As the Auction-House Race for Estates Continues, Sotheby’s Wins 26 Blue-Chip Treasures From the Anderson Collection Worth $55 Million

The prestigious blue-chip collection of California connoisseurs
Harry and Margaret Anderson (affectionately known to friends as
“Hunk” and “Moo”) has been making headlines for the past decade,
beginning in 2011 when the couple announced a donation of 121 major
artworks to Stanford University. A custom-built museum, housing
what is one of the largest and most valuable gifts in the school’s
history, opened on the campus in
2014.

In late 2018, following the death of Harry Anderson, Christie’s
landed a consignment of roughly 200 pieces from the collection,
pulling in $49.9 million at auction. Now, another slew of works
owned by the Andersons is coming on the block—this time around with
Sotheby’s, which has secured a blockbuster consignment of 26
artworks expected to realize more than $55 million.

The highlights include a major Clyfford Still
painting, 1947-Y-No.1, which is expected to sell for
$25 million to $35 million, and Richard Diebenkorn’s View
from the Porch (1959), for which Sotheby’s will release a
presale estimate shortly.

The consignment also includes an important group of works on
paper, led by Mark Rothko’s Green, Blue, Green (1969).
Rothko’s untitled Surrealist-style drawing from 1949 is estimated
at $7 million to $10 million.

The works will be offered at Sotheby’s evening and day
contemporary art auctions in New York this May. Meanwhile,
Sotheby’s will hold a dedicated preview exhibition of the works at
its York Avenue headquarters from February 27 through March 5.
Select highlights will also travel to Los Angeles, San Francisco,
and London before returning to New York for the May sales.

Sotheby’s did not offer a guarantee to secure the collection and
there is little information available to suggest why the family
switched houses, having worked with Christie’s for the previous
sale.

Harry Anderson founded the food-service company Saga Corporate
during his senior year in college. He and Mary moved to the Bay
Area with their daughter Patricia in 1962 to establish the national
headquarters for the company in Menlo Park. In the mid-1960s,
during a visit to Paris, and particularly inspired by visits to the
Louvre, the two became intrigued by French Impressionist painters.
They began collecting, eventually moving on to a fondness for
postwar American art: the Abstract Expressionists, as well as Color
Field painters and the Bay Area Figuration movement.

“We are honored to be entrusted with works from the collection,”
said Lisa Dennison, chairman of Sotheby’s Americas. The collection
“represents a remarkable family legacy….Their sense of
responsibility toward community and education, in addition to their
camaraderie with artists, was the impetus behind transformational
gifts to Stanford University, and many other public
institutions.”

The post As the Auction-House Race for Estates Continues,
Sotheby’s Wins 26 Blue-Chip Treasures From the Anderson Collection
Worth $55 Million appeared first on artnet News.