptual, aesthetic, and

artmaking, performing one of the Twentieth

material process. Concetto spaziale is further

Century’s most radical artistic acts by

distinguished by its exceptional provenance,

puncturing his otherwise monochromatic

emerging from the esteemed collection of

surface with a sharpened point, thereby

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V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

“

he piercing eye of the artist progresses with sentiment and T savage irony directly to the execution of nothing more nor less than convulsive icons. The medium, worked with every kind of mark in Fontana’s repertoire, responded exactly as he required.” LUCA MASSIMO BARBERO, “LUCIO FONTANA: VENICE / NEW YORK” IN: EXH. CAT., NEW YORK, SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, LUCIO FONTANA: VENICE / NEW YORK, 2006-07, P. 28

incarnating his first Buchi. In doing so, Fontana

space, have gradually imposed unprecedented

deconstructed the sacrality of the pristinely flat

conditions on mankind. / The application

pictorial plane, exploring both the physical and

of these discoveries to all aspects of our lives

metaphysical capabilities of space through the

brings about a change in human nature. Man’s

aesthetic interrogation of the third and fourth

psychological make-up is transformed. We are

dimensions. Of the Buchi, Concetto spaziale

living in a mechanical age, in which plaster and

is one of his most gestural and formally

paint on canvas are no longer meaningful.” (the

experimental. Fontana heavily scrapes the

artist, “Manifesto Bianco” (1946) in: Guido Balla,

surface, creating ripples and textural variations

Lucio Fontana, New York, 1971, p. 189)

in the paint that resemble the warps and beads

Concetto spaziale, with its highly worked

of heated and welded aluminum. In the upper

surface and unusual material presence,

center of the painting, Fontana scars the canvas

exemplifies the concerns that animated

and paint with raised and interlinking circular

Fontana’s practice at the beginning of

scrawls, juxtaposing their three-dimensionality

the 1960s. Remarkably metallurgical and

with the ranging voids created by the Buchi.

simultaneously painterly, sculptural, and

Concetto spaziale triumphantly represents

conceptual, the work represents the artist’s

the conceptual thesis of Spatialism. Founded

Spatialist project, reflecting a rapidly changing

by Fontana through a series of highly influential

world amid the era’s technological advances

manifestos written between 1946 and 1952, the

and a society grappling with them. Fontana and

movement outlined a new spirit for art, rejecting

his Spatialist contemporaries chose to embrace

the traditionally flat canvas to unify science

the quickly coming new world, translating its

and art. Fontana described the necessity for a

impact into deeply moving and psychologically

new approach to artmaking, saying: “The great

striking artworks. More than six decades

scientific discoveries are directed towards this

later, Fontana’s ruptured surfaces continue to

new organization of our lives. / The discovery of

articulate the exhilaration and uncertainty of

new physical forces, the mastery of matter and

a world transformed by technological change.

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PIERO MANZONI 1933 - 1963

AC HROM E kaolin and canvas 35 ⅜ by 27 ½ in. 90 by 70 cm. Executed circa 1959.

$ 1,800,000-2,500,000

P ROV E N A N C E Galleria Il Punto, Turin Elvira Garrone, Turin Vezio Tomasinelli, Turin (acquired by 1990) Private Collection, Brussels Studio Casoli, Milan Acquired from the above in January 2002 by the present owner

L I T E R AT U R E Freddy Battino and Luca Palazzoli, Piero Manzoni. Catalogue raisonné, Milan 1991, no. 543 B, p. 322, illustrated Germano Celant, Piero Manzoni, Catalogo generale, Vol. I, Milan 2004, p. 93, illustrated in color Germano Celant, Piero Manzoni, Catalogo generale, Vol. II, Milan 2004, no. 452, p. 460 Exh. Cat., New York, Gagosian, Piero Manzoni: A Retrospective, 2009, no. 137, p. 165, illustrated in color and p. 339 (text) Germano Celant, Su Piero Manzoni, Milan 2014, p. 34, illustrated Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 27, illustrated in color (horizontal orientation) (detail) and p. 30 (text)

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Piero Manzoni Achrome

adiant and rigorous, Achrome,

hailing from the Baum collection, where it has

executed in 1958, is a commanding

been held for nearly three decades. Achrome’s

example

composition, void of color, marks of authorship,

groundbreaking

Piero

Manzoni’s the

and gesture, highlights materiality. First

same name. The Achromes would come

devised in 1957 as a conscious rejection of the

to be legendary in Manzoni’s oeuvre and

machismo action of Abstract Expressionism in

transformative in the history of postwar

the United States and the painterly gestures of

European art. A pristine view of Manzoni’s

Art Informel in Europe, the Achrome paintings

innovative use of kaolin, a white porcelain

represent Manzoni’s attempt to entirely divorce

clay, Achrome encompasses the very best

the painted surface from the active participation

of Manzoni’s creative efforts and, further, is

of the artist and to vanquish the fetishism of

distinguished by its exceptional provenance,

artistic gesture from contemporaneous taste.

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series

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

“

Manzoni’s Achrome aspired to cut the umbilical cord between artefact and artificer; it aimed at reducing art’s dependency on the artist… the Achrome represent no hue, no chromatic memory at all. Nothing that might recall the nature of the artist’s own passion.” GERMANO CELANT IN: EXH. CAT., LONDON, SERPENTINE GALLERY, PIERO MANZONI, 1998, P. 22

The result of these efforts is works which

Manzoni began experimenting with Kaolin

are intensely process-driven. Achrome’s four-

in 1958, the same year he created the present

by-three grid, alternating between squares

work. He sought to expand the possibilities

of thin horizontal and vertical fabric folds, is

of artistic practice, stating that, “I am quite

rendered frozen by Manzoni’s application of

unable to understand those painters who,

Kaolin. Blending physical indeterminacy and

whilst declaring an active interest in modern

artistic intervention, this mode of creation

problems, still continue even today to confront

transforms Manzoni’s process into the

a painting as if it was a surface to be filled with

artwork itself. As such, the Achrome paintings

color and forms...Why shouldn’t this surface be

inhabit a position of unassailable signiﬁcance:

freed? Why not seek to discover the unlimited

the unalloyed primacy of material form

meaning of total space, of pure and absolute

crystallized as pure signiﬁer posits one of

light?” (the artist quoted in “Free Dimension”

the most radical conceptual gestures in the

(1960) in: Exh. Cat. London, Serpentine Gallery,

history of twentieth-century art.

Piero Manzoni, 1998, p. 130) For Manzoni, it was

Opposite: Salvatore Scarpitta, Housing Developed, 1960. Private Collection. Sold at Sotheby’s London in October 2019 for £2.5 million. Art © 2026 Salvatore Scarpitta Left: Jasper Johns, Figure 7, 1955. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Image © 2026 Museum Associates / LACMA. Licensed by Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Right: Nike tying her sandal, 5th BCE. Image © Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece / Art Resource, NY

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imperative to traverse beyond the traditional guidelines for art and lead the innovation of something completely new. Manzoni applies this perspective magnificently in Achrome, where the signs of his hand have completely dissolved as Manzoni relinquished artistic control to the natural output of his materials. After organizing his grid of canvas squares, allowing for organic creases to shape the composition, he adds the layer of alabaster kaolin, freezing the seemingly fluid fabric in space and time. In this way, Manzoni indicates his presence in Achrome without dominating the composition with his direct interventions. Alluding to the tactful rendering of drapery in Renaissance sculpture, Manzoni has facilitated a dramatic play of light and shadow along the grooves of the composition. With canvas and clay, Manzoni achieved a complete transformation, turning a blank white surface into a dynamic three-dimensional display of the possibilities of material exploration. While the creases in Achrome may appear static, the spontaneously formed valleys and ridges reshape the colorless plane into a composition filled with unexpected tonality and range, arresting the viewer as they peer into every nook of surprising complexity. This tension between the fixed and mutable is what imbues Achrome with its mesmerizing and magnetic qualities. One of the most forwardthinking voices of postwar European art, Manzoni revealed what is possible when the artist surrenders to the power of material. Stripping art down to its most elemental state, Achrome is thus elevated to a pure expression of Manzoni’s visionary experimentation. Truly ahead of his years, Manzoni’s interventions into the strength of medium anticipated several

forthcoming

movements,

such

as Conceptualism and Arte Povera. This immeasurable influence and impact situate Achrome’s richly layered composition at the center of Piero Manzoni’s tremendously innovative and avant-garde artistic legacy.

SOT HE BY’S

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CARL ANDRE 1935 - 2024

STE E L- M AG NES I U M PL A I N 18 steel and 18 magnesium plates each: ⅜ by 12 by 12 in. 7 by 30.5 by 30.5 cm. overall: ⅜ by 72 by 72 in. 7 by 182.9 by 182.9 cm. Executed in 1969. This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist and will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Carl Andre sculpture.

$ 800,000-1,200,000

P ROV E N A N C E

EXHIBITED

The artist

New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Carl Andre, September November 1970, no. 32, p. 56, illustrated in color (in installation) and p. 75 (text) (as part of 37 Pieces of Work)

Paula Cooper Gallery, New York Daniel Templon, Paris (acquired from the above in 1983) Thomas Ammann Fine Art, Zürich Private Collection, Switzerland

Saint Louis Art Museum, Carl Andre, May - June 1971, no. 32 (as part of 37 Pieces of Work)

Private Collection

Andover, Addison Gallery of Art, Phillips Academy, Six Alloy Plains, March - April 1973

Christie’s New York, 10 November 2004, lot 10 (consigned by the above)

New York, John Weber Gallery, Carl Andre: Wood and Metal Sculptures 1960-1975, January 1976

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, Carl Andre, Richard Long and Barry LeVa, December 1976 - January 1977, p. 7 (text) and p. 9, illustrated (in installation) (as part of 17 Pieces of Work) Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Une Collection Imaginaire, April - May 1984, pl. 57, p. 42, illustrated Zurich, Stiftung für konstruktive und konkrete Kunst, 256 Farben & Basics Form: Werkdialog zwischen Analogie und Widerspruch, September 1989 - January 1990, p. 100, illustrated and p. 104 (text) Haus Lange und Haus Esters Krefeld and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Carl Andre Sculptor 1996, February - April 1996, no. 45, pp. 170, 248, 252, 258, 285 (text) (incorrectly numbered 1969-65) and p. 171, illustrated in color and p. 176 (as part of 37 Pieces of Work)

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L I T E R AT U R E Peter Schjeldahl, “High Priest of Minimal,” The New York Times, 18 October 1970, p. 23, illustrated (as part of 37 Pieces of Work installed in New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1970) Exh. Cat., Bern, Kunsthalle, Carl Andre Sculpture 1958-1974, 1975, no. 1969-62, p. 42 (as part of 37 Pieces of Work) and p. 49 (text) “Carl Andre: Wood and Metal Sculpture 1960-1975,” Newsletter of the John Weber Gallery, 1976, illustrated (as part of 37 Pieces of Work installed in New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1970) Exh. Cat., London, Whitechapel Gallery, Carl Andre: Sculpture 195978, 1978, n.p., (as part of 37 Pieces of Work) Exh. Cat., New York, Jaap Rietman Inc., Carl Andre Sculpture 19591977, 1978, p. 33, illustrated (as part of 37 Pieces of Work installed in New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1970) Exh. Cat., Berlin, Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD, Carl Andre: Die Milchstraße, Der Frieden von Münster, und andere Skulpturen, 1985, p. 44, illustrated (as part of 37 Pieces of Work installed in New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1970) Exh. Cat., The Hague, Haags Gemeentemuseum (and traveling), Carl Andre, 1987, no. 65, p. 46 (text) and pp. 49-50, illustrated (as part of 37 Pieces of Work installed in New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1970) Frances Colpitt, Minimal Art: The Critical Perspective, Ann Arbor 1990, pl. 36, p. 170, illustrated and pl. 37, p. 171, illustrated (as part of 37 Pieces of Work, installed in New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1970)

William Feaver, “Who, What, and Where is The Cutting Edge,” ARTnews, October 1996, p. 12, illustrated Frances Colpitt, Minimal Art: the Critical Perspective, Seattle 1997, pl. 36, n.p., illustrated Daniel Marzona, Minimal Art, Cologne 2004, p. 28 (text) and p. 29, illustrated in color Carl Andre and James Meyer, Cuts: Texts 1959–2004, Cambridge 2005, p. 141, illustrated (as part of 37 Pieces of Work installed in New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1970) Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 112 (text) and p. 114, illustrated in color Julia Bryan-Wilson, “Queerly Made: Harmony Hammond’s Floorpieces,” The Journal of Modern Craft, Vol. 2, Iss. 1, March 2009, fig. 2, p. 62, illustrated Urszula Szulakowska, Alchemy in Contemporary Art, Surrey 2010, p. 61 (text) (incorrectly dated 1960) Eva Meyer-Hermann, “Carl Andre: Place Matters,” Chinati Foundation Newsletter, Vol. 16, October 2011, fig. 8, p. 38 (text) and p. 39, illustrated in color Alistair Rider, Carl Andre: Things in Their Elements, New York 2011, fig. 99, p. 79, illustrated in color (as part of 37 Pieces of Work installed in New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1970)

Jonathan Fineberg, Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being, New York 1995, fig. 10.10, p. 302, illustrated

Exh. Cat., Dia: Beacon (and traveling), Carl Andre: Sculpture as Place, 1958–2010, 2015-16, pp. 38-39, illustrated (as part of 37 Pieces of Work installed in New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1970)

Doris von Drathen, “Carl Andre Sculptor,” Kunstforum International, Vol. 134, 1996, p. 378, illustrated in color (installed in Haus Lange und Haus Esters Krefeld, 1996)

Patricia Sant’Anna and Paulo Sérgio Trevisan, Estética e história da arte, London 2017, p. 226 (text)

Exh. Cat., Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Sigmar Polke: Transit, 1996, p. 15, illustrated

19 0

Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 31, illustrated in color

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Carl Andre Steel-Magnesium Plain

“

o more artifice. No more glue. Only material that he could N handle himself. No monumentality, which does not mean no monuments. No more narrative unfolded through matter. Sculpture was moved to its material edge. Space and matter were the smallest common denominators of sculpture, the only necessary ones.” PHILIPPE VERGNE, “CARL ANDRE AND ALDEN CARR: THE SCULPTOR, THE POET, AND THE FORGER” IN: EXH. CAT., NEW YORK, DIA ART FOUNDATION, CARL ANDRE: SCULPTURE AS PLACE, 1958-2010, 2014, P. 231

rranged in a precise pattern of

titled each of the discrete artworks within

checkered metallic tones, Steel-

this series by their composite substances,

Magnesium

1969

creating a seminal series of artworks that,

epitomizes Carl Andre’s singular

including the present work, revolutionized

and seminal contribution to the Minimalist

sculpture by pioneering work that lay flat

movement. A seminal example of Andre’s

on the ground with vast extensions rather

iconic Squares from the most important

than rising with elevated heights. Other key

decade of his career, the present work

examples from this seminal series reside in

eloquently demonstrates the repetition of

prominent museum collections including Tate

form and clarity of material which typify his

Modern, London; San Francisco Museum of

groundbreaking oeuvre. The present work was

Modern Art; Art Institute of Chicago; Museum

originally presented as a critical segment of

of Contemporary Art Chicago; and Museo

Andre’s iconic 37 Pieces of Work, a multi-part

Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid,

work designed for the artist’s seminal early

while the present work has been held in the

retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim

same esteemed private collection for over two

Museum in 1970, where Andre encouraged

decades. Executed at the genesis of Andre’s

viewers to walk across 37 Pieces to experience

conceptualist ideas in the late 1960s, Steel-

an enhanced tactile engagement with the

Magnesium Plain brilliantly employs elemental

medium. Comprised of 36 discrete sculptures

materials to investigate the principles of

– each painstakingly arranged within 6

geometry, simplicity, and repetition in space.

ordered rows of 6 squares each—37 Pieces

Uniting Minimalism with experiential and

of Work included elements of aluminum,

sensory art, the present work represents a

copper, steel, magnesium, lead, and zinc, each

radical shift in sculpture and its place within

alphabetically displayed by their chemical

the artistic-philosophical debates of the mid-

symbols. Following the exhibition, Andre

20th century.

