“Alfred had an exceptional visual sense that informed his collecting”, said Simon Shaw, co-Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department worldwide in a statement. It is believed to be the most valuable private collection ever to come under the hammer.
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Sotheby’s said a few days ago that it plans to sell Taubman’s collection in a series of auctions in November and one in January.
Picasso’s 1938 painting, “Femme Assise sur une Chaise”; Amedeo Modigliani’s 1919 work, “Portrait of Paulette Jourdain”; and Willem de Kooning’s 1976 “Untitled XXI” could fetch between $25 million and $35 million each, according to Sotheby’s. Proceeds will go toward settling estate taxes, with the remainder funding the Taubman Foundation.
Family spokesman Christopher Tennyson said that Taubman did not leave the DIA any final bequest of art or a large legacy gift of cash, but emphasized that the museum would continue to benefit from Taubman’s charitable foundation.
Only a few Taubman-owned pieces at held at the DIA. He was the principal benefactor of the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, the A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute and the Health Care Center, Health Sciences Library and Biomedical Science Research building, each of which bears his name. Some of the best-known mall developments in Metro Detroit include the Great Lakes Crossing Outlets in Auburn Hills and Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi.
He served as chairman of the auction house from 1983 to 2000, but was convicted in 2001 of price-fixing in connection to auction commissions. The Times said winning the Taubman collection comes at a pivotal moment for the auction house.
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He was also a major collector of art himself.
