Christie’s to Auction Antonio Homem Sonnabend’s $50 M. Art Collection

The Antonio Homem Sonnabend Collection that’s estimated to achieve more than $50 million at auction is coming to Christie’s this fall, with works by Jeff Koons, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol. He is the late adopted son of art dealers Ileana and Michael Sonnabend.

During his lifetime, Antonio oversaw Ilena and Michael’s vast collection of works, which included post-war and contemporary art, photographs, prints and multiples, and design, which will be offered during Christie’s 20th/21st Century Evening Sales in London, Paris, and New York.

The lot features works from the family’s private collection, with pieces produced mainly between the late 1950s and 1960s, such as Mario Schifano’s A de Chirico, 1962; Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Can (Turkey Noodle), 1962; Robert Rauschenberg’s Triple Rauschenberg [Bob Rauschenberg #2], 1962; Jasper Johns’ Numbers, 1957; Jeff Koons’ Ode to Love, 2010–17; and Rauschenberg’s Untitled (Collage with Cuff), 1957. Christie’s said individual estimates were unavailable at the time of press.

Antonio’s son Antonio Phokion Potamianos-Homem said in a press statement that his father spent his life “among these works, and parting with them is not done lightly.” Two pieces by Lichtenstein and Warhol from the Sonnabend Collection Mantova, a museum Antonio helped open in northern Italy in 2025, will also be sold to build an endowment for the museum.

The Sonnabend Collection Mantova is currently home to works by Lichtenstein, Warhol, and Koons. “We proudly carry on Ileana and Antonio’s transatlantic vision, ensuring a vital exchange of artists and artworks between Europe and America, and ensuring the eye that assembled this collection continues to be seen,” said Potamianos-Homem.

Ileana was instrumental in introducing Europe to artists such as Warhol, Johns, Lichtenstein, and Rauschenberg, as well as bringing the works of Gilbert & George, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Schifano, and Giovani Anselmo to the US. Sara Friedlander, chairman of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s said that Ileana’s role in the “trajectory of Post-War and Contemporary art cannot be overstated” and that the collection exemplifies “the very finest in post-war artistic movements across Europe and the U.S.”

Ileana opened Sonnabend Gallery in New York’s Soho neighborhood in 1971, with help from Antonio, sharing a building with fellow dealers Leo Castelli, John Weber, and André Emmerich. In 2000, the gallery moved to Chelsea and, in 2007, after Ileana’s death, Antonio took over as the gallery’s director, before establishing the Sonnabend Collection Foundation in 2009 to preserve his family’s collected works.