One of the largest art auctions in history will take place this November, featuring Paul Allen’s $1 billion art collection, who founded Microsoft.
More than 150 “masterpieces” owned by Allen’s organisation will be sold, according to a statement from Christie’s.
The collection includes pieces from over 500 years of art history and is worth more than $1 billion.
Visionary: The Paul G. Allen Collection is the name of the auction. Several charities will each receive a portion of the revenues.
Paul Cezanne, Jasper Johns, David Hockney, Edward Hopper, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Georgia O’Keefe, Paul Gauguin, Roy Lichtenstein, and Claude Monet are some of the artists whose work is represented in Allen’s collection.
Allen was identified as the 2016 anonymous purchaser of Monet’s Meule haystacks painting after his passing. $81.4 million was paid for the painting.
Allen, 65, passed suddenly in October 2018 from non-Hodgkin lymphoma complications, a rare form of cancer. He never got married and never had kids.
In 1975, he and his childhood friend Bill Gates, whom he persuaded to leave Harvard to join them in founding Microsoft, hit it rich. Although he departed the business in 1983, he continued to serve on the board until 2000.
Allen’s estimated net worth at the time of his passing was above $20 billion. Allen made a commitment in 2010 to donate the majority of his wealth to charity.
This November, the auction will be held at Christie’s Rockefeller Center. The precise date could not be verified.
In an interview, Allen remarked of his artwork: “You have to be doing it because you absolutely adore the works… And you are aware that all of these works will endure long after you. You are simply their temporary caretaker.
Jody Allen, his sister and the person in charge of handling his estate, said in a statement to DailyMail.com: “To Paul, painting was both intellectual and emotive.
He thought that art could inspire all of us since it combined the artist’s inner condition and inner eye to portray a distinct sense of reality. His collection is a reflection of the variety of his interests, each of which has its own allure and beauty.
Jody Allen continued by stating that it was her brother’s intention for the proceeds from the sale of his art collection to be donated to charitable organisations.
These pieces hold such significance for so many people, and she declared, “I trust Christie’s would secure their respectful distribution to create immeasurable value for humanitarian endeavours in accordance with Paul’s desires.”
The specific charitable causes in question were not mentioned in the statement. Throughout his life, Allen was committed to a number of causes, including homelessness, endangered animals, bioscience, and medical research. Allen gave more than $2 billion to charity throughout the course of his lifetime.
The outstanding calibre and diversity of the works, along with the commitment of all revenues to philanthropy, constitute a special combination that will make the auction of the Paul G. Allen Collection a historic occasion, according to Christie’s CEO Guillaume Cerutti.
Paul’s ambition to improve the world served as his compass throughout his life, said Cerutti.
We think that putting his collection up for auction and letting more people see it will be a suitable tribute to honour Paul Allen’s vision and legacy.
Paul Cezanne’s painting La Montagne Saint-Victoire, which is estimated to fetch $100 million, and Jasper Johns’ collage Small False State, which is valued at roughly $50 million, are the pieces in the Allen collection that are predicted to fetch the highest prices.
La Montagne Saint-Victoire was auctioned off for $39 million in 2001.
A more detailed list of the goods up for auction has been requested by DailyMail.com from Christie’s. The New York Times reports that paintings by Renoir and Botticelli will be auctioned off.
Following the Covid-19 pandemic, the art industry has made significant advancements. A UBS analysis estimates that the art sector alone generated approximately $65 billion in 2021. 43 percent of the value share was accounted for by the US art market.
The most expensive art collection ever was sold at Sotheby’s in May by billionaire real estate tycoon Harry Macklowe and his ex-wife Linda Burg for a cool $922 million following a lengthy dispute over its valuation that led to a judge ordering them to auction it off.
At two consecutive Sotheby’s auctions in New York City, the couple’s collection, which included works by Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, and Gerhard Richter, was liquidated. Banker David Rockefeller and his wife, Peggy, sold their $835 million collection in 2018 to set the previous record.
When Shot Sage Blue Marilyn by Andy Warhol sold for over $195 million at Christie’s that same month, it broke the record for the highest money ever spent on a single work of art.
Allen was renowned for his diverse collections, which included a number of Jimi Hendrix guitars as well as the first chair that William Shatner sat in at the premiere of the television series Star Trek. Allen launched the Seattle Museum of Pop Culture in 2000, and the Seattle Art Fair in 2015.
Throughout his life, Allen frequently visited Italy to attend the Venice Biennale art exhibition.
He told Bloomberg in 2015 that it was “really great” to live with these works of art.
To allow the general public to view some of the works, I believe you should share them. In the same interview, Allen stated that he considered his art collection to be a “very, very smart investment.”
Pablo Schugurensky, Allen’s art purchases adviser, said to ArtNet after the tech mogul passed away: “He would ask questions, listen, and would remember everything.” He had high aspirations for his collection, and he was always incredibly interested in learning.
Ben Heywood, executive director of the Bellevue Arts Museum in Washington, stated this of Allen’s collection in the same article: “What distinguishes Paul from other great collectors is that he didn’t have to justify his collecting to anybody.”
Allen wasn’t amassing his collections as part of a peer activity where they were put together to boost his reputation.
His parents, according to Allen’s official website, instilled in him a love of the arts. According to the biography, Paul’s parents exposed him to painting when he was a child, but it wasn’t until years later that he realised how much of a difference it had made in his life.
He first encountered the classic works of J.M.W. Turner and Roy Lichtenstein’s pop art during a trip to London’s Tate Gallery. Allen said he was “profoundly impacted” by that visit.
“That event kindled within him a passion for art — and for making it accessible to more people,” the biography reads.
Allen was born in Seattle, Washington, where he later attended Lakeside School, an elite educational establishment where he met Gates for the first time.
They both worked in the computer labs at the nearby University of Washington when they were teenagers, and after Allen graduated, he spent two years at Washington State University.
He left school early, though, and moved to Boston where he began working as a computer programmer for Honeywell.
That put him in close proximity to Gates, who at the time was two years younger and enrolled at Harvard.
After Gates dropped out of Harvard, the two got to work on their new business, releasing a BASIC programming language interpreter in 1975 and beginning to hire people the following year.
Microsoft’s annual income surpassed $1 million in 1978, and the following year it relocated from Albuquerque to Seattle.
In 1980, Microsoft took a significant step forward when IBM selected the business to develop the operating system for its first personal computer.
Following Allen’s passing, Gates released a statement in which she expressed her “heartbreak” over the loss of one of her “oldest and dearest friends,” Paul Allen. Paul was a true collaborator and dear friend, he said in a statement, “from our first days together at Lakeside School, through our collaboration in the founding of Microsoft, to some of our collaborative philanthropic endeavours over the years. Without him, personal computing would not have been possible.
Paul wasn’t satisfied with launching just one business. His second act was devoted to enhancing people’s lives and advancing communities in Seattle and all across the world.
He did this by combining his knowledge and compassion.
If something has the potential to be good, we should do it, he would often say. That describes him as a person.