Agnes Gund's Collection Heads to Christie's Auction in November
Works from the collection of the late philanthropist and art collector Agnes Gund will be sold at the auction house Christie's in New York in November. The money raised will benefit the Gund Art Foundation, which was set up to support the arts.
The biggest name on the list is Vija Celmins's 1990 work Untitled (Ocean). Christie's estimates it at US$6 million to US$8 million. An estimate is the price range the auction house expects a work to reach, not a guaranteed figure. The painting will be offered in Christie's 21st Century Evening Sale on November 19.
Other works carry lower ranges. Alexander Calder's 1963 mobile The Eye in the Black, a hanging sculpture that moves with the air, is estimated at US$3 million to US$5 million. Cy Twombly's untitled bronze from 1997 is estimated at US$2 million to US$3 million. A 1961 painting by Robert Ryman is expected to bring US$1.5 million to US$2 million. Robert Rauschenberg's Untitled (Gold Painting), from 1953, is estimated at US$1 million to US$1.5 million.
Christie's says the pieces will be spread across three sales. Some will appear in the November 19 evening sale, some in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on November 20, and others in several online auctions. Christie's has also said it will present the group under the title The Collection of Agnes Gund.
Gund was a major figure in New York's art world. She served as president of the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1991 to 2002, and she gave more than 800 works to the museum. She died in 2025, at the age of 87.
Her name is also tied to one of the biggest private art sales on record. In 2017 she sold Roy Lichtenstein's painting Masterpiece to the hedge fund manager Steve Cohen for US$165 million. She used US$100 million of the money to set up the Art for Justice Fund, which campaigns against mass incarceration in the United States.
Gund's collection has already reached the market this year. In February, The New York Times reported that a Mark Rothko, a Cy Twombly and a Joseph Cornell work from her collection were estimated together at US$145 million. Those works were offered at Christie's in May.
For the people who handle these objects, an auction means crating, shipping and insuring works for public viewing before the sales. For the Gund Art Foundation, it means funding that depends on how the bidding goes on the day. The November results will show how much the group raises.
