Vija Celmins's 1990 picture Untitled (Ocean), leads the Agnes Gund collection at Christie’s with an estimate of $6 million to $8 million.Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd.

Works From Agnes Gund’s Collection Head to Christie’s, Led by $8 M. Vija Celmins Painting

by · ARTnews

Christie’s will sell a group of works from the collection of the late philanthropist and collector Agnes Gund during its November auctions in New York, with proceeds benefiting the Gund Art Foundation.

Leading the group is Vija Celmins’s 1990 picture Untitled (Ocean), a photorealistic painting of the ocean’s surface estimated at $6 million to $8 million. It will be offered in Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale on November 19.

Other highlights include Alexander Calder’s 1963 mobile The Eye in the Black, estimated at $3 million to $5 million, and an untitled bronze sculpture by Cy Twombly from 1997, expected to bring in between $2 million and $3 million.

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Cy Twombly, Untitled (1997), a bronze sculpture from the collection of Agnes Gund, is estimated at $2 million to $3 million. Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd.

The collection also includes works by Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Cindy Sherman, Robert Ryman, Cecily Brown, Glenn Ligon, and Sarah Sze. A 1961 painting by Ryman carries an estimate of $1.5 million to $2 million, while Rauschenberg’s Untitled (Gold Painting) (1953) is expected to bring $1 million to $1.5 million.

The works will be spread across the November 19 evening sale, the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on November 20, and several online auctions.

Gund, who served as president of the Museum of Modern Art from 1991 to 2002, was among the most influential collectors and philanthropists in American art. She donated more than 800 works to MoMA and founded Studio in a School, which brings professional artists into public school classrooms, in 1977.

She famously sold Roy Lichtenstein’s Masterpiece to Steve Cohen for $165 million in 2017, using $100 million from the proceeds to establish the Art for Justice Fund, which supports criminal justice reform.

“Aggie lived with the deep-seated belief that art has the ability to create positive change in the world,” Sara Friedlander, Christie’s chairman of post-war and contemporary art, said in a statement.