“If someone is a true collector, nothing will stop them from getting what they want,” Sotheby's quoted Emily Fisher Landau in advance of what is arguably the most important auction event of the fall season.
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For fifty years, Emily Fisher Landau had been a central figure in the New York art scene and a distinguished collector of modern art, whose collection included a who's who of 20th-century art. The committed supporter of various institutions, especially the Whitney Museum, to which she donated almost 400 works of art in 2010, also ran a private art museum, the Fisher Landau Center for Art in Queens, from 1991 to 2017.
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Her great art collection stemmed from an unfortunate incident that happened in 1969, when thieves broke into her New York apartment and stole Fisher Landau's valuable jewellery, which she had received as a gift from her first husband, real estate developer Martin Fisher of Fisher Brothers. Fisher Landau decided not to spend the insurance sum to replace the jewels, but instead invested it in art.
The purchase of a mobile by Alexander Calder was followed by works by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Jean Arp, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Paul Klee, and Louise Nevelson.
On 27 March of this year, Emily Fisher Landau died at the age of 102. Speculation soon began as to which house would sell her impressive collection. The contract was awarded to Sotheby's New York, where 'The Emily Fisher Landau Collection: An Era Defined' auction will go under the hammer in two sessions on 8 and 9 November.
See also: The 10 Most Expensive Artworks of 2022
Highlights include works by Jasper Johns, Ed Ruscha, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Andy Warhol. The standout lot, however, is Pablo Picasso's Femme à la montre, a portrait of his muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, from 1932, which is estimated to be worth $120 million (around £98 million). If this sum were to be actually achieved, the painting would become the artist's second most expensive work in auction history. Could the Woman with the Watch even replace the Women of Algiers (sold for $179.4 million in 2015) as Picasso's top auction sale? We will find out in November!
