Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s $1 billion art collection to be sold
The famed art collection of Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, who passed away back in 2018, is to be sold at Christie’s in what will be one of the most expensive single-owner sales ever to be released on the open market.
First reported by the Wall Street Journal, Allen’s collection is worth an estimated $1 billion. However, Christie’s are yet to announce when his artworks will be put up for sale. 150 pieces from the late Microsoft man’s art collection are to be sold, expecting to fetch more than the $922 million from the sale of the court-ordered Macklowe’s collection at Sotheby’s earlier this year, and the sale of David Rockefeller’s collection at Christie’s back in 2018, which earned $835 million.
Allen left the entirety of his estate to his sister, Jody Allen, the chair of his investment company Vulcan. Works that will be sold from his collection included Jasper John’s 1960 canvas ‘Small False Start’, which is expected to fetch a minimum of $50 million, and Paul Cézanne’s 1888–90 landscape ‘La Montagne Sainte-Victoire’ for $100 million.
His impressive collection features a wide range of classics from across the timeline of art history ranging from the Renaissance to contemporary art. There are works by Canaletto, Botticelli, Jan Brueghel, Renoir, Manet, Gauguin, and Seurat, as well as Mark Rothko, Edward Hopper, Alexander Calder, Ed Ruscha, as well as British master David Hockney.
Other significant works in the collection include Mark Rothko’s 1956 ‘Yellow Over Purple’ and Paul Gauguin’s 1899 work ‘Maternity II’, which Allen purchased for $14.3 million and $39.2 million, respectively. Notably, back in 2006, he purchased Gustav Klimt’s 1903 work ‘Birch Forest’ for $40.3 million at Christie’s.
Interestingly, only a few major pieces have been sold from Allen’s collection to date. The most famous came in 2016 when Phillips sold ‘Dϋsenjäger’ by Gerhard Richter for $25.5 million.