Plain

from

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The present work installed as part of Carl Andre’s 37 Pieces of Work installed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1970. Photo by Gianfranco Gorgoni. Art © 2026 Carl Andre / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

MARIO MERZ 1925 - 2003

IGUA NA taxidermied Uromastyx aegyptia and neon 64 ⅞ by 6 ⅛ by 4 ⅛ in. 164.8 by 15.6 by 10.5 cm. Executed in 1971. This work is registered in the Archivio Merz, Turin.

$ 500,000-700,000

P ROV E N A N C E John Weber Gallery, New York Private Collection, New York (acquired by 1983) Galerie Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf

Turin, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea; Castello di Rivoli – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea; and Turin, Fondazione Merz, Mario Merz, January - October 2005, fig. 128, pp. 190-91, illustrated in color (installed in Castello di Rivoli, 2005)

Daros Collection, Switzerland (acquired from the above) Christie’s London, 16 October 2006, lot 250 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED New York, John Weber Gallery and Sonnabend Gallery, Mario Merz, December 1971 Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Mario Merz, January - March 1972, no. 7, n.p. (text) New York, John Weber Gallery, De Europa, April - May 1972, no. 1, n.p., illustrated Vienna, Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Über Mario Merz, October 1983, p. 105, illustrated San Marino, Palazzo Congressi ed Esposizioni, Mario Merz, November 1983 - January 1984, no. 59, p. 8, illustrated (installed in Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 1972), fig. 54, p. 66, illustrated in color (installed in Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 1972), fig. 59, p. 70, illustrated and p. 202 (text) New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Mario Merz, September - November 1989, no. 55, pp. 27, 103, illustrated (installed in Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 1972), pp. 29 (text) and p. 102, illustrated in color Barcelona, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Mario Merz, March - June 1993, no. 10, pp. 64-65, illustrated in color and p. 67 (text)

L I T E R AT U R E Caroline Tisdall, “Mario Merz,” Studio International, January/February 1976, p. 15 (text) Marlis Grüterich, “Mario Merz,” Data, Vol. 21, May - June 1976, p. 57, illustrated (installed in New York, John Weber Gallery, 1972) Exh. Cat., Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (and traveling), Mario Merz, 1981, n.p., illustrated Rachel Barnes, Martin Coomer and Carl Freedman et. al, The 20th-Century Art Book, London 1996, p. 304, illustrated in color (installed in Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 1972) Lynn Gamwell, Exploring the Invisible: Art, Science, and the Spiritual, Princeton 2002, pl. 278, p. 277, illustrated “Italian idealist inspired by stuff of the everyday,” The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 November 2003 (text) (online) “Mario Merz doubles in Turin,” Domus, 19 January 2005 (text) (online) “Mario Merz,” exibart, 12 January 2005 (text) (online) Marnie Campagnaro, “Letteratura per l’Infanzia, Visualliteracy e Contaminazioni Artistiche,” MeTis, Vol. 6, No. 2, December 2016, p. 356 (text) Fabio Cafagna, “Artisti italiani alla John Weber Gallery. Strategie commerciali e curatoriali (1971-1975),” Ricerche di storia dell’arte, No. 132, 2020, fig. 1, p. 41, illustrated (installed in New York, John Weber Gallery, 1972) and p. 48 (text)

Berlin, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Die Epoche der Moderne Kunst im 20 Jahrhundert, May - July 1997, no. 304, p. 388, illustrated in color London, Tate Modern; Minneapolis, Walker Art Center; Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art; and Washington, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Zero to Infinity: Arte Povera 19621972, May 2001 - January 2003, no. 84, p. 256, illustrated in color 19 4

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Mario Merz Iguana

“

I n the rejection of that control… lies the choice to use natural materials—what we would today call biological or organic. Materials, therefore, that rejected the synthetic and, in a kind of idealistic luddism, mocked the machines. Or mechanical materials as well, but reinterpreted as elements of a landscape in which, for the first time, the issue arose of giving a place to waste.” ANGELA VETTESE, “MARIO MERZ. QUALCHE QUESTIONE APERTA” IN: EXH. CAT., TURIN, CASTELLO DI RIVOLI, ARTE POVERA INTERNATIONAL, 2011-12, P. 292

The present work installed in Mario Merz at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, January - March 1972. Photo by Eric Sutherland. Courtesy Walker Art Center Archives. Art © 2026 / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

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resaging the large neon animals

of expanding materials viewed also as vital living

and igloos of Mario Merz’s later

lives.” (the artist quoted in: Exh. Cat., New York,

oeuvre, Iguana is a significant

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Mario Merz,

early work by the artist utilizing

1989, p. 102)

the Fibonacci sequence to invoke the natural

By explicitly depicting the neon sequence

alignment between organic forms and organic

visually flowing from the animal itself, Merz

processes. As if stalking the walls in a natural

insists upon the mystical brilliance of the

cove, the Iguana climbs upwards upon the wall,

natural world and sculpture’s capacity to take

leaving in its path the descending Fibonacci

such organic majesty and let it loose on the

sequence— 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21. This infinite

walls of human spaces. As Merz explained, “The

sequence, first introduced to the Western

numbers unload in the way music unloads the

world in the 13th century, occurs throughout

chemical density of the atmosphere. Music too

nature, including the geometric spiral forms

has mathematical or numerical equivalences.

found in plants, the breeding patterns of many

Time is a tap root immersed in the ground

animals, and other elements which Merz often

(the date of birth). Time then develops in an

incorporates into his works, including leaves,

objective and relatively free reality the way

reptile skins, deer antlers, pinecones, and

the tree develops from the tap root into the

seashells. As Merz recalled, it “inspired [his]

atmosphere.” (the artist quoted in: Exh. Cat.,

idea that it was possible to represent with new

New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,

faculties all the examples that occur in the world

Mario Merz, 1989, p. 102)

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DAY AUCTION 17 NOVEMBER 2026 9 AM

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE PROPERTY IN THIS SALE, PLEASE VISIT SOTHEBYS.COM/N12506

Lot 215, Nara

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LYNDA BENGLIS b. 1941

C HICAG O CA RYAT I DS # 2 chicken wire, cotton, plaster, gesso, oil-based size and gold leaf 45 by 19 by 10 in. 114.3 by 48.3 by 25.4 cm. Executed in 1979.

$ 120,000-180,000

P ROV E N A N C E Paula Cooper Gallery, New York Mr. & Mrs. Eugene P. Gorman, Huntsville (acquired from the above in 1981) Oscarsson Siegeltuch Gallery, New York (acquired from the above in 1987) Private Collection, Beverly Hills Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles Acquired from the above in March 2009 by the present owner

EXHIBITED Chicago, Dart Gallery, Lynda Benglis: New Works, May - June 1979 San Francisco, Hansen-Fuller Goldeen Gallery, Lynda Benglis: Bodies and Fans, October - November 1979 New York, Marilyn Pearl Gallery, All that Glistens…, December 1980

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LEE BONTECOU 1931 - 2022

UNTITL E D signed and dated 63 (on the reverse) charcoal, soot and aniline dye on muslin diameter: 23 ⅞ in. 60.6 cm. Executed in 1963.

$ 300,000-500,000

P ROV E N A N C E Leo Castelli Gallery, New York Dr. Milton Gardner, Long Island (acquired from the above in 1965) Private Collection, Long Island (acquired by descent from the above in 2007) Sotheby’s New York, 27 September 2010, lot 8 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Lee Bontecou, April - June 1968, p. 23, illustrated

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xecuted in 1964, Lee Bontecou’s Untitled is a compelling meditation on the unknown, encapsulating the wondrous and haunting sublime

that defines the artist’s most celebrated body of work. Dating from a pivotal moment in Bontecou’s career, the present work is a rare example of her investigations into canvas and sculptural form during the early 1960s, a period in which she developed the extraordinary visual language that would establish her as one of the most singular artistic voices of her generation. An intimate and meditative scale, Untitled possesses a commanding presence, its concentric, circular structure drawing the eye inexorably towards an impenetrable black center. At once an opening and an obstruction, this profound darkness evokes the infinite depths of the cosmos, embodying the central tensions of Bontecou’s oeuvre: between the organic and the mechanical, the cosmic and the terrestrial, and mortality and transformation. The work’s distinctive circular format is fundamental to its enigmatic power. A succession of concentric rings, rendered in muted tones of ochre, charcoal and black, appears to recede towards a central aperture, creating

almost

hypnotic

sensation

of infinite spatial recession. Subtle tonal modulations and the interplay of light and shadow lend the surface an extraordinary sense of dimensionality, as though the viewer were peering into the interior of an unfamiliar machine or the depths of an organic cavity. The circular composition evokes at once the mechanical precision of an engine, the anatomy of an eye and the celestial forms of planets and eclipses. The absence of corners or conventional pictorial boundaries reinforces the impression of an autonomous, selfcontained universe, while the repeated rings

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establish a compelling rhythm of expansion

the traditional boundaries between painting

and contraction. The profound blackness at

and sculpture, their projecting surfaces and

its centre is not simply an absence of light

cavernous openings simultaneously occupying

but an almost palpable presence, drawing the

physical space and suggesting an unknowable

viewer into a space that remains tantalisingly

realm beyond it. Within this context, Untitled

beyond

is particularly compelling for its translation

comprehension.

Bontecou

thus

transforms the intimate dimensions of the

work into an experience of seemingly limitless

an intimate painterly surface. Its layered,

depth, collapsing the distinction between the

seemingly receding planes impart a painterly

microscopic and the cosmic.

illusion of depth while retaining the visceral

Bontecou’s fascination with such enigmatic

Bontecou’s

sculptural

vocabulary

materiality of her celebrated constructions.

cavities emerged from her radical experiments

Fiercely independent and resistant to

with industrial materials and unconventional

artistic categorization, Bontecou occupied a

methods

Scavenging

unique position within the New York avant-

discarded canvas from conveyor belts at

garde of the 1960s. As the sole female artist

the laundromat beneath her East Village

represented by Leo Castelli during much of the

apartment, the artist stretched fragments of

decade, she exhibited alongside such influential

fabric across welded steel armatures, fastening

figures as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg

them with twisted wire and incorporating soot

and Donald Judd, while cultivating an artistic

to achieve the extraordinary intensity of her

language entirely her own. Executed at the

blacks. Her resulting wall reliefs challenged

height of her early artistic experimentation,

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construction.

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Untitled belongs to the defining period in which

expanse of the universe. In Untitled, these

her exploration of material presence and spatial

associations

absence reached an extraordinary intensity.

economy: the circular structure possesses the

The

artist’s

preoccupation

with

converge

with

remarkable

the

precision of an engineered mechanism yet

mechanical and the organic was deeply

seems equally capable of breathing, expanding

rooted in her experience of an increasingly

or consuming, its ambiguous interior oscillating

technological world. Both of Bontecou’s parents

between the familiar and the otherworldly.

were involved in industrial manufacturing:

Ultimately, Untitled exemplifies Bontecou’s

her mother worked wiring transmitters in a

extraordinary

submarine factory during the Second World

proportions with a sense of monumental

War, while her father invented an all-aluminum

psychological and spatial depth. Its concentric

canoe. Such early exposure to the mechanics

forms draw the viewer towards a darkness that

of production, combined with the anxieties

remains resolutely unknowable, transforming

of wartime conflict and the exhilarating

the void into a site of both existential

possibilities of the Space Age, informed

apprehension and boundless possibility. Rare

an artistic vision in which technological

amongst her paintings from this crucial early

advancement was inseparable from existential

period, Untitled offers a distilled and profoundly

uncertainty. Her blackened apertures might

evocative expression of the artist’s enduring

suggest the mouth of a machine, the pupil of

fascination with the infinite, the unseen and

an eye, a bodily orifice or the unfathomable

the sublime.

ability

invest

intimate

Left: Alberto Burri, Sacco e Rosso, circa 1959. Sold at Sotheby’s London in February 2016 for £9.109 million. Art © 2026 / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome Right: Eva Hesse, Ringaround Arosie, 1965. Image © 2026 Museum of Modern Art, New York. Art © 2026 Reproduced with the permission of the Estate of Eva Hesse / Galerie Hauser & Wirth, Zurich

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203

JEAN DUBUFFET 1901 - 1985

GROUP E DE QUAT R E A R BR ES signed and dedicated à Paul Weidlinger 72 (lower edge of B) vinyl epoxy on polyurethane in 4 parts overall: 37 ¾ by 39 ⅜ by 34 ¼ in. 95.9 by 100 by 87 cm. Executed in 1970-71, this work is a unique example from a series of 4 unique variants.

$ 500,000-700,000

P ROV E N A N C E Paul and Solveig Weidlinger, New York (acquired as a gift directly from the artist in 1972) Sotheby’s New York, 15 May 2008, lot 173 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle, Jean Dubuffet 1901-1985, December 1990 - March 1991, no. 218, p. 183, illustrated (another example exhibited)

L I T E R AT U R E Max Loreau, ed., Catalogue des Travaux de Jean Dubuffet, Fascicule XXV: Arbres, Murs, Architectures, Lausanne 1974, no. 106, p. 107, illustrated

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V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

merging from Jean Dubuffet’s

and white fields, animated by organic rhythms

celebrated

Hourloupe

cycle,

and fluid forms sought not to depict reality

Groupe

Quatre

Arbres

but rather to evoke the fertile workings of

embodies

one

most

the human imagination itself, shrouding the

the

ambitious and iconic sculptural expressions

spectator into the artist’s imaginative realm.

of the artist’s mature career. Conceived within

The Hourloupe cycle, spanning the years

the extraordinary visual language Dubuffet

1962 to 1974, was the most sustained and

developed from a series of spontaneous pen-

expansive

and-ink doodles, the work transforms the

Representing a dramatic departure from the

seemingly incidental into the sculptural. The

heavily textured surfaces and raw aesthetic

artist’s interlocking network of black contours

of his earlier Art Brut works, L’Hourloupe

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series

Dubuffet’s

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

career.

introduced a radically new visual language defined

bold

contours,

interlocking

forms, and a restrained palette. Through this invented lexicon, Dubuffet transformed the familiar into the fantastical, constructing a parallel universe that challenged conventional notions of reality. Inviting viewers to enter and navigate this imagined realm, he blurred the boundaries between perception and invention, encouraging a more fluid and imaginative way of seeing. This remarkably fertile period gave rise to some of the artist’s most celebrated biomorphic forms, culminating in sculptures such as the present work, which stands among the most compelling manifestations of the L’Hourloupe vision. In Groupe de Quatre Arbres, Dubuffet demonstrates the full confidence of his sculptural

imagination,

translating

the

distinctive visual language of L’Hourloupe into a work of remarkable vitality and invention. Rising as a cluster of four interrelated

Right: Jean Dubuffet, The Group of Four Trees, 1972 installed at Chase Manhattan Plaza, New York. Image © Collection Artedia / Bridgeman Images. Art © 2026 / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

arboreal forms, the composition is animated

commission that brought Dubuffet’s vision into

by sweeping curves, abrupt shifts of contour,

the public realm. In 1969, David Rockefeller

and looping passages of black line that

selected Groupe de Quatre Arbres from a group

articulate the surface with rhythmic energy.

of proposed projects for realization at Chase

Rather than describing trees in a naturalistic

Manhattan Plaza in New York. Unveiled three

manner, Dubuffet distills them into a network

years later, the monumental sculpture became

of biomorphic forms, transforming a familiar

one of the defining artistic landmarks of Lower

motif into an imaginative construct that exists

Manhattan, translating the labyrinthine forms

somewhere between nature, architecture, and

of L’Hourloupe into an immersive architectural

fantasy. Their dramatically curved elements

presence that continues to command the

lend the work a striking sense of movement,

urban landscape today.

as though the forms are gently swaying within

Intimately

scaled

invite

the dreamlike realm of the Dubuffet’s universe.

contemplation, Groupe de Quatre Arbres offers

Unlike the dense materiality and compressed

a rare opportunity to experience the ingenuity

surfaces of his earlier works, Groupe de

of Dubuffet’s sculptural imagination at its

Quatre Arbres embraces openness and formal

most distilled. Capturing the moment in which

simplicity, revealing Dubuffet’s extraordinary

the artist’s visionary L’Hourloupe vocabulary

ability to reduce the world to its essential

achieved full three-dimensional realization,

elements while simultaneously expanding it

the work stands as a compelling testament

into a space of boundless creative possibility.

to Dubuffet’s recurring alphabet of forms

Executed in 1972, the present work is intimately connected to the landmark

that reflect his lifelong effort to disrupt and refashion our modes of perception.

