Schieles for Sale – To Pay for Klimt

Apparently, even a tycoon like Ronald Lauder has to make choices sometimes. Four months ago, Mr. Lauder paid a reported $135 million to bring Gustav Klimt’s “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” (1907) to the Neue Galerie, the museum of German and Austrian art he founded. Now, the museum is selling three works by Egon Schiele at Christie’s on November 8 to help defray the cost.The museum’s deputy director, Scott Gutterman, said in an e-mail yesterday that the museum decided to sell the Schieles at the time the Klimt purchase was arranged. The $135 million price is the highest ever paid for a painting. Some in the art world have called it inflated; others contend that the painting, a portrait with a gold background, is a masterpiece and worth every penny.Schiele, who was several decades younger than Klimt and who died in the flu epidemic of 1918, is famous for his images of wasted-looking, yet strangely beautiful bodies. The paintings being sold at Christie’s include two watercolors –– one of a half-nude woman bending sideways, “Kniender Halbakt nach links gebeugt” (1917); the other, “Zwei Mädchen auf einer Fransendecke”(1911), of two girls lying entwined on a blanket –– and an oil painting, “Einzelne Häuser (Häuser mit Bergen)” (1915), of a group of houses. The works could collectively bring as much as $45 million.The museum is not named as the seller in the Christie’s catalog, although Serge Sabarsky, a collector and dealer who helped Mr. Lauder build his collection and who founded the Neue Galerie with him before dying in 1996, is listed as the previous owner of the two watercolors. Asked why the museum is not named, Mr. Gutterman referred a reporter to Christie’s, while a Christie’s spokeswoman, Bendetta Roux, said that “a property title is completely the decision of the consigner.”A director of the Galerie St. Etienne on West 57th Street, which deals in German and Austrian art, Jane Kallir, said there was nothing unusual about the sale. “The Neue Galerie has a lot of Schieles,” she said. “It is logical that they would look at an artist whom they hold in depth and deaccession to acquire a work which is virtually unique.” She added: “If you look at the AAMD [Association of Art Museum Directors] guidelines for deaccessioning, what is taboo is to deaccession for operating expenses. But to make a judicious assessment of the collection and to say, ‘We have a lot of artist X, and this is a unique opportunity to get a work of artist Y.’ … Museums do this all the time.”Mr. Lauder purchased “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” from a niece of Ms. Bloch-Bauer, Maria Altmann. Ms. Altmann acquired the portrait and four other Klimts that belonged to her aunt and uncle earlier this year, after a long restitution battle with the Austrian government. In a coincidence, the four other Klimts will be auctioned off in the same evening next week, in Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art sale.

Schieles for Sale – To Pay for Klimt

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