Collections of two leading dealers, Barbara Gladstone and Daniella Luxembourg, hit the auction blocks in New York

Sotheby’s will sell work from the collections of two well-known dealers—Barbara Gladstone, who died last year at the age of 89, and Daniella Luxembourg—in New York this month.

Gladstone, born in 1935, started her own gallery in 1980, aged 40 and twice divorced with three sons. She grew it to represent more than 70 artists and estates by the time of her death, with six premises across New York, Brussels, Los Angeles and Seoul. Yet on the podcast The Art World: What if…?! in March 2024, Gladstone insisted hers was not a mega-gallery: “It’s still a very personal connection that we have [with the artists] and that I would not ever want to change.” Gladstone formed her gallery in very different times—the art world was much smaller then, she said—and when asked by the podcast host Charlotte Burns what she would do differently if she started a gallery today, Gladstone said simply: “I probably wouldn’t do it.”

Christie’s and Sotheby’s compete to sell

Gladstone’s collection has been competed for by Christie’s and Sotheby’s for some weeks, but the latter confirmed to The Art Newspaper in mid-April that it had just won the consignment. Sotheby’s will present 11 lots from Gladstone’s collection in its contemporary art evening sale on 15 May in New York, including one of only four 1964 Black Flowers paintings by Andy Warhol (est $1.5m-$2m), a Richard Prince Nurse painting from his 2003 show at Gladstone Gallery (est $4m-$6m), and a Sigmar Polke personally dedicated to Gladstone (est $700,000-$1m). The selection includes works by other artists that she worked with through her long career—Victor Man, Mike Kelley, Carroll Dunham and Elizabeth Peyton—alongside the Italian Arte Povera figure Alighieri Boetti. These are all works Gladstone lived with; as she once said, “I’m obsessive about the things I own that I could never have be anywhere else but with me.”

According to Artnet News, Gladstone “left a will that mandates that all of her art be sold within as feasible an amount of time as possible, according to a person close to her estate”. The source added that because “the secondary markets of many of these artists are at different stages” the works will be divvied up to be sold at auction, privately and through Gladstone’s gallery.

While Gladstone dealt very much in the primary market, Luxembourg, who was born in Israel in 1950, predominantly sells secondary market post-war works from her London and New York spaces. She formed her gallery, Luxembourg + Co (initially Luxembourg & Dayan) in 2009 and now runs it alongside her daughter Alma.

In its evening sale of contemporary art on 15 May, Sotheby’s will sell 15 post-war works worth more than $30m from Luxembourg’s New York townhouse, including pieces by Italian artists such as Lucio Fontana, Salvatore Scarpitta and Michelangelo Pistoletto. Almost all of the works in the collection were bought at auction around 20 years ago, in the early to mid-2000s, sometimes for record prices, as with Scarpitta’s Helikon (1959), bought for €185,600 (with fees) at Sotheby’s Paris in 2005, and Pistoletto’s Maria Nuda (1967) bought at Christie’s London in 2005 for £366,400 (with fees). The Scarpitta is now estimated at $800,000-$1.2m and the Pistoletto at $1m-$1.5m.

“I’ve always aimed to collect pieces that capture the essence of the artist at their best,” Luxembourg tells The Art Newspaper. She declines to choose a favourite but says: “Perhaps the most monumental is the Fine di Dio [1963] by Fontana—not only because it powerfully reflects his materiality, but also due to the specific way in which he cut the canvas. The addition of diamond dust gives a three-dimensionality to the surface.” It is expected to be the top lot, pitched at $12m-$18m.

The collection has been guaranteed by Sotheby’s, though “there will be third-party participation”, says Lisa Dennison, the chairman of Sotheby’s Americas. Intense uncertainty around the ever-changing US tariffs situation makes for a hostile environment in which to be consigning to the major May sales in New York. And yet, Dennison says, “What’s interesting is Daniella is choosing to sell now. I think she feels confident in the material, in our estimates and in the guarantees. So, there is some discretionary selling, and with a guarantee, you’re protected on your downside.”