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GÜNTHER UECKER 1930 - 2025

OBJ E KT W E ISS I I signed, titled and dated 60 (on the reverse) nails, kaolin and sand on canvas mounted on board 23 ⅝ by 23 ⅝ by 2 ⅛ in. 60 by 60 by 5.4 cm. Executed in 1960.

$ 200,000-300,000

P ROV E N A N C E Rosemarie Delil, Cologne Christie’s London, 21 June 2007, lot 315 (consigned by the above) Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Antwerp (acquired from the above) Acquired from the above in October 2007 by the present owner

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TAKIS 1925 - 2019

T É L ÉSCUL PTUR E V I BRAT I V E signed twice, titled, dated 1963/71 and numbered #7 (on the reverse) painted wood, needles, cork, magnets, thread and found objects 51 ⅛ by 39 ⅜ by 9 ¼ in. 129.9 by 100 by 23.5 cm. Executed in 1963.

$ 50,000-70,000

P ROV E N A N C E The artist Galerie von Bartha & Co., Basel (acquired from the above circa 1972) Acquired from the above in June 2008 by the present owner

EXHIBITED Paris, Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Takis, September November 1972 Paris, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume; Pully-Lausanne, FAE Musée d’Art Contemporain and Madrid, Fundación La Caixa, Takis, July 1993 - May 1994, no. 73, p. 297 (text)

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ISAMU NOGUCHI 1905 - 1988

MITOSIS bronze with gold patina 14 ½ by 22 ¼ by 16 ½ in. 36.8 by 56.5 by 41.8 cm. Executed in 1962 and cast in 1963, this work is number 2 from an edition of 8 plus 1 artist’s proof.

$ 500,000-700,000

P ROV E N A N C E Nina and Gordon Bunshaft, New York (acquired as a gift from the artist in 1964) Museum of Modern Art, New York (acquired as a gift from the above in 1995) Christie’s New York, 14 November 1995, lot 3 (consigned by the above) Private Collection, Miami (acquired from the above) Sotheby’s New York, 16 May 2001, lot 186 (consigned by the above) Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above) James Francis Trezza Fine Art, New York (acquired from the above in 2001)

Northampton, Smith College Museum of Art, Dorothy C. Miller: With An Eye to American Art, April - June 1985, no. 49, n.p. (text) (another example exhibited) Tokyo, The National Museum of Modern Art and Kyoto, The National Museum of Modern Art, Isamu Noguchi Retrospective 1992, March July 1992, no. 73, p. 131, illustrated (another example exhibited) Monterrey, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo and Mexico City, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Noguchi and the Figure, February - May 1999, no. 26, p. 108, illustrated (another example exhibited) New York, Pace Gallery, Isamu Noguchi: Bronze and Iron sculpture, May - June 1988 (another example exhibited)

Acquired from the above in February 2006 by the present owner

EXHIBITED

L I T E R AT U R E

New York, Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery, Isamu Noguchi, April 1963, no. 21 n.p. (another example exhibited)

Annette Michelson, “Noguchi: Notes on a Theater of the Real,” Art International 8, no. 10, December 1964, p. 21, illustrated

Paris, Galerie Claude Bernard, Isamu Noguchi, June - July 1964, no. 28, n.p. illustrated (another example exhibited)

Tobi Tobias, Isamu Noguchi: The Life of a Sculptor, New York 1974, p. 32, illustrated

Zurich, Gimpel & Hanover Galerie, Noguchi, October - November 1968, no. 10, “n.p. illustrated (another example exhibited)

Sam Hunter, Isamu Noguchi, New York 1978, p. 124, illustrated

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Isamu Noguchi, April - June 1968, no. 38, p. 43, illustrated , and p. 59 (text) (another example exhibited) Tokyo, Minami Gallery, Sculptures by Isamu Noguchi, May - June 1973, no. 19, n.p. illustrated (another example exhibited) (as Mytosis) Dusseldorf, Stadtische, Japan Tradition und Gegenwart, May - June 1974, p. 97, illustrated (another example exhibited) (as Mytosis)

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Diane Botnick and Nancy Grove, The Sculpture of Isamu Noguchi, 1924-1979: A Catalogue, New York 1980, no. 526, n.p., illustrated and p. 96 (text) Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 107 and p. 109, illustrated in color

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“

I t is my desire to view nature through nature’s eyes, and to ignore man as an object for special veneration. There must be unthought heights of beauty to which sculpture may be raised by this reversal of attitude.” - ISAMU NOGUCHI IN HIS GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIP APPLICATION, 1929; QUOTED IN ISAMU NOGUCHI, A SCULPTOR’S WORLD, NEW YORK 1968, P. 16 ADOLPH GOTTLIEB: WORKS ON PAPER, 1966–1973, 1990, P. 11.

xecuted in 1964, Isamu Noguchi’s

the metaphysical potential of assembly.

curving Mitosis exudes a striking

Both circular components rely on the other

sense of harmony between form

for equilibrium, embodying Zen philosophical

and formlessness, fusing mass

treatises on balance and stability as well as

and aperture with remarkable balance. Bronze

transforming the act of artistic construction

ovoid forms, one larger than the other, are held

into a metaphor for interdependence and

in perfect tension, poised on an exact moment

harmony. In this sense, Mitosis belongs to a

of separation. Mitosis, the division of biological

long lineage of works through which Noguchi

cells into more cells, the very essence of life and

sought not only to render form, but to sculpt

growth itself, is manifested in the fluid bronze

relationships themselves; to sculpt the invisible

structures. In his rendering of independent

connections that bind both organic and human

organic

systems. In the quiet purity of Mitsosis, Noguchi

suspended, liminal moment which questions

forms,

Noguchi

conceives

testifies to his artistic greatness. Executed

the joining or separating of the objects,

in perfectly orchestrated accordance with

embodying his study of energy itself. Mitosis

bronze’s material properties, the present work

incorporates positive and negative space to a

symbolizes the mature paragon of Noguchi’s

point of aesthetic asceticism, a concept arrived

technical virtuosity and philosophic gravity. A

at after decades of investigation, in which only

testament to the work’s singular importance,

the essential remains.

an edition of the same cast of Mitosis resides

The barely interlocking sculptural bodies of Mitosos reflect Noguchi’s fascination with 2 18

in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Above: Constantin Brancusi, The Kiss, 1908-1909. Private Collection. Image © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images. Art © Succession Brancusi All rights reserved (ARS) 2018 Opposite: Robert Delaunay, Rythme sans Fin, 1934. Image © Tate, London / Art Resource, NY

Among the defining experiences of

which would become increasingly important

Noguchi’s youth was his enrollment shortly

in Noguchi’s mature career, exuding a

after his high school graduation in the

minimalism born of his interactions with

Leonardo da Vinci Art School in downtown

East Asian visual culture, particularly the

Manhattan, where he studied and worked

religions he experienced in India, China, and

under sculptor Onorio Ruotolo. His exposure

Japan. This duality, between the animate and

to Constantin Brancusi’s work in 1926 at the

the constructed, would become central to

Brummer Gallery would also play a pivotal

Noguchi’s sculptural lexicon following World

role in his artistic development. In 1927,

War II, as he sought to reconcile human

he applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship to

experience with universal form.

support his travels to France and several

Mitosis belongs to a pivotal moment in

countries in Asia. Later that year, Noguchi

Noguchi’s later career, proving his mastery

arrived in Paris and in an enormously

fortuitous turn of fate, began as Brancusi’s

bronze, stone, and marble. In these works,

studio assistant. The present work reflects

Noguchi appears to explore the energies of

the personal and intimate influences of

transformation and forms, evoking perpetual

European Modernism traceable in Noguchi’s

movement. The smooth bronze finish of

oeuvre;

and

Mitosis seems to furnish the work with the

precision nod to Noguchi’s deep engagement

compressions and inflections of geologic time

with modernist structure and architectural

and its conceptual undertaking–biological

logic. Simultaneously, Mitosis also recalls

mitosis–renders the piece both ancient and

the philosophical tenets of Zen Buddhism,

contemporary, cosmic and earthbound.

the

sculpture’s

geometry

abstracted

sculptures

SOT HE BY’S

biomorphic

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207

WILLEM DE KOONING 1904 - 1997

UNTITL E D signed (upper right) oil on newsprint mounted on board 23 ¼ by 29 ½ in. 59.1 by 74.9 cm. Executed in 1968.

$ 500,000-700,000

P ROV E N A N C E Joyce Grimes, New York (acquired directly from the artist) Cheim & Read, New York Private Collection, New York Gasiunasen Gallery, Palm Beach Acquired from the above in March 2001 by the present owner

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ADOLPH GOTTLIEB 1903 - 1974

SP L ATTE R signed, titled and dated 1973 (on the reverse) oil, enamel and alkyd resin on canvas 71 ¾ by 83 ⅞ in. 182.2 by 213 cm. Executed in 1973.

$ 900,000-1,200,000

P ROV E N A N C E Estate of the artist Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, New York (acquired from the above in October 1976) IBM International Foundation, New York (acquired from the above by 1989) Sotheby’s New York, 2 May 1995, lot 31 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED New York, André Emmerich Gallery, Adolph Gottlieb: Large Scale Paintings 1968-1973, March - April 1980, illustrated in color (on the cover) New York, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, 50 Years of Collecting: Art at IBM, September November 1989

L I T E R AT U R E James Lawrence and Sanford Hirsch, Adolph Gottlieb: A Powerful Will to Art, New York 2024, no. 195, p. 278, illustrated in color

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xecuted in 1973, just one year

chaos, stillness and movement, and restraint

before

the

and spontaneity. The result is a composition of

Adolph

Gottlieb’s

artist’s

commanding

death,

Splatter

remarkable psychological and visual intensity,

expression

in which seemingly elemental forms assume a

the elemental dynamism and extraordinary painterly force that define his celebrated oeuvre.

Juxtaposing

three

suspended

monumental, almost cosmic significance. A striking late example of Gottlieb’s celebrated

Burst

compositions,

Splatter

orbs against an explosive constellation of

represents the culmination of the artist’s

gestural splatters and sweeping, calligraphic

decades-long investigation into the expressive

brushstrokes, the present work exemplifies

possibilities of abstraction. First developed in

the distinctive visual language that Gottlieb

the late 1950s, the Burst paintings established

cultivated throughout his career. Against a

a radical pictorial vocabulary through the

richly saturated scarlet ground, the imposing

juxtaposition of suspended, often circular

central black orb, flanked by two luminous

forms and energetic passages of gestural

white

compelling

abstraction. In the present work, Gottlieb

tension with the frenzied gestures unfolding

expands upon this signature configuration,

below. Arresting in both its compositional

introducing a dynamic interplay of three

economy and chromatic intensity, Splatter

hovering orbs above an intricate network of

synthesizes the opposing forces of order and

black, looping brushstrokes. The effervescent

2 24

spheres,

establishes

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Above: Clyfford Still, Untitled, 1956. Image © Whitney Museum of American Art / Licensed by Scala / Art Resource, NY. Art © 2017 City and County of Denver, Courtesy Clifford Still Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, NY Opposite: Matthias Grunewald, The Resurrection of Christ, from the right wing of the Isenheim Altarpiece, 1512-1516. Unterlinden Museum, Colmar. Image © Bridgeman Images

red ground unifies these disparate elements, its

an objective way. I have to let my feelings go

extraordinary chromatic intensity heightening

and it is only afterwards that I become aware of

the contrast between the controlled geometry

what my feelings really were. And for me, this is

of the upper register and the unrestrained

one of the fascinations and great experiences

spontaneity of the lower composition. The

of painting, that I become aware of myself”

resulting equilibrium reflects Gottlieb’s singular

(Exh. Cat., Los Angeles, Manny Silverman

position

Expressionism,

Gallery, Adolph Gottlieb: Works on Paper, 1966–

bridging the seemingly divergent concerns of

within

Abstract

1973, 1990, p. 9). In Splatter, this uninhibited

Color Field painting and Action painting. Rather

expression of the subconscious manifests in

than subscribing exclusively to either tendency,

the tangled network of gestural marks that

Gottlieb combined the contemplative, emotive

animates the lower portion of the canvas.

power of color with the visceral immediacy of

Sweeping arcs of black pigment intersect

gesture, forging an artistic language in which

with delicate drips and splatters, their varied

opposing forces coexist in dynamic harmony.

rhythms suggesting an almost instinctive

Central to Gottlieb’s artistic philosophy was

choreography of movement. In contrast, the

a profound fascination with the psychological

three hovering orbs possess an enigmatic

dimensions of abstraction. An admirer of the

stillness, their seemingly weightless forms

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, whose theories

establishing a powerful visual counterpoint

explored the relationship between conscious

to the restless activity below. Through this

and

Gottlieb

interplay, Gottlieb gives tangible form to the

understood painting as a means of articulating

unconscious

experience,

dialogue between conscious control and

the tensions and contradictions inherent in the

unconscious impulse.

human psyche. As Jung observed, “Nothing can exist without its opposite; the two were one in the beginning and will be one again in the end” (Carl Jung quoted in Mary Davis MacNaughton, Adolph Gottlieb: Works on Paper, 1966–1973, 1990, p. 11). This conception of opposing yet interdependent forces finds compelling expression in Splatter, where the poised stillness of the suspended orbs is counterbalanced by the vigorous, seemingly spontaneous gestures beneath them. Neither element exists independently of the other; instead, their contrasting visual energies establish a profound sense of psychological and compositional unity. For Gottlieb, the act of painting was itself an intensely personal process of discovery, through which instinct and emotion could find expression beyond the limitations of conscious thought. Reflecting upon his creative process, the artist explained: “When I feel I am fully charged and ready to let go on the canvas, I’m not in a position to analyze and view myself in

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The remarkable spatial ambiguity of

between containment and release, solidity and

Splatter further amplifies its psychological

dissolution, lends the painting an extraordinary

resonance. By eliminating conventional notions

sense of depth and movement despite the

of perspective and horizon, Gottlieb allows his

deliberate flatness of its pictorial field. The

elemental forms to inhabit an indeterminate

forms suggest celestial bodies hovering

pictorial realm, suspended between material

above an elemental eruption, evoking the

presence and infinite space. The central

fundamental dualities of the natural world:

black orb appears to float above the scarlet

light and darkness, creation and destruction,

ground, while the two white spheres introduce

life and death.

a luminous contrast that intensifies the

Writing of Gottlieb’s distinctive pictorial

composition’s chromatic drama. Below, the

language, the esteemed critic Brian O’Doherty

looping black forms seem to expand beyond

observed: “His

the boundaries of the canvas, their explosive

electrifying new fields of color, the horizon

movement challenging the apparent stability

dropping

of the suspended shapes. This interplay

usually single, now taking on a new radiance,

away

motif

has

completely,

orbited the

into

globes,

Above: The present work installed in Adolph Gottlieb: Large Scale Paintings 19681973 at André Emmerich Gallery, New York, March 1980. Image © Bettina Sulzer. Art © Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Artwork pictured (left to right): Cafe au Lait, 1971; Echo, 1972; Splatter, 1973 Opposite: Robert Motherwell, Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110, 1971. Image © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation / Art Resource, NY. Art © Dedalus Foundation, Inc. / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

raised with an almost palpable transgression

extraordinary

of gravity as they dip and swim steadfastly

psychological and existential concerns into

over

explosive

calligraphs

distill

complex

below—

a visual language of elemental simplicity

writhing, kinking, hooked, twisted, contracted,

and profound expressive force. Through the

precisely exploded—all the verbs are active

dynamic opposition of suspended forms

in this extraordinary visual grammar” (Brian

and explosive gestures, the artist achieves

O’Doherty, “Adolph Gottlieb: The Dualism of an

a compelling synthesis of structure and

Inner Life,” The New York Times, 23 February

spontaneity, transforming the canvas into a

1964, p. 17). O’Doherty’s evocative description

site of both introspection and unrestrained

captures the extraordinary tension between

emotional

weightlessness and explosive movement that

culmination of his remarkable career, Splatter

animates Splatter. Here, the orbs appear at

stands as a powerful testament to Gottlieb’s

once suspended and charged with potential

enduring investigation into the relationship

energy, while the gestural passages beneath

between color, form and the subconscious,

them convey a restless vitality that threatens to

embodying the monumental ambition and

disrupt the composition’s delicate equilibrium.

singular vision that established him as one of

Ultimately, Splatter exemplifies Gottlieb’s

the defining figures of Abstract Expressionism.

