More Paintings By Klimt To Be Sold This Fall
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Four of the five paintings by Gustav Klimt now on display at the Neue Galerie in Manhattan will be auctioned or sold privately by Christie’s this fall, the New York Times reported last night on its Web site.
The paintings include three landscapes and a portrait.The fifth painting at the Neue Galerie, a portrait titled “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” (1907), was recently purchased by Ronald S. Lauder from Maria Altmann for $135 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting.
The five Klimts are from the collection of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer and his wife, Adele. In January, after an arbitration court in Vienna decided that the paintings had been illegally seized by the Nazis, the Austrian government handed over the paintings to Mrs. Altmann, the niece of the Bloch-Bauers, and other relatives.
Mr. Lauder told the Times that he might buy the other four paintings “if the price is right.”
“They’re all great pictures,” Mr. Lauder told the Times. “Each one would have something to add to the Neue Galerie’s collection. But if the buyer is not the Neue Galerie, I hope they will end up in other museums.”
The exhibition of the Klimt paintings will continue at the Neue Galerie through September 18.