“

the

ability

expression.

Executed

the

othing can exist without its opposite; the two were one in N the beginning and will be one again in the end” CARL JUNG QUOTED IN MARY DAVIS MACNAUGHTON, ADOLPH GOTTLIEB: WORKS ON PAPER, 1966–1973, 1990, P. 11.

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ALFONSO OSSORIO 1916 - 1990

WH E R E YOUR T R E ASU R E I S mixed media assemblage on panel 33 by 24 ⅛ by 3 ¼ in. 83.8 by 61.3 by 8.3 cm. Executed circa 1963.

$ 120,000-180,000

P ROV E N A N C E Estate of the artist Ted Dragon, East Hampton (acquired from the above) Ossorio Foundation, Southampton (acquired from the above as a gift) Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York Acquired from the above in February 2002 by the present owner

EXHIBITED New York, Cordier & Ekstrom, Inc., Alfonso Ossorio: ‘62-’63, October - November 1963, no. 22 n.p.

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RICHARD POUSETTE-DART 1916 - 1992

WIND OW OF UN KN OW I N G, R E D signed twice (on the reverse) acrylic on canvas 72 ⅛ by 72 ⅛ in. 183.2 by 183.2 cm. Executed in 1984-85.

$ 250,000-350,000

P ROV E N A N C E Estate of the artist Marisa del Re Gallery, New York Le Marié Tranier Gallery, Washington, D.C. (acquired from the above circa 1992) Knoedler & Company, New York (acquired from the above circa 1998) Henry Luce III, New York (acquired from the above in 1999) Christie’s New York, 10 September 2007, lot 280 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED New York, Marisa del Re Gallery, Richard Pousette-Dart: Recent Paintings, April - May 1986, no. 6, n.p., illustrated in color Washington, D.C., Le Marié Tranier Gallery, Richard Pousette-Dart, February - March 1992, no. 26, n.p. (as Window of Unknowing) New York, Knoedler & Company, Summer Group Show, July - August 1998, no. 7, n.p.

L I T E R AT U R E Hilton Kramer, “Pioneer of New York School Merits Full Retrospective,” New York Observer, 12 November 1990, p. 19, illustrated (as Window of Unknowing) Sam Hunter and Joanne Kuebler, eds., Richard Pousette-Dart: The New York School and Beyond, Milan 2005, no. 119, p. 190, illustrated in color Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 110, illustrated in color

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211

AD REINHARDT 1913 - 1967

RE D PA INTING oil on canvas 50 by 25 ½ in. 127 by 64.8 cm. Executed in 1953.

$ 600,000-800,000

P ROV E N A N C E Reginald H. Kade, Munich American Contemporary Art Gallery, Munich Acquired from the above in June 2000 by the present owner

EXHIBITED Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Wilhelm Hack Museum, Kunst im Aufbruch: Abstraktion zwischen 1945 und 1959, October 1998 -January 1999, p. 184 (text) and p. 185, illustrated in color Aarau, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Painting as Memory - the Memory of Painting, August - November 2000, p. 282, illustrated in color Mestre, Centro Candiani, The ‘Irrascibles’ and the New York School, March - June 2002, no. 104, p. 209, illustrated in color

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luminous meditation on color, form,

and

perception,

Reinhardt’s Red Painting stands among

his

most

compelling

achievements from his celebrated series of monochromatic

Red

Paintings.

Executed

in 1953, a pivotal year within the artist’s career, the work belongs to the moment when Reinhardt’s uncompromising pursuit of abstraction first received widespread critical recognition. Distinguished by its alluring palette and subtle tonal layers, Red Painting embodies the rigorous formal language that established Reinhardt as one of the twentieth century’s most influential advocates for art reduced to its essential terms. Among the most significant examples of the artist’s red canvases, the present work demonstrates Reinhardt’s mastery of chromatic subtlety and geometric order. At first glance, the painting appears as a unified field of radiant crimson, yet sustained viewing reveals a carefully orchestrated structure of nuanced tonal variations. Subtly shifting bands of red emerge from the surface, animate the composition from within and create a visual experience that oscillates between stillness and vibration. The result is a work of remarkable optical intensity, rewarding prolonged contemplation through the gradual revelation of its internal architecture.

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“

here was something very magnificent about his presence. It was one T of those things where I felt shaken to my feet; that has happened very few times in front of very few people. That was Reinhardt.” RICHARD SERRA, “THOU SHALL NOT,” THE BROOKLYN RAIL, 2013, (ONLINE)

Masterfully exhibiting the visual language

of red, blue, and ultimately black, pursuing an

that would define his mature practice, Red

ever more refined language of abstraction.

Painting

symmetrical,

Liberated from direct narrative, the present

trisected structure and central cruciform

work directs attention solely to the experience

configuration that became hallmarks of his

of seeing, inviting viewers to engage with color

oeuvre. Divided into vertical and horizontal

in its most elemental and concentrated form

sections, the composition is governed by

as an autonomous object. The present work

absolute symmetry, transforming the canvas

vibrates with chromatic intensity, engulfing the

into a disciplined arena in which color and form

viewer into his artistic realm.

incorporates

the

exist in perfect equilibrium. The rich crimson

Although

frequently

associated

with

bands pulse across the surface, creating a sense

the generation of Abstract Expressionists,

of depth while remaining firmly committed to

Reinhardt occupied a singular position within

the flatness of the picture plane. Throughout

postwar art. His paintings draw equally upon

the early 1950s, Reinhardt progressively

the legacies of geometric abstraction and the

limited his palette to monochromatic fields

emerging concerns of Minimalism. By stripping

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Above Left: Kazimir Malevich, Abstract Composition, 1915. Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts. Image © Fine Art Images / Bridgeman Images Above Right: Barnett Newman, First Station, 1958. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Art © 2026 Barnett Newman Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Opposite: Ad Reinhardt in his New York Studio, 1 April 1961. Photo by Fred W. McDarrah/The New York Historical via Getty Images. Art © 2026 Estate of Ad Reinhardt / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

the rectilinear form of any representational

complexity, Red Painting reveals the full

function, he transformed geometry into a

sophistication of Reinhardt’s monochromatic

neutral optical structure, one capable of existing

vision.

without image or subject. In doing so, Reinhardt

red surface lies a remarkably nuanced

extended the radical reductions explored by

orchestration

artists such as Kazimir Malevich while pursuing

transforming the act of viewing into one of

chromatic austerity. Reinhardt was guided by

gradual discovery. Simultaneously austere and

his contemporaries but ultimately sought an

deeply evocative, the present work exemplifies

almost complete reduction in his painting

Reinhardt’s unparalleled ability to generate

which for him opened up limitless possibilities

profound visual experience through the most

for artistic expression.

restrained means, securing its place among the

Entrancing in both scale and chromatic

Beneath of

its

seemingly

tone

and

uniform geometry,

defining achievements of his practice.

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212

EDUARDO CHILLIDA 1924 - 2002

MÁ R M OL INCRUSTAC I Ó N PLO M O incised with the artist’s signature and monogram (lower left) marble and inlaid lead 34 ¼ by 23 ⅝ by 1 in. 87 by 60 by 2.5 cm. Executed in 1965.

$ 250,000-350,000

P ROV E N A N C E Palais Galliéra Paris, Livres et manuscrits. Tableaux modernes au profit des intellectuels espagnols condamnés en Mars 1966, 20 June 1966, lot 16 (donated by the artist) Mr. and Mrs. H. Gates Lloyd, Haverford (acquired from the above) Sotheby’s New York, 2 November 1994, lot 118 (consigned by the above) Private Collection, Dusseldorf (acquired from the above) Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco (acquired from the above in 2003) Acquired from the above in March 2003 by the present owner

EXHIBITED Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Artistes espagnols: Gris, Picasso, Miró, Chillida, Tàpies, May - July 1969, no. 7 (as Incrustations)

L I T E R AT U R E Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 109, illustrated in color Ignacio Chillida and Alberto Cobo, Eduardo Chillida, Vol I (1948-1973), Catalogue Raisonné of Sculpture, Nerea 2014, no. 1965006, p. 220, illustrated

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xecuted in 1964, Eduardo Chillida’s

identity of his homeland. His characteristic

Mármol

Plomo

use of forged iron and steel reflected the

represents a rare and significant

region’s traditions of industry, architecture and

exploration of material, light and

agriculture, while the physical resistance of

space within the artist’s celebrated sculptural

these materials offered a means of investigating

practice. Departing from the oxidised iron and

the relationship between matter and space.

burnished steel for which he is best known,

Equally fundamental was his fascination with

Chillida turns here to the luminous purity of

the distinctive atmospheric conditions of

white marble, interrupting its surface with a

the Basque coast, particularly the subdued,

rhythmic configuration of dark lead inlays. The

mysterious luminosity of the Bay of Biscay,

resulting composition embodies the profound

which he described as ‘black light.’

Incrustación

dialogue between opposing forces, light and

A transformative encounter with the

darkness, solidity and emptiness, permanence

Mediterranean landscape in the early 1960s

and movement, that lies at the heart of his

introduced Chillida to an altogether different

artistic vision.

conception of luminosity. Travelling through

Born in San Sebastián in Spain’s Basque Country,

maintained

Greece, he became captivated by the brilliant

lifelong

southern light and its relationship to the

attachment to the landscape and cultural

marble architecture and sculpture of classical

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Above: Various works in Eduardo Chillida’s studio. Photo: Jesús Uriarte. © Zabalaga-Leku, VEGAP, New York, ARS, 2026. Courtesy of the Estate of Eduardo Chillida and Hauser & Wirth

Below Left: Antoni Tàpies, Maleri 2 C, 1960. Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo. Image © CNAC/MNAM, Dist. RMN Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris Below Right: Julio González, “Monsieur” Cactus (Homme Cactus I), conceived in 1939, cast 1953-1954. Musée National d’Art Moderne/Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Image © Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 Julio González / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ ADAGP, Paris

antiquity. In contrast to the dark, diffused light

Chillida’s engagement with marble also

of his native Atlantic coast, the Mediterranean

establishes a compelling dialogue with the

offered a radiant clarity that seemed to

classical tradition. Yet rather than employing

emanate from the marble itself. Between 1962

the material to represent the human figure, as

and 1965, Chillida produced a remarkably small

generations of sculptors had done before him,

group of approximately fifteen marble works,

he liberates it from representation, allowing its

of which the present example is an especially

intrinsic properties to become the subject of

compelling expression.

the work. The contrast between the marble’s

In Mármol Incrustación Plomo, the artist

radiant whiteness and the lead’s dark opacity

transforms the marble surface into a poetic

recalls the philosophical and poetic concerns

meditation on the relationship between light

that informed his practice, particularly the

and shadow. The irregular, interlocking bands

notion that space is defined as much by

of lead traverse the luminous stone with an

absence as by presence.

almost calligraphic energy, establishing a

Exhibited in Paris in 1966 and subsequently

dynamic tension between the weight of the

at Galerie Beyeler in Basel in 1969, the present

material and the apparent fluidity of the

work occupies an important position within

composition. Suggestive of shifting horizons,

this brief but pivotal period of experimentation.

tidal movements or an abstracted landscape,

Ultimately,

these dark forms evoke the ceaseless rhythms

exemplifies Chillida’s extraordinary ability to

of the natural world. The lead appears at once

reconcile material substance with immaterial

embedded within and suspended across the

sensation, transforming an enduring classical

marble, complicating the distinction between

medium into a profoundly modern meditation

surface and depth.

on light, space and the infinite.

Mármol

Incrustación

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ANTONY GORMLEY b. 1950

U NTITL E D lead, fiberglass, plaster and air 23 ⅝ by 31 ½ by 24 ⅜ in. 60 by 80 by 61.9 cm. Executed in 1988.

$ 200,000-300,000

P ROV E N A N C E Burnett Miller Gallery, Los Angeles Private Collection, Switzerland (acquired from the above in 1988) Christie’s London, 8 February 2006, lot 54 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

L I T E R AT U R E Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 106, illustrated in color Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 31, illustrated in color

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ANSELM KIEFER b. 1945

DE IN G OL DE NES H A A R , M A RGA R E T H E JO HA NNIS- NAC H T titled (center left and upper right) oil, acrylic, emulsion and straw on canvas 51 ⅛ by 63 in. 129.9 by 160 cm. Executed in 1981.

$ 450,000-650,000

P ROV E N A N C E Sonnabend Gallery, New York Private Collection, New York (acquired circa 1987) Phillips New York, 16 November 1999, lot 36 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED Chicago, The Art Institute; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art and New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Anselm Kiefer, December 1987 - January 1989, no. 52, p. 105, illustrated in color

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215

YOSHITOMO NARA b. 1959

T HE L ITTL E P ILGR I M S (N I GH T WA L KI N G) acrylic, lacquer and cotton on fiber-reinforced plastic, in 5 parts each: 28 by 19 ¾ by 16 ¾ in. 71.1 by 50.2 by 42.5 cm.

Executed in 1999, this work is artist’s proof number 4 from an edition of 10, plus 4 artist’s proofs. $ 1,200,000-1,800,000

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P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Galerie Jöhnen & Schöttle, Cologne

Shigeo Goto, ed., Yoshitomo Nara: Ukiyo, Tokyo 1999, n.p., illustrated in color

Brett Mitchell, Cleveland (acquired from the above circa 2001) Sotheby’s New York, 16 May 2007, lot 446 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED Tokyo, Setagaya Art Museum, Art/Domestic, February - March 1999, no. 44, pp. 3-5, illustrated in color, and pp. 70, 75 and 79, illustrated (another example exhibited)

Bijutsu Techo Monthly Art Magazine, vol. 52, no. 790, July 2000, pp. 20-23, illustrated in color Bijutsu Techo Monthly Art Magazine, vol. 53, no. 813, December 2001, p. 77, illustrated in color Exh. Cat., Yokohama Museum of Art, I Don’t Mind, if You Forget Me, 2001, no. 38, p. 132, illustrated in color Exh. Cat., Institut für Kunst Nürnberg, Yoshitomo Nara: Lullaby Supermarket, 2002, pp. 13, 140-141, 146, 197-198, illustrated in color

Santa Monica, Blum & Poe, Yoshitomo Nara: An Exhibition of Sculpture in Two Parts (PART I), February - March 1999 (another example exhibited)

CREAM 3: Contemporary Art in Culture: 10 Curators, 100 Contemporary Artists, 10 Source Artists, London 2003, p. 242, illustrated in color

Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Walk On, March - June 2000 (another example exhibited)

Yoshitomo Nara, The Little Star Dweller, Tokyo 2004, pp. 141 and 145, illustrated in color

Cologne, Galerie Jöhnen & Schöttle, In the Empty Fortress, March - April 2000

Mark Coetzee, Not Afraid: Rubell Family Collection, New York 2004, p. 87, illustrated

Nuremberg, Institut für Moderne Kunst and Munich, Michael Zink Gallery, Yoshitomo Nara: Lullaby Supermarket, September November 2002, pp. 13, 140-141 and 198, illustrated in color (another example illustrated)

Woodrow Phoenix, Plastic Culture: how Japanese toys conquered the world, Tokyo 2006, pp. 88-89 and 93, illustrated in color Noriko Miyamura and Shinko Suzuki, eds., Yoshimoto Nara: the Complete Works, Volume 1: Paintings, Sculptures, Editions, Photographs 1984-2010, Tokyo 2011, no. S-1999-009, p. 270, illustrated in color Exh. Cat., Yokohama Museum of Art (and traveling), NARA Yoshitomo: a bit like you and me…, 2012, pp. 52 and 55, illustrated in color Bijutsu Shuppan-Sha ed., Yoshimoto Nara: The Complete BT Archives 1991-2013, Tokyo 2013, pp. 13, 94-97 and 311, illustrated in color Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 27, illustrated in color and illustrated in color (on the cover) Bijutsu Shuppan Sha and Yoshitomo Nara, Yoshitomo Nara: Catalogue Raisonné, Tokyo 2011 - ongoing, no. YNF2557, illustrated in color (online)

Opposite: The Baum Residence, Palm Beach. From left: Lot 228, Polke; Lot 22, Manzoni; Lot 215, Nara; Lot 7, Warhol. Art © 2026 Estate of Sigmar Polke / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome. Art © 2026 Yoshitomo Nara. Art © 2026 Andy Warhol Foundation / ARS, NY. Photograph by Diana Todorova.

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mong

the

sculptural

most

acclaimed of

left alone as a child, he immersed himself in

Yoshitomo Nara’s career, The

drawing, picture books, manga, and animated

Little Pilgrims (Night Walking) hail

films, cultivating the imaginative inner world

from a defining moment in which the artist’s

that would later define his work. In 1988, Nara

iconic cast of characters moved beyond the

moved to Germany to attend the Kunstakademie

painted surface and into the viewer’s physical

Düsseldorf, where he studied under A.R. Penck.

realm. Rarely encountered as a complete

Although frequently associated with the

set, this ensemble consists of five exquisitely

Superflat movement, Nara has consistently

realized

figures,

each

undertakings

Japanese and Western popular culture. Often

emphasized the autobiographical foundations of

individual attire. Together, they encapsulate

distinguished

his imagery, drawing inspiration from memory,

Nara’s exploration of sleep, consciousness, and

emotion, and imagination. As exemplified by The

childhood imagination. Occupying a threshold

Little Pilgrims (Night Walking), the dreamlike

between inward contemplation and outward

children and solitary wanderers that populate

journeying, these

his oeuvre reflect both childhood experience

wandering

sleepwalkers

evoke the curiosity and wonder of the transition from childhood into adulthood.

and a commitment to emotional authenticity. While the imaginative foundations of

Born in 1959 and raised in Hirosaki during a

Nara’s practice were established through the

period of profound cultural change in postwar

drawings and sketchbooks he produced in the

Japan, Yoshitomo Nara developed his artistic

1980s, sculpture also played an important role

vision through a personal engagement with

in his artistic development. Beginning with

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Above: Yoshitomo Nara, Night Walker, 2001. Sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in April 2014 for 15.64 million HKD. Art © 2026 Yoshitomo Nara Opposite: Mini Jizo sculptures on a roadside in Tokyo. Photo by Zhang Peng/ LightRocket via Getty Images

small carved wooden figures, he gradually

expressive possibilities of sculpture. Suspended

translated his distinctive protagonists into

between sleep and wakefulness, vulnerability

three dimensions, exploring new possibilities

and self-possession, the pilgrims appear drawn

of scale, materiality, and presence. Working at

toward an unknown destination, guided by an

the intersection of Japanese popular culture,

invisible inner compass. Moving in a trance-

Neo-Expressionism, and personal imagination,

like procession, they transform the surrounding

Nara increasingly viewed sculpture as a means

space into a dreamlike landscape, inviting

of granting tangible form to the inhabitants of

viewers into the realm of imagination, memory,

his inner world, a trajectory that culminated

and introspection that has animated Nara’s

in ambitious works such as The Little Pilgrims

work since childhood.

(Night Walking).

Though each figure appears absorbed

In The Little Pilgrims (Night Walking), five

in a private dream, their proximity creates a

childlike figures emerge from Nara’s imagined

compelling collective presence, suggesting

world into the viewer’s own. With closed eyes,

an unspoken connection that transcends

outstretched arms, and softly rounded features,

conscious perception. Suspended between

they embody the artist’s distinctive visual

earth and sky, solitude and togetherness, Nara

language while introducing a new sculptural

transforms his familiar protagonists into poetic

dimension to it. Their serene expressions recall

emblems of innocence and self-discovery. First

traditional Japanese sculptures of Jizō, the

presented in 1999 and subsequently featured

Buddhist guardian of children and travelers,

in several of the artist’s earliest international

lending an added layer of poignancy to Nara’s

museum exhibitions, The Little Pilgrims (Night

wandering pilgrims. Their smooth, toy-like

Walking) quickly emerged as a touchstone of his

surfaces and serial repetition further reflect

singular artistic language and an emblem of his

his fascination with popular culture and the

sculptural oeuvre.

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LUCIO FONTANA 1899 - 1968

CO NCE TTO SPA Z I A L E , T E AT R I N O waterpaint on canvas and lacquered wood 51 ⅛ by 51 ⅛ in. 129.9 by 129.9 cm. Executed in 1965.

$ 300,000-500,000

P ROV E N A N C E Galerie Alexandre Iolas, Milan E. Pisano Collection, Milan (acquired by 1970) Gazzaniga Collection, Monza (acquired by 1986) Private Collection, Ancona Sotheby’s Milan, 30 May 2001, lot 341 (consigned by the above) Private Collection, Lugano (acquired from the above) Private Collection, Italy (acquired by descent from the above) Christie’s London, 11 October 2012, lot 102 (consigned by the above) Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich Acquired from the above in June 2013 by the present owner

L I T E R AT U R E Guido Ballo, Fontana: idea per un ritratto, Turin 1970, no. 280, p. 246, illustrated in color Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: Catalogue Raisonné des Peintures, Sculptures et Environnements Spatiaux, vol. II, Brussels 1974, no. 65 TE 65, p. 172, illustrated Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Generale, vol. II, Milan 1986, no. 64-65 TE 1, p. 608, illustrated Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Ragionato di Sculture, Dipinti, Ambientazioni, vol. II, Milan 2006, no. 65 TE 65, p. 795, illustrated

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AGOSTINO BONALUMI 1935 - 2013

P ROV E N A N C E The aritst Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York (acquired from the above in 2012) Acquired from the above in June 2012 by the present owner

B LU signed and dated 71 (on the reverse) vinyl tempera on shaped canvas 27 ½ by 26 ½ by 7 in. 69.9 by 67.3 by 17.8 cm.

L I T E R AT U R E Fabrizio Bonalumi and Marco Meneguzzo, Agostino Bonalumi, Catalogo ragionato, Tomo secondo, Milan 2015, no. 503, p. 448, illustrated

Executed in 1971.

$ 30,000-50,000

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AGOSTINO BONALUMI 1935 - 2013

ROSSO signed and dated 63 (on the reverse) vinyl tempera on shaped canvas 15 ¾ by 15 ¾ by 1 ½ in. 40 by 40 by 3.8 cm. Executed in 1963.

$ 20,000-30,000

P ROV E N A N C E Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York Acquired from the above in June 2012 by the present owner

L I T E R AT U R E Exh. Cat., Marca Museo delle Arti Catanzaro, Bonalumi, 2014, no. 11, p. 59, illustrated in color Fabrizio Bonalumi and Marco Meneguzzo, Agostino Bonalumi, Catalogo ragionato, Tomo secondo, Milan 2015, no. 83, p. 341, illustrated Antonella Soldaini, ed., Agostino Bonalumi: Small Gems, Milan 2021, no. 18, p. 78, illustrated in color

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LEE BONTECOU 1931 - 2022

UNTITL E D signed and dated 1960 (on the edge) welded steel, canvas and wire 9 by 9 by 2 ⅝ in. 22.9 by 22.9 by 6.7 cm. Executed in 1960.

$ 250,000-350,000

P ROV E N A N C E Morris Dorsky, New York (acquired as a gift directly from the artist) Manny Silverman, Los Angeles Danese, New York Private Collection, New York Danese, New York Acquired from the above in March 2005 by the present owner

EXHIBITED New York, Danese, Black/White, November - December 2003 New York, Danese, Sculpture, February - March 2005

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SALVATORE SCARPITTA 1919 - 2007

PO NTE S. F E L I C E signed, titled, dated 1958 and dedicated per Plinio. La Tartaruga - Roma (on the reverse) cotton bandages and mixed media on panel 12 ¾ by 17 in. 32.4 by 43.2 cm. Executed in 1958.

$ 150,000-200,000

P ROV E N A N C E Galleria La Tartaruga, Rome Tricia Collins Contemporary Art, New York Private Collection, Philadelphia (acquired from the above in November 1997) Sotheby’s New York, 15 November 2007, lot 123 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED Washington, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Salvatore Scarpitta: Traveler, July 2014 - January 2015, n.p., illustrated in color

L I T E R AT U R E Luigi Sansone, Salvatore Scarpitta, Milan 2005, no. 205, p. 163, illustrated Exh. Cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (and traveling), Destroy the picture: Painting the Void, 1949-1962, 2012 - 2013, p. 127, illustrated in color

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LYNDA BENGLIS b. 1941

SAKURA J IMA signed, titled and dated ‘93 (on the reverse) purified pigmented beeswax and dammar resin on Masonite 38 ½ by 5 ½ by 2 in. 97.8 by 14 by 5.1 cm. Executed in 1993.

$ 200,000-300,000

P ROV E N A N C E Private Collection, Australia (acquired directly from the artist circa 1993) Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles Acquired from the above in June 2011 by the present owner

EXHIBITED Auckland City Art Gallery, Lynda Benglis: From the Furnace, October - November 1993, no. 28, p. 40, (text) Los Angeles, Margo Leavin Gallery, Installations, July - August 1994 Los Angeles, Margo Leavin Gallery, SCULPTURE, February March 2011

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222

MARCEL BROODTHAERS 1924 - 1976

PANNE AU D E M OU L ES mussel shells and resin on panel 27 ⅜ by 19 ⅝ by 3 ¼ in. 69.5 by 49.8 by 8.3 cm. Executed in 1965.

$ 300,000-500,000

P ROV E N A N C E Private Collection, Belgium Jos Jamar, Antwerp Ronny Van de Velde, Antwerp Willy Dhuysser Gallery, Brussels Maurice Keitelman Gallery, Brussels Acquired from the above in March 2006 by the present owner

“

The Mussel This artful thing has avoided society’s mold. She has slipped into her own. Others, resembling her, share with her the anti-sea. She is perfect.” MARCEL BROODTHAERS, QUOTED IN: ‘THE MUSSEL’ TRANSLATED BY M. COMPTON, IN ‘SELECTIONS FROM PENSE BÊTE’, OCTOBER, NO. 42 (FALL 1987), P. 27

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xecuted in 1965, Panneau de

Born in Brussels in 1924, Broodthaers

Moules belongs to the seminal

worked as a poet and writer for many years

body of works through which

before dedicating himself to visual art at the

Marcel Broodthaers forged one

age of 40. His early work shared affinities with

of the most distinctive artistic languages of

the provocative strategies employed by Les

the postwar period. Created shortly after the

Nouveaux Réalistes, who had gathered under

artist’s transition from poetry to visual art, the

the guidance of French critic Pierre Restany in

work demonstrates his ability to elevate the

1960 and included Yves Klein, Arman and Jean

most commonplace materials into objects of

Tinguely. In 1966, Broodthaers was invited to

profound visual and intellectual complexity.

exhibit at Galerie J in Paris, which was owned

Drawing upon the legacies of Surrealism and

by Restany’s wife, Janine de Goldschmidt.

Marcel Duchamp’s revolutionary concept of

Although Les Nouveaux Réalistes were similarly

the readymade, Broodthaers transforms the

interested in the relationship between art and

humble mussel shell into a vehicle for exploring

everyday objects, Broodthaers later distanced

authorship, representation and the very nature

himself from the group, growing sceptical of

of artistic creation.

their commercialisation and glorification of

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Above: Marcel Broodthaers covered with mussels, Brussels, 1965. Photo © Maria Gilissen Opposite: Daniel Spoerri, Kichka’s Breakfast I, 1960. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY. Art © 2026 Daniel Spoerri / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

modern society. His practice instead revealed

sculpture and assemblage.

a distinctly poetic and conceptual sensibility,

Enveloping the wooden surface in a

indebted to the Surrealist tradition and

dense accumulation of overlapping shells,

Duchamp’s radical reconsideration of the

Broodthaers transforms the panel into a richly

artistic object.

textured field that oscillates between painting by

and sculpture. The composition is animated by

Broodthaers during the formative years of

Among

the

materials

subtle variations in tone and luminosity: deep

his career, the mussel occupied a privileged

blacks and smoky browns are punctuated by

position. The artist regarded it as a perfect

flashes of iridescent silver, blue and green

form, a natural object that simultaneously

that catch and refract the light across the

embodied

self-generation

work’s surface. The rhythmic repetition of the

and independence. Its significance was

shells generates an almost abstract visual

further enriched by linguistic associations,

effect, dissolving individual forms into a unified

particularly the French word moule, which

composition of remarkable vitality and depth.

denotes both a mussel and a mould or cast,

The richness of the composition is

as well as its associations with Belgian national

tempered by a subtle sense of absence, the

identity. Such ambiguities lay at the heart of

shells being traces of a life no longer present.

Broodthaers’ practice, recalling the enigmatic

Their accumulation creates a paradoxical

investigations of his fellow Belgian René

tension between abundance and vacancy, a

Magritte, whose Surrealist paintings similarly

poetic contradiction that recalls the Surrealist

challenged the relationship between objects,

impulse to reveal the uncanny within the

images and language. Panneau de Moules also

familiar.

reflects Duchamp’s legacy of the readymade,

conceptual rigor, Panneau de Moules stands

elevating discarded materials into the realm of

among the most compelling expressions of

art through the artist’s deliberate selection and

Broodthaers’ early oeuvre. Through the simple

recontextualization. By covering the support

aggregation of discarded mussel shells, the

entirely with mussel shells, Broodthaers

artist transformed an everyday object into

replaces the conventions of painting with a

a meditation on language, perception and

surface constructed from found objects,

artistic invention, revealing the extraordinary

blurring the distinctions between painting,

possibilities concealed within the ordinary.

containment,

employed

Uniting

visual

seduction

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GERHARD RICHTER b. 1932

PO RTRA IT LUN T Z signed and dated 65 (on the reverse) oil on canvas 19 ¾ by 15 ¾ in. 50.2 by 40 cm. Executed in 1965.

$ 700,000-900,000

P ROV E N A N C E Galerie Schmela, Dusseldorf Collection Luntz (acquired from the above) Hauswedell & Nolte Hamburg, 12 June 1982, lot 1224 (consigned by the above) Private Collection, Frankfurt Dickinson, London and New York Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco (acquired from the above in 2005) Acquired from the above in June 2005 by the present owner

L I T E R AT U R E Exh. Cat., XXXVI Venice Biennale, German Pavilion, Gerhard Richter, 1972, p. 37 (text) Exh. Cat. (and catalogue raisonné), Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (and traveling), Gerhard Richter: Bilder/Paintings 1962-1985, 1986, p. 23, illustrated in color and p. 360 (text) Exh. Cat. (and catalogue raisonné), Bonn, Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Gerhard Richter: 1962-1993, Vol. III, 1993-94, no. 48-3, n.p., illustrated in color Susanne Ehrenfried, Ohne Eigenschaften. Das Portrait bei Gerhard Richter, Vienna and New York 1997, p. 187, illustrated Dietmar Elger, ed., Gerhard Richter. Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 1: Nos. 1 - 198, 1962-1968, Ostfildern 2011, no. 48-3, p. 132, illustrated in color

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xecuted in 1965, Portrait Luntz

firmness, so the gaze stays direct even as the

is an early example of Gerhard

contours around it soften. The present work

Richter’s Photo Paintings, the body

was acquired by the sitter from the Düsseldorf

of work on which his reputation

gallery of Alfred Schmela. It was Schmela who

was founded. By painting from a photograph

prompted Richter to take portrait commissions,

rather than from life, Richter set aside the

a natural continuation of the photographic

traditional process of portraiture and gave

source material he had used since 1962, and

his canvas the objectivity associated with the

the artist went on to paint numerous dealers

photographic medium. The sitter’s pale face

and collectors.

stands out against the black of his hair and shirt

Richter created his first Photo Painting,

and the even grey of the background. Richter

Tisch, in 1962. He drew on press images and

renders the brows and eyes with particular

family photographs, material he would later

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compile in his Atlas. In the enlarged photograph

imagery to examine how ideology could be

rendered in oil he found a device for exposing

presented as reality on both sides of the Iron

the illusory nature of both photography’s

Curtain. In Portrait Luntz he brings the same

and painting’s claims to verisimilitude. In

detachment to a commissioned likeness,

Tisch, the sharply defined form of the table

declining to flatter or interpret his sitter.

is complicated by fluid overpainting, a

The approach found its fullest expression

combination of approaches developed with

in 48 Portraits, shown in the German Pavilion

far greater refinement in the present work.

when Richter represented Germany at the

Retaining something of the quality of the

1972 Venice Biennale. From an initial selection

photograph, Richter’s painterly translations

of 270 encyclopaedia photographs of writers,

establish a kind of visual equivalence, and the

composers, scientists and philosophers, he

blur allows him “to make everything equally

chose forty-eight, among them Albert Einstein,

important and equally unimportant” (Gerhard

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Oscar Wilde and Franz

Richter, Gerhard Richter: Writings, Interviews

Kafka. He painted each in the same format and

and Letters 1961 – 2007, London, 2009, p. 33).

hung them in a single row, their gazes turned

Oscillating between figuration and abstraction,

outward from the centre, in an arrangement

these paintings undo the descriptive qualities

that evoked a mausoleum. Richter wanted

conventionally

Realism,

these figures to become anonymous, their

emphasising instead the inscrutable nature of

literary and intellectual weight cancelled by

reality itself.

the painting (Gerhard Richter quoted in: Exh.

associated

with

The blur defines these paintings. Richter

Cat., New York, The Museum of Modern Art

worked a soft brush across the wet surface,

(and travelling), Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of

leaving the image slightly out of focus and

Painting, 2002, p. 63). Portrait Luntz anticipates

removing almost every trace of his hand. As

that ambition by seven years. Painted from a

Margrit Behm observes, “In a formal sense

photograph of Painted from a photograph of

the technique is employed to create distance

Luntz, it holds its sitter at the same measured

between reality and painting; in terms of

distance and marks an early stage in Richter’s

content, it is the expression of a painter’s

lifelong enquiry into what a painted image can

doubt about the possibility of really saying

claim to know.

anything about reality” (Margrit Behm, “The Constitution of Visual Truth During Painting” in: Jochen Poetter, ed., Richter, Polke, Rainer, Baden-Baden 1996, p. 51). Wavering between clarity and obscurity, the blurred image offered Richter “an opportunity to express the fleetingness of our ability to perceive” (Richard Calvocoressi, “Young Gerd” Gagosian Quarterly, Spring 2020, online). In the wake of the Second Above: The artist photographed in 1969. Photo: Gerhard Richter, portrayed by Lothar Wolleh. © Lothar Wolleh Estate, Berlin

World War, it was a significant position to take in

artist trained in Dresden under the dogma

relation to visual culture, and one that reflects on the fragility of memory itself. Such restraint carried weight for an of Socialist Realism. After emigrating to West Germany in 1961, Richter joined Sigmar Polke in championing Kapitalistischer Realismus (Capitalist Realism), which used popular SOT HE BY’S

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MARTIAL RAYSSE b. 1937

CONNUE- INCO N N U E signed, dated 67 and dedicated OTTO (on the reverse) photo-treated cloth with pink Rhodoïd on polystyrene in Plexiglas box 21 ¾ by 19 ⅜ by 4 ⅜ in. 55.2 by 49.2 by 11.1 cm. Executed in 1967.

$ 60,000-80,000

P ROV E N A N C E Otto Hahn, Paris (acquired as a gift directly from the artist circa 1967) Loudmer Commissaires-Priseurs Paris, 1 July 1996, lot 53 (consigned by the above) Galerie Guy Pieters, Knokke Private Collection, Paris (acquired from the above) Sotheby’s Paris, 26 May 2008, lot 28 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

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225

YAYOI KUSAMA 1929 - 2026

UNTITL E D ( MAN N EQU I N ) acrylic on wooden mannequin with synthetic wig 67 by 25 ⅝ by 15 ¾ in. 170.2 by 65.1 by 40 cm. Executed in 1966, this work is unique.

$ 200,000-300,000

P ROV E N A N C E Galleria d’Arte Naviglio, Milan Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York Michael Straus, Birmingham Acquired from the above in October 2010 by the present owner

EXHIBITED Milan, Galeria d’Arte del Naviglio, Driving Image Show, January February 1966 Miami, Bass Museum, Yayoi Kusama, December 2002 - March 2003, p. 27, illustrated (as Untitled (Female Mannequin))

L I T E R AT U R E Exh. Cat., New York, The Museum of Modern Art (and traveling), Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1968, 1998 - 1999, no. 71, p. 153, illustrated in color Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 30, illustrated in color

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xecuted in 1966, Yayoi Kusama’s

tious early exhibitions in her career. First staged

Untitled

in 1964 at the Richard Castellane Gallery in

example

New York and later reprised in 1966 in Milan

the artist’s radical engagement

and Essen, the exhibition marked a pivotal

with the human form, created during the

moment in Kusama’s development, subsuming

extraordinarily fertile years she spent in New

everyday objects within her all-encompassing

York. Transforming a life-sized mannequin

visual language an anticipating the immer-

through an intricate accumulation of painted

sive environments for which she would later

marks, Kusama dissolves the boundaries

become renowned.

between sculpture, painting and the body. The

Kusama arrived in New York in 1958, deter-

work anticipates many of the defining concerns

mined to establish herself at the forefront of the

repetition,

international avant-garde. Recalling her arrival,

psychological immersion, self-obliteration and

she declared: “The first thing I did in New York

the infinite.

was to climb up the Empire State Building and

Testament to its singular importance within

survey the city (the artist quoted in an interview

Kusama’s oeuvre, Untitled (Mannequin) was

with Akira Tatehata, 1965).” She aspired, she

included in the artist’s seminal Driving Image

continued, to embrace the city’s extraordinary

Show in 1966 at Galeria d’Arte del Naviglio in

creative energy and achieve artistic stardom.

Milan, one of the most significant and ambi-

Immersing herself in its experimental milieu,

276

her

compelling

subsequent

(Mannequin) early

practice:

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

Below: Louise Bourgeois, Arched Figure, 2004. Sold at Sotheby’s London in July 2020 for £1.215 million. Art © 2026 The Easton Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Opposite: Giorgio de Chirico, Trovatore, 1971. Sold at Sotheby’s Milan in November 2021 for €226,800. Art © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

Kusama developed a singular visual language

Giorgio de Chirico. Emerging during the First

that challenged the prevailing conventions of

World War and crystallizing as a movement in

Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism and Pop

1917, Metaphysical painting frequently replaced

Art. By 1966, her celebrated Infinity Nets and

human subjects with faceless mannequins,

Accumulations had established repetition as

statues and enigmatic surrogates. These

both a formal strategy and a deeply personal

unsettling figures conveyed the alienation, dis-

means of expression.

location and existential uncertainty of modern

Untitled (Mannequin) belongs to Kusama’s ear-

life. While Kusama’s mannequin similarly occu-

liest experiments with mannequins, in which

pies an ambiguous territory between animate

the human body became a three-dimensional

and inanimate, her intervention is distinct-

canvas for her obsessive patterns. Its dark

ly more psychological and immersive. Rather

surface, animated by a dense constellation

than merely suggesting human absence, she

of pale markings, simultaneously reveals and

transforms the body into a site of infinite pro-

obscures the female figure. The mannequin’s

liferation, where identity is simultaneously

individuality is subsumed within an apparently

asserted and erased.

limitless network of marks, evoking Kusama’s

Following Kusama’s passing in August 2026,

concept of self-obliteration: the dissolution of

aged 97, Untitled (Mannequin) assumes

personal identity into an infinite, interconnect-

renewed poignancy as a testament to the

ed universe. Here, the familiar human silhou-

audacity and originality of her early vision.

ette becomes an uncanny, almost otherworldly

Created at a pivotal moment in her career, it

presence.

encapsulates the extraordinary ambition of an

The work also invites comparison with the

artist who sought not simply to represent the

mannequin figures of Italian Metaphysical

world, but to envelop it entirely within her own

painting, particularly those associated with

boundless imagination. SOT HE BY’S

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RICHARD HAMILTON 1922 - 2011

FASH ION- P L AT E (COS M E T I C ST U DY X I I ) signed and titled (on the verso) pastel, cosmetics and paper collage over lithograph on paper image: 29 ½ by 23 ¾ in. (74.9 by 60.3 cm.) sheet: 39 ⅜ by 27 ⅜ in. (100 by 69.5 cm.) Executed in 1969.

$ 300,000-500,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Eric Franck, Geneva (acquired directly from the artist circa 1970)

Exh. Cat., Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona and the Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Richard Hamilton Retrospective Paintings and Drawings 1937-2002, 2003, no. 194, p. 59, illustrated in color

Waddington Galleries, Ltd., London Private Collection, Lugano (acquired from the above) Sotheby’s London, 5 February 2004, lot 26 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED London, Tate Gallery; Eindhoven Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum and Bern Kunsthalle, Richard Hamilton, March - August 1970, no. 169, p. 89, illustrated New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Richard Hamilton, September - November 1973, no. 133, p. 77, illustrated in color Kunsthalle Bielefeld; Kunsthalle Tübingen and Kunstverein Göttingen, Richard Hamilton Studies - Studien 1937-1977, April - July 1978, no. 132, p. 172, illustrated London, Tate Gallery and Dublin, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Richard Hamilton, October 1992 - January 1993, no. 68, p. 112, illustrated in color and p. 171, illustrated Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona and the Cologne, Ludwig Museum, Richard Hamilton Retrospective Paintings and Drawings 1937-2002, 2003, no. 194, p. 59, illustrated in color

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ANDY WARHOL 1928 - 1987

JACQUE L INE K E N N E DY I I (JAC KI E I I ) signed (on the reverse) acrylic and silkscreen ink on Plexiglas 22 by 29 ⅞ in. 55.9 by 75.9 cm. Executed in 1966. This work is stamped by the Andy Warhol Authentication Board, Inc. and numbered A163.0911 on the reverse.

$ 300,000-500,000

P ROV E N A N C E Gordon Locksley Gallery, Minneapolis Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above) Private Collection (acquired as a gift from the above) Christie’s New York, 11 March 2010, lot 24 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

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SIGMAR POLKE 1941 - 2010

FR EUNDINNE N signed and dated 67 (lower right) dispersion on paper image: 22 ½ by 28 ¼ in. (57.2 by 71.8 cm.) sheet: 25 ¼ by 30 ⅝ in. (64.1 by 77.8 cm.) Executed in 1967.

$ 80,000-120,000

P ROV E N A N C E Galerie h., Hanover Private Collection (acquired from the above circa 1968) Christie’s London, 8 February 2006, lot 8 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED New York, Museum of Modern Art, Alibis: Sigmar Polke 1963-2010, April - August 2014, p. 161, illustrated in color

L I T E R AT U R E Stefan Gronert, Girlfriends, London 2017, no. 4, n.p., illustrated in color (installation view) Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 27, illustrated in color

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229

MIMMO ROTELLA 1918 - 2006

T HE M ISF ITS signed (lower right); signed, titled and dated 1963 (on the reverse) printed paper collage on canvas 54 ¾ by 39 ¼ in. 139.1 by 99.7 cm. Executed in 1963.

$ 100,000-150,000

P ROV E N A N C E Galerie Heinz Holtmann, Cologne Acquired from the above in June 2001 by the present owner

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230

ROBERT INDIANA 1928 - 2018

SIX titled (center); signed and dated 19 60 62 (on the base) gesso, oil and wire on wood with iron wheels 62 ⅛ by 18 by 22 ⅛ in. 157.8 by 45.7 by 56.2 cm. Executed in 1960-62.

$ 250,000-350,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Stable Gallery, New York

Grace Glueck, “New Aldrich Museum Show ‘Noisiest’,” Bridgeport Post, October 30, 1966, p. E8, illustrated

Kimiko and John Powers, Carbondale (acquired from the above in January 1966) Christie’s New York, 17 May 2001, lot 127 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED New York, Stable Gallery, Robert Indiana, October - November 1962 Ridgefield, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art and Lincoln, De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Selections from the John G. Powers Collection, September 1966 - January 1967, no. 36, illustrated Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American Art and Portland Museum of Art, Wood Works: Constructions by Robert Indiana, May - October 1984, no. 22, p. 16, illustrated (installed in the artist’s studio), p. 36, illustrated and p. 55 Indianapolis Museum of Art, Crossroads of American Sculpture: David Smith, George Rickey, John Chamberlain, Robert Indiana, William T. Wiley, Bruce Nauman, October 2000 - January 2001, p. 33 New York, Whitney Museum of American Art and San Antonio, McNay Art Museum, Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE, September 2013 May 2014, p. 34, illustrated (installed in the artist’s studio)

Noel Frackman, “Contemporary Scene at Ridgefield; ‘Westerns’ at Katonah,” Scarsdale Inquirer, October 6, 1966, p. 9, (text) Paul Richard, “The ‘Love’ Man Turns to Wood,” Washington Post, May 29, 1985, p. C3, (text) Carl Weinhardt, Jr., Robert Indiana, New York 1990, p. 70, illustrated (installed in the artist’s studio) Susan Elizabeth Ryan, Robert Indiana: Figures of Speech, New Haven 2000, p. 58, illustrated (installed in the artist’s studio) and p. 68 (text) “New Robert Indiana Work: What’s Love Got to Do With It?” ArtNewsletter, February 4, 2003, (text) Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 109, illustrated in color Exh. Cat.., Galerie Gmurzynska, New York, Robert Indiana: The Monumental Woods, 2013, p. 83, illustrated (installed in the artist’s studio) Ken Johnson, “It Wasn’t All He Needed, or All He Did,” The New York Times, 27 September 2013, C31, illustrated in color Exh. Cat., Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Robert Indiana: Sculpture 19582018, 2022 - 2023, p. 23, illustrated (installed in the artist’s studio) Simon Salama-Caro, ed., The Robert Indiana Catalogue Raisonné, New York 2010 - ongoing, no. S-1962-2, illustrated in color (online)

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“

I ’m particularly interested in [...] six because my father was born into a family of six members in the month of June, he worked for Phillips 66, and he went west on Highway 66 when he left my mother, passing all those little signs on farmers’ fences that say “use 666,” which is also the sign of the devil—that’s how my mother felt about him because he had left her, you see. And it’s a nice number. I’m not fond of all numbers, but I’m very fond of two and six.” THE ARTIST, QUOTED IN: JAN GARDEN CASTRO, “MORE FAMOUS THAN JOHN DILLINGER: A CONVERSATION WITH ROBERT INDIANA,” SCULPTURE 28, NO. 2 (2009), P. 45.

xecuted

between

1960

and

messenger god and protector of travelers.

1962, Robert Indiana’s Six is

Living among a vibrant community of artists

a compelling example of the

at Coenties Slip in Lower Manhattan, Indiana

artist’s celebrated early sculptural

scavenged

discarded

wooden

beams,

practice, encapsulating the distinctive fusion

industrial fragments and metal objects from

of language, symbolism and autobiography

the surrounding waterfront and demolition

that would define his singular contribution

sites. Transforming these remnants of a rapidly

to American Pop Art. Belonging to his

changing urban landscape into imposing,

seminal series of Herms, the present work

anthropomorphic totems, he established

marks a pivotal moment in Indiana’s artistic

a sculptural vocabulary that anticipated the

development, when the found materials of

iconic numerical and textual compositions of

his immediate surroundings became vehicles

his mature career. Indeed, Indiana regarded

for a profoundly personal visual language.

these

Combining the industrial character of salvaged

his practice, with words and numbers first

wood and iron wheels with the striking graphic

appearing on the Herms before finding

immediacy of stenciled lettering and vibrant

expression in his celebrated paintings. The

color, Six embodies the tensions between

present work, with its striking verticality and

movement and stasis, personal memory and

monumental proportions, exemplifies this

collective American identity that animate

remarkable synthesis of classical reference,

Indiana’s oeuvre. Its importance within the

industrial assemblage and contemporary

artist’s early production was underscored by its

American imagery.

constructions

foundational

inclusion in the landmark retrospective Robert

Visually arresting in its elegant economy,

Indiana: Beyond LOVE, held at the Whitney

Six juxtaposes the imposing black surface of

Museum of American Art, New York, in 2013–14

its central wooden column with six vivid red

at the Breuer.

circles arranged in two vertical rows, while the

Indiana began constructing his Herms in

word “SIX” appears in brilliant yellow lettering

1959, drawing inspiration from the classical

beneath. The composition evokes the graphic

Greek pillars associated with Hermes, the

language of roadside signage, advertising and

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Above: Robert Rauschenberg, Coca Cola Plan, 1958. Image © NPL - DeA Picture Library / Bridgeman Images. Art © 2026 Robert Rauschenberg Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Opposite: Bust of Demosthenes, 384-322 BC (Roman copy of an original of 280 BC), Glyptothek Museum, Munich, Germany. Image © Tarker / Bridgeman Images

industrial markings, transforming familiar visual

from the family along Route 66. Through

codes into an enigmatic personal emblem. Two

these layered associations, Six transforms

iron wheels flank the base, suggesting the

an ostensibly impersonal numeral into a

possibility of movement while paradoxically

poignant meditation on memory, identity and

reinforcing the sculpture’s static, sentinel-like

loss. Its wheels evoke both the mythology

presence. This tension between mobility and

of Hermes and the American automobile,

immobility resonates with Indiana’s enduring

collapsing ancient symbolism and modern

fascination with journeys, displacement and

experience into a single commanding form.

the elusive promises of the American Dream.

At once ancient and modern, monumental

The

number

six

held

particular

and intimate in meaning, Six stands as a

autobiographical significance for Indiana,

powerful testament to Indiana’s enduring

recalling his father’s birth in June, his

exploration of the intersection between art,

employment at Phillips 66 and his departure

language and identity.

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2 31

GEORGE SEGAL 1924 - 2000

MA N L E A NING O N CA R D O O R plaster, wood, glass and metal 96 by 50 by 44 in. 243.8 by 127 by 111.8 cm. Executed in 1963. This work will be included in the artist’s forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné currently being prepared by the George & Helen Segal Foundation and is registered under CR#0054.

$ 200,000-300,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

The Green Gallery, New York

William C. Seitz, Segal, New York 1972, p. 33, illustrated

Ethel and Robert C. Scull, New York (acquired from the above in 1963)

Jan Van Der Marck, George Segal, New York 1975, no. 30, p. 88, illustrated in color

Onnasch Galerie, Cologne (acquired by 1972) Galerie Mueller, Stuttgart (acquired by 1975) Christie’s New York, 20 November 1998, lot 808 Private Collection, Germany Galerie Daniel Blau, Munich Acquired from the above in March 2003 by the present owner

EXHIBITED Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Onnasch, Aspects of Contemporary Art, November 2001 - February 2002, p. 113, illustrated in color and p. 200 (text)

2 90

Phyllis Tuchman, George Segal, New York 1983, p. 49 (text) Sam Hunter and Don Hawthorne, George Segal, New York 1984, no. 21, p. 363 and no. 138, p. 147, illustrated in color Sam Hunter, George Segal, New York 1989, no. 8, n.p., illustrated in color Axelle Corty, “Collectionner l’art contemporain en Floride,” Connaissance des Arts, no. 666, December 2008, p. 111, illustrated in color Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 111, illustrated in color, and p. 112 (text) Susie Stanton Staikos, “A World of Wonder: Ruth and Theodore Baum Fill Their Homes with the Works of Artists from All Over the Globe. Here’s a Look at Some of Their Diverse Pieces,” Art & Culture of Palm Beach County, Fall 2019, p. 33, illustrated in color

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

xecuted in 1964, Man Leaning

on modern life and human presence. This rare

on a Car Door stands as a pivotal

convergence of artist and patron, at a formative

example of George Segal’s ability

moment in Segal’s career, lends Man Leaning

to reconcile the formal concerns of

on a Car Door a singular importance within

abstraction with the immediacy of everyday life.

his oeuvre, marking a decisive stage in the

Rendered in Segal’s signature white plaster, the

development of the sculptural environments

work brings together the commonplace and the

that would come to define his practice.

unfamiliar: a single automobile door salvaged

The genesis of the present work reflects

from a junkyard and a seemingly anonymous

Segal’s enduring fascination with the ordinary

figure gazing into the distance. Originally

experiences of contemporary American life.

conceived as a portrait of Robert C. Scull, one

Accustomed to the daily drive between his

of the most visionary and influential collectors

South Brunswick home and Manhattan,

of the twentieth century, the present work was

the artist naturally gravitated towards the

Segal’s first commissioned sculpture. Having

automobile as a subject, a particularly fitting

built his fortune in New York’s taxi industry

choice for a portrait of Scull, whose fortune

as a taxi medallion owner, Scull’s personal

in New York’s taxi industry had enabled him

connection to the automobile lends particular

to become one of the era’s most influential

significance to Segal’s choice of subject. At

collectors. Discovering a striking three-toned

once portrait and assemblage, the work reveals

1956 Mercury sedan in a junkyard, Segal

Segal’s extraordinary capacity to transform

initially intended to incorporate a larger section

familiar materials into a compelling meditation

of the vehicle before settling on a single door

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Above: Edward Hopper, Gas, 1940. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Image © Fine Art Images / Bridgeman Images Opposite: Portrait of Robert & Ethel Scull as they pose with artists George Segal, Andy Warhol, and James Rosenquist, at the Scull’s home, November 1973. Photo by Jack Mitchell/Getty Images. Art © 2026 The George and Helen Segal Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

“

heavyset man with a vacant stare leans on a car door. His confident pose and A possessive gesture could be those of a used-car salesman. How did the model, Robert C. Scull, feel being cast with his hand on that door? Segal admits that his portraits tend to develop in the direction of anonymity or archetype, so to save Scull ‘s portrait, his first commission, from the anonymous, he stressed Scull’s earthy business activities, since he wanted to avoid conventional , flattering society portraiture. A failure in terms of the sitter’s opinion of himself, Man Leaning on a Car Door turned out to be a Segal work true to form and very much an archetype.” JAN VAN DER MARCK, SEGAL, NEW YORK 1979, P. 89

mounted against a plywood panel painted in

1960s. Having studied under Hans Hofmann,

a rich blue tone. Removed from its utilitarian

Segal absorbed his teacher’s conviction that

purpose and isolated within the artist’s

figuration and abstraction could coexist within

constructed environment, the automobile

a single expressive language. After spending

fragment becomes both an allusion to Scull’s

a decade working primarily as a painter, he

commercial origins and a symbol of the

began incorporating plaster figures into

everyday American experience. The weathered

constructed environments in the early 1960s,

surface of the salvaged door retains traces

fundamentally expanding the possibilities of

of its former function, introducing a tangible

his practice. Executed only a few years after

sense of lived experience that heightens

this transformative development, Man Leaning

the sculpture’s emotional resonance. This

on a Car Door demonstrates the remarkable

juxtaposition of an authentic, manufactured

confidence with which Segal had already

object with the ghostly presence of a plaster

established his distinctive sculptural vocabulary.

figure exemplifies Segal’s pioneering approach

The tension between the figure’s expressive

to sculpture, anticipating the increasingly

physicality and the abstract arrangement of

complex relationships between figures and

color, form and space reveals the continued

their surroundings that would characterize his

importance of his painterly training.

mature work.

Although not the only portrait Segal made

Segal occupies a crucial position between

of Robert Scull, Man Leaning on a Car Door is

the expressive abstraction of the 1950s and

particularly evocative in its transformation of

the object-centered sensibility of Pop Art in the

a specific individual into a broader archetype,

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293

capturing not only the collector’s celebrated

profound psychological resonance in seemingly

brashness but also a distinctly American vision

unremarkable moments.

of ambition and self-fashioning. Through the

More than a testament to the relationship

eloquent interplay of figure and found object,

between artist and collector, Man Leaning on

Segal transcends conventional portraiture,

a Car Door crystallizes the central concerns

creating a work that is at once deeply personal

that would sustain Segal’s artistic vision for

and profoundly universal. The rough white

decades: the elevation of ordinary experience,

plaster retains the immediacy of the casting

the

process, while the figure’s apparent anonymity

representation, and the transformation of

invites viewers to project their own experiences

individual identity into a universal expression of

onto the scene. The figure’s relaxed yet

the human condition. As his first commissioned

introspective pose suggests a moment of

sculpture and a compelling example of his

quiet reflection, endowing the scene with a

formative sculptural environments, the work

contemplative quality. Much like the paintings of

occupies an exceptional position within Segal’s

Edward Hopper, whose depictions of everyday

broader body of work, embodying the originality

encounters frequently evoke solitude and

and ambition that established him as one of the

introspection, Segal’s environments discover

defining figures of postwar American sculpture.

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dialogue

between

abstraction

V I SI O N | T H E EXT RAO RD IN ARY CO LLECTION OF THEODORE AND RUTH BAUM

and

Above: Portrait of Robert & Ethel Scull as they pose with artists George Segal, Andy Warhol, and James Rosenquist, at the Scull’s home, November 1973. Photo by Jack Mitchell/Getty Images. George Segal Artwork © 2026 The George and Helen Segal Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Opposite: Art © 2026 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Art © 2026 The George and Helen Segal Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Photograph by Diana Todorova.

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JOHN WESLEY 1928 - 2022

RA B B IT G IR L signed, titled and dated 1966 (on the reverse) acrylic on canvas 42 ⅛ by 42 in. 107 by 106.7 cm. Executed in 1966.

$ 30,000-50,000

P ROV E N A N C E Robert Elkon Gallery, New York Laura G. Thorne and Loren B. Jenkins, Aspen (acquired from the above circa 1967) Fredericks & Freiser Gallery, New York Acquired from the above in April 2010 by the present owner

EXHIBITED Robert Elkon Gallery, John Wesley, January - February 1967 Venice, Fondazione Prada on San Giorgio Maggiore Island, John Wesley, June - October 2009, no. 153, p. 97, illustrated in color

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233

JOHN CHAMBERLAIN 1927 - 2011

UNTITL E D painted steel and staples mounted on Masonite 12 ½ by 14 ½ by 6 ½ in. 31.8 by 36.8 by 16.5 cm. Executed in 1962.

$ 300,000-500,000

P ROV E N A N C E Private Collection, New York (acquired as gift directly from the artist circa 1962) Sotheby’s New York, 10 November 2005, lot 162 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

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234

JAMES ROSENQUIST 1933 - 2017

FRUIT SA L A D signed, titled and dated 1964 (on the reverse) oil on canvas 33 ⅛ by 33 ⅛ in. 84.1 by 84.1 cm. Executed in 1964.

$ 200,000-300,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Leo Castelli Gallery, New York

William Wilson, “Reviews, Los Angeles: James Rosenquist, Dwan Gallery,” Artforum 3, December 1964, p. 13 (text)

Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles Dr. and Mrs. Eugene A. Eisner, Scarsdale, New York (acquired from the above circa 1964) Sotheby Parke Bernet New York, 15 May 1980, lot 548 (consigned by the above) William B. Zierler, New York (acquired from the above) Sotheby Parke Bernet New York, 13 November 1980, lot 34 (consigned by the above) Private Collection, Chiasso (acquired from the above) Sotheby’s New York, 18 May 2000, lot 310 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED

Marvin Elkoff, “Leo Castelli: The Artful Entrepreneur, Holiday Magazine 37, no. 6, June 1965, pp. 95–97, 99, 101–102, 104–106 Art: Rebellion and Innovation,” TIME Magazine, Vol. 87, No. 18, 6 May 1966, p. 72, illustrated in color Judith Goldman, James Rosenquist, New York 1985, p. 138, illustrated in color Virginia Tillyard, “New York, Whitney Museum Retrospective,” The Burlington Magazine 128, no. 1003, October 1986, p. 772, (text) Judith Goldman, James Rosenquist: The Early Pictures, 1961-1964, New York 1992, p. 100, illustrated Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 111, illustrated in color

Los Angeles, Dwan Gallery, James Rosenquist, October - November 1964, no. 7 Providence, Rhode Island School of Design, Museum of Art, Recent Still Life, February - April 1966, no. 60, n.p. Public Education Association of the City of New York, Seven Decades, 1895-1965: Cross Currents in Modern Art, April - May 1966, no. 368, p. 86, illustrated Cologne, Kunsthalle, James Rosenquist: Gemälde—Räume—Graphik, January - March 1972, no. 75, p. 127 (text) Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Das Große Fressen. Von Pop bis heute, January April 2004, no. 15, p. 48, illustrated in color Bilbao, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, James Rosenquist: A Retrospective, May - June 2005

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235

DAN FLAVIN 1933 - 1996

RE D A ND G R E E N A LT E R N AT I V ES ( TO SO NJA) 2 red and green fluorescent light 11 by 48 by 3 ½ in. 27.9 by 121.9 by 8.9 cm. Conceived in 1964 and fabricated in 1988, this work is number 1 from a proposed edition of 5, of which 3 were fabricated. This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist

$ 150,000-200,000

P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

Private Collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

Exh. Cat., Paris, Galerie Daniel Templon, Daniel Templon: dix ans, 1978, p. 30, illustrated

Sotheby’s New York, 16 May 2001, lot 2 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Michael Asher, Michael Asher: Writings 1973-1983 on Works 19691979, Halifax 1983, p. 86, illustrated

EXHIBITED

Michael Govan and Tiffany Bell, Dan Flavin: The Complete Lights, 1961-1996, New Haven 2004, no. 52, p. 233, illustrated in color (diagram)

Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Sammlung Hahn, May - July 1968, no. 73, n.p., illustrated (another example exhibited) Cologne, Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Dan Flavin, March - April 1971 (another example exhibited) Paris, Galerie Daniel Templon, Groupe: Andre, Flavin, Judd, LeWitt, Morris, January 1972 (another example exhibited)

Ann Hindry, 40 ans Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris 2006, p. 87, illustrated Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 111 (text) and p. 113, illustrated in color

Seattle, Donald Young Gallery, Dan Flavin: Selected Works 1964-1990, January-March 1994 (another example exhibited) Leipzig, Museum der bildende Künst, My Name: Sammlung Falckenberg, January 1999, p. 125, illustrated in color (another example exhibited) New York, Paula Cooper Gallery, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, January - March 2015 (another example exhibited)

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CLAES OLDENBURG AND COOSJE VAN BRUGGEN 1929 - 2022 and 1942 - 2009

STUDY FOR B E AC H E D LU T ES - V E RS I O N O NE

EXHIBITED

signed with both artists’ initials and dated 2005 (on the underside)

New York, PaceWildenstein, Claes Oldenburg/Coosje van Bruggen: The Music Room, April - June 2005, pp. 12 and 32-33, illustrated in color, and p. 17, illustrated in color (installation view)

latex on muslin, wood, string and polyurethane foam 14 ½ by 12 ½ by 20 in. 36.8 by 31.8 by 50.8 cm. Executed in 2005.

London, Waddington Galleries, Double Vision: The Poetic Focus of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, October 2007, no. 18, p. 45, illustrated in color, and p. 5 (text)

$ 50,000-70,000 P ROV E N A N C E

L I T E R AT U R E

PaceWildenstein, New York

Exh. Cat., Turin, Castello di Rivoli, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea (and traveling) Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen: Sculpture by the Way, 2006 - 2007, p. 342, illustrated in color

Waddington Galleries, London (acquired from the above in November 2006) Acquired from the above in December 2012 by the present owner

3 04

Exh. Cat., London, Waddington Galleries, Sculpture, 2007, no. 26, p. 53, illustrated in color

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SOL LEWITT 1928 - 2007

CUB E ST RUCT U R ES BAS E D O N FIV E M O DU LES

P ROV E N A N C E

wood painted white

Private Collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist circa 1974)

24 ¼ by 24 ¼ by 24 ¼ in. 61.6 by 61.6 by 61.6 cm.

Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York (acquired from the above in 2004)

Executed in 1972.

Acquired from the above in March 2005 by the present owner

$ 100,000-150,000

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238

JOSEPH BEUYS 1921 - 1986

SCHL ITTE N stamp-numbered 34 (on a plaque affixed to the sled) wooden sled with felt blanket, belt, flashlight and fat 13 ¾ by 35 ½ by 13 ¾ in. 35 by 90 by 35 cm. Executed in 1969, this work is number 34 from an edition of 50 plus 5 hors commerce examples, published by Edition René Block, Berlin.

$ 60,000-80,000

P ROV E N A N C E Galerie René Block, Berlin Private Collection (acquired from the above) Sotheby’s London, 22 June 2006, lot 204 (consigned by the above) Acquired from the above by the present owner

L I T E R AT U R E Jörg Schellmann, ed., Joseph Beuys: Multiples, Catalogue Raisonné of Multiples and Prints 1965-85, Munich 1985, no. 11, (another example illustrated) Jörg Schellmann, ed., Joseph Beuys: Die Multiples, Werkverzeichnis der Auflagenobjekte und Druckgraphik 1965-86, Munich 1992, p. 53, no. 12 (another example illustrated in color)

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307

239

BRUCE NAUMAN b. 1941

DOUB L E P OK E I N T H E EYE I I neon and white aluminum box 24 ½ by 36 ¾ by 10 in. 62.2 by 93.3 by 25.4 cm. Executed in 1985, this work is from an edition of 40, plus 8 artist’s proofs lettered A-H.

$ 350,000-450,000

P ROV E N A N C E The Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Inc., New York (acquired as a gift directly from the artist in 1985) Pacific Enterprises, Los Angeles (acquired from the above by 1991) Nestlé USA, Arlington (acquired from the above) Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles Acquired from the above in January 2007 by the present owner

St. Louis, Washington University Gallery of Art, Steinberg Hall, Bruce Nauman: Light Works, January - March 1993 (another example exhibited) Ridgefield, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art & The Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Bruce Nauman: 1985-1996, Drawings, Prints and Related Works, May 1997 - April 1998, pp. 38-39, illustrated in color (another example exhibited) New York, United States Mission to the United Nations, Art in Embassies, 2000 (another example exhibited)

EXHIBITED Cologne, Daniel Bucholz Gallery, Multiples, September - October 1987 (another example exhibited) New York, Josh Baer Gallery, Schizophrenia, September 1987 (another example exhibited) Syracuse, Everson Museum of Art; Cincinnati, Contemporary Arts Center; New York, I.B.M. Gallery of Science and Art; Miami, Center for the Fine Arts, Digital Visions: Computers and Art, September 1987 - September 1988, p. 144, illustrated 1987-1988 (another example exhibited) Cleveland Museum of Art, Illuminations: The Art of Light, September December 1987 (another example exhibited) New York, Leo Castelli Gallery, Art Against AIDS, June 1987 (another example exhibited) Indianapolis Center for Contemporary Art, Herron Gallery, Welcome Back, Painting, Sculpture and Works on Paper by Contemporary Artists from Indiana, January - February 1988 (another example exhibited) New York, Kent Gallery, Altered States, April - May 1988 (another example exhibited) Montréal, La Cité des Arts et des Nouvelles Technologies de Montréal, Images du Futur, June - September 1988 (another example exhibited) New York, Brooke Alexander Editions, Selected Prints, March - May 1989 (another example exhibited)

New York, Marianne Boesky Gallery, Penetration, June - August 2002 (another example exhibited) Milwaukee Art Museum; Indianapolis Museum of Art; North Miami, Museum of Contemporary Art; Seattle, University of Washington, Henry Art Gallery; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; Victoria, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and South Brisbane, Queensland Art Gallery, Elusive Signs: Bruce Nauman Works with Light, January 2006 - August 2008, no. 69, p. 78, illustrated in color (another example exhibited) Venice, U.S. Pavilion at the Giardini della Biennale, Bruce Nauman: Topological Gardens, June - November 2009, no. 2, p. 116, illustrated in color (another example exhibited) Tel Aviv, United States Embassy in Tel Aviv, Art in Embassies, 2009 (another example exhibited) Denver Art Museum, Focus: The Figure, 2008-2011 (another example exhibited) Denver Art Museum, BLINK! Light, Sound and Moving Image, March May 2011 (another example exhibited)

L I T E R AT U R E Jeanne Silverthorne, “To Live and to Die,” Parkett, no. 10, Zurich 1986, n.p., illustrated Pacific Enterprises Art Collection, Los Angeles 1991, p. 118, illustrated in color

Chicago, Donald Young Gallery; Los Angeles, Earl McGrath Gallery; Santa Monica, Pence Gallery, Bruce Nauman: 1970-89, September October 1989 (another example exhibited)

Neal Benezra, Bruce Nauman Catalogue Raisonné, Minneapolis 1995, no. 333, p. 294, illustrated

Los Angeles, Marc Richards Gallery, Multiples, October-November 1989 (another example exhibited)

Eugen Blume, Bruce Nauman, Berlin, 2010, no. 41, pp. 136 and 212, illustrated in color Peter Plagens, Bruce Nauman: The True Artist, New York, 2014, pp. 196-197, illustrated in color

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309

24 0

ROBERT MORRIS 1931 - 2018

UNTITL E D ( BAT T E R I ES WI T H S LOT )

EXHIBITED

signed, dated 1964 and inscribed Germany (on the reverse)

Dusseldorf, Galerie Schmela, Robert Morris, October 1964

lead on wood 19 ¾ by 35 ⅝ in.

New York, Guggenheim Museum SoHo, Robert Morris: The Mind/ Body Problem, February - May 1994, no. 81, p. 196, illustrated

50.2 by 90.5 cm. Executed in 1964.

$ 50,000-70,000 P ROV E N A N C E Galerie M.E. Thelen, Essen

Steven Hassefeld, New York Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles Private Collection, Beverly Hills Peter Freeman, Inc., New York Acquired from the above in December 2004 by the present owner

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241

HEINZ MACK b. 1931

L ICH TR E L I E F

P ROV E N A N C E

signed and dated 66 (on the reverse)

The artist

aluminum on wood in artist’s frame

Beck & Eggeling International Fine Art, Dusseldorf

79 ⅞ by 78 ⅞ in.

Acquired from the above in April 2010 by the present owner

202.9 by 200.3 cm. Executed in 1966.

$ 150,000-200,000

L I T E R AT U R E Robert Fleck, Heinz Mack: Reliefs, Munich 2015, no. 177, p. 280, illustrated

SOT HE BY’S

311

24 2

GÜNTHER UECKER 1930 - 2025

P ROV E N A N C E Henk Peeters, The Hague (acquired directly from the artist) Sotheby’s Amsterdam, 8 June 2004, lot 95 (consigned by the above) Kunsthandel Borzo, Amsterdam (acquired from the above)

VOG E L

Acquired from the above in March 2005 by the present owner

signed and dated ‘63 (on the underside) nails and acrylic on canvas-wrapped board in iron frame on wooden pedestal 15 ¾ by 12 ⅝ by 12 ⅝ in. 40 by 32.1 by 32.1 cm.

EXHIBITED Hanover, Kestner Gesellschaft, Günther Uecker, May - June 1972, p. 26, illustrated (installed in the artist’s studio) and p. 104, illustrated

Executed in 1963.

$ 80,000-120,000

L I T E R AT U R E Dieter Honisch, Uecker, New York 1986, no. 323, p. 82, illustrated (installed in the artist’s studio) and p. 192 (text)

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GIUSEPPE PENONE b. 1947

P ROV E N A N C E Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf Acquired from the above in September 2011 by the present owner

LO SPA Z I O D E L L A SCU LT U RA bronze and gold tag 65 ¾ by 33 ½ in. 167 by 85.1 cm. Executed in 2003.

$ 150,000-200,000

SOT HE BY’S

313

24 4

ARMAN 1928 - 2005

P ROV E N A N C E Sidney Janis Gallery, New York Private Collection, London (acquired from the above) Sotheby’s London, 26 June 2003, lot 146 (consigned by the above)

GENE RA L HA R DWA R E

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

metal hardware in polyester resin in artist’s frame 31 ⅝ by 23 ⅛ in. 80.3 by 58.7 cm. Executed in 1964.

EXHIBITED New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, Arman, December 1964 - January 1965, no. 35, n.p., illustrated (as General Hardware 29¢)

$ 20,000-30,000 L I T E R AT U R E Denyse Durand-Ruel, Arman Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. III, Rome 1994, no. 233, p. 121, illustrated

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JEAN TINGUELY 1925 - 1991

UNTITL E D signed (on the lower element) painted iron with electric motor 41 ⅛ by 18 ⅛ by 13 ¾ in. 104.5 by 46 by 34.9 cm. Executed in 1962.

$ 40,000-60,000 P ROV E N A N C E Galerie Beaubourg, Paris Achenbach Art Consulting, Düsseldorf Private Collection, London (acquired from the above) Sotheby’s London, 20 October 2008, lot 236 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED London, Faggionato Fine Arts and Mendrisio, Massimo Martino Fine Arts & Projects, Jean Tinguely Sixties Sculptures, December 1998 February 1999, no. 4, n.p., illustrated

L I T E R AT U R E Christina Bischofberger, Jean Tinguely: Catalogue Raisonne, Sculptures and Reliefs 1954-1985, Vol. II, Küsnacht/Zürich 1990, no. 690, p. 233, illustrated

SOT HE BY’S

315

24 6

MARK DI SUVERO

P ROV E N A N C E Private Collection, New York (acquired as a gift directly from the artist)

b. 1933

Sotheby’s New York, 5 May 1994, lot 124 (consigned by the above) Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above)

U NTITL E D

Sotheby’s New York, 13 November 2003, lot 178 (consigned by the above)

painted steel with iron

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

12 ¾ by 16 by 13 in. 32.4 by 40.6 by 33 cm. Executed in 1962.

$ 15,000-20,000

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247

JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

EXHIBITED

1927 - 2011

New York, Gagosian Gallery, John Chamberlain: Masks, September October 2017

UNTITL E D

L I T E R AT U R E

painted steel

Herbert Pérez-Vidal, “Modernist Leanings: Ted and Ruth Baum have Transformed Their Palm Beach Home into a Showplace for their Eclectic Art Collection,” Palm Beach Illustrated, January 2009, p. 111, illustrated in color

16 ½ by 8 by 7 ¼ in. 41.9 by 20.3 by 18.4 cm. Executed in 1998.

$ 100,000-150,000 P ROV E N A N C E Estate of the artist Gagosian Gallery, New York Acquired from the above in 2017 by the present owner

SOT HE BY’S

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24 8

RUDOLF STINGEL

P ROV E N A N C E Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles

b. 1956

Acquired from the above in June 2008 by the present owner

U NTITL E D signed and dated 96 (on the reverse) oil and enamel on canvas 32 by 32 in. 81.3 by 81.3 cm. Executed in 1996.

$ 80,000-120,000

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249

WALTON FORD b. 1960

P ROV E N A N C E Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York Douglas S. Cramer, New York (acquired from the above in 2002) Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York

DIRTY D I C K BU RTO N ’S A I D E D E CAM P

Acquired from the above in July 2014 by the present owner

signed with the artist’s initials (lower right); titled (upper right) watercolor, gouache, ink and graphite on paperboard 59 ⅝ by 40 in. 151.4 by 101.6 cm. Executed in 2002.

$ 200,000-300,000

EXHIBITED New York, Paul Kasmin Gallery, Walton Ford, October - November 2002 New York, Brooklyn Museum, Tigers of Wrath: Watercolors by Walton Ford, November 2006 - January 2007, no. 9, n.p., illustrated in color” after “January 2007

L I T E R AT U R E Bill Buford, Walton Ford: Pancha Tantra, Cologne 2009, p. 147, illustrated in color SOT HE BY’S

319

250

LIZA LOU

P ROV E N A N C E L&M Arts, Los Angeles

b. 1969

Acquired from the above in April 2011 by the present owner

SP IN

EXHIBITED

gold-plated beads and thread on wooden spinning wheel

Los Angeles, L&M Arts, Liza Lou, March - May 2011

39 by 43 by 18 ½ in. 100.3 by 109.2 by 47 cm. Executed in 2010-11.

$ 40,000-60,000

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WILLIAM KENTRIDGE b. 1955

UNTITLE D V I I I ( N OS E O N H O RS EBAC K ) bronze 27 ½ by 26 by 18 ¾ in.

P ROV E N A N C E Marian Goodman Gallery, New York Acquired from the above in December 2009 by the present owner

EXHIBITED New York, Marian Goodman Gallery, William Kentridge, January February 2008 (another example exhibited)

69.9 by 66 by 47.6 cm. Executed in 2007-08, this work is artist’s proof 2 from an edition of 6 plus 2 artist’s proofs.

$ 30,000-50,000

SOT HE BY’S

321

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YAYOI KUSAMA 1929 - 2026

MOON NIG HT signed, titled in Japanese and dated 1984 (on the underside)

P ROV E N A N C E Private Collection, Tokyo Private Collection, Nagano (acquired from the above by the present owner) Sotheby’s New York, 15 May 2014, lot 221 (consigned by the above) Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

acrylic, synthetic fibers, plastic and sewn stuffed fabric in wooden box 15 ¾ by 9 ⅞ by 4 ¾ in. 40 by 25.1 by 12.1 cm. Executed in 1984.

$ 120,000-180,000

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253

YAYOI KUSAMA 1929 - 2026

P ROV E N A N C E Robert Miller Gallery, New York Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above) Sotheby’s London, 2 July 2008, lot 459 (consigned by the above)

SE A

Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York (acquired from the above)

signed, titled twice and dated twice 1981 and 81 (on the underside)

Acquired from the above in December 2008 by the present owner

acrylic, spray paint, plastic and sewn stuffed fabric in fabric-lined wooden box 21 ½ by 12 ¾ by 5 ¼ in. 54.6 by 32.4 by 13.3 cm Executed in 1981.

$ 120,000-180,000

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323

254

WILHELM MUNDT

P ROV E N A N C E Buchmann Galerie, Berlin

b. 1959

Acquired from the above in December 2011 by the present owner

T RASH STONE 5 36 polyester, fiberglass and waste paper 27 by 30 by 40 in. 68.6 by 76.2 by 101.6 cm. Executed in 2011.

$ 10,000-15,000

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LI CHEN b. 1963

P ROV E N A N C E Goedhuis Contemporary, New York Acquired from the above in October 2007 by the present owner

HA R MO N I Z E W I T H OU T CO M PRO MIS E incised with the artist’s signature and number EA 4/4 (on the reverse) black patinated bronze 50 ¼ by 23 by 17 ½ in. 127.6 by 58.4 by 44.5 cm. Executed in 2000, this work is number 4 from an edition of 4.

$ 120,000-180,000

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325

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FOLLOWING PAGES Pages 328-29: Art © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery Pages 330-31: Art © 2026 Gerhard Richter Page 332-Inside Back Cover: Art © 2026/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome Back Cover: Art © Estate of Joan Mitchell

SOT HE BY’S

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Detail: Lot 10, Kelly

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Index Albers, Josef 2 Andre, Carl 23 Arman 244 Benglis, Lynda 201, 221 Beuys, Joseph 238 Bonalumi, Agostino 217, 218 Broodthaers, Marcel 222 Burri, Alberto 15 Chamberlain, John 233, 247 Chillida, Eduardo 212 Dubuffet, Jean 203 Flavin, Dan 235 Fontana, Lucio 4, 16, 21, 216 Ford, Walton 249 Gormley, Antony 213 Gottlieb, Adolph 208 Hamilton, Richard 226 Hammons, David 14 Indiana, Robert 230 Kelly, Ellsworth 10 Kentridge, William 251 Kiefer, Anselm 214 Klein, Yves 19 Kline, Franz 20 Kusama, Yayoi 225, 252, 253 Lewitt, Sol 237 Li, Chen 255 Lichtenstein, Roy 1 Lou, Liza 249 Mack, Heinz 241 Manzoni, Piero 17, 22

Marisol 8 Merz, Mario 24 Mitchell, Joan 9 Morris, Robert 240 Mundt, Wilhelm 254 Nara, Yoshitomo 215 Nauman, Bruce 239 Noguchi, Isamu 206 Ossorio, Alfonso 209 Penone, Giuseppe 243 Pistoletto, Michelangelo 11 Polke, Sigmar 228 Pousette-Dart, Richard 210 Raysse, Martial 224 Reinhardt, Ad 211 Richter, Gerhard 6, 18, 223 Rosenquist, James 234 Rotella, Mimmo 229 Rothko, Mark 5 Ruscha, Ed 12 Ryman, Robert 3 Scarpitta, Salvatore 220 Segal, George 231 Stingel, Rudolf 248 Takis 205 Tinguely, Jean 245 Uecker, Günther 204, 242 Warhol, Andy 7, 227 Wesley, John 232 Wesselmann, Tom 13 De Kooning, Willem 207 Di Suvero, Mark 246 SOT HE BY’S

329

Detail: Lot 6, Richter

Detail: Lot 15, Burri