Paul G. AllenThe Microsoft co-founder is so drawn to landscapes as “a way to look outside,” that in 2006 he spent more than $40 million on Gustav Klimt’s 1903 autumn oil painting Birch Forest. It may be.
“I’m always trying to figure out where the future is going,” Allen said in a 2016 exhibition interview.see nature, which featured works from his excellent collection. “Maybe that is why I find landscapes so interesting. Or you could hire an artist to try and capture a volcanic eruption, and it’s still not quite there.
“When you look at a painting, you’re looking at another country, someone else’s imagination, how they saw it,” Allen continued.
Klimt is one of more than 150 works from Allen’s estate that will go up for auction at Christie’s on November 9 and 10, worth more than $1 billion (the proceeds will go to charity, as Allen instructed). used for activities). The sale was announced by her in August, but for the first time the auction house has begun to reveal what those treasures are.
Aside from occasional leaks, regular grabbing of clues, and rare first-hand announcements, the identities of the buyers behind large art purchases generally remain confidential. For reasons of discretion or security, most collectors do not want to disclose what they have.
Even when the cloak of secrecy is finally removed, a collection as diverse and vast as Allen’s is rarely revealed, spanning 500 years of art history.
“He’s the Albert Burns or Norton Simon of this generation,” said Mark Porter, chairman of Christie’s America, referring to the two historically significant collectors. “It’s becoming more fashionable now for people to start collecting outside of very narrowly defined ethical boundaries. He broke that broadly and often.”
The inventory includes Klimt, who is estimated to sell for over $90 million, and Georges Seurat’s Les Posuses, Ensemble (the diminutive version), which will sell for over $100 million. He also collected works by women, including untitled Agnes Martin from 1999-2000. (Estimated $4-6 million); Louise Bourgeois “Black Flame” ($$1.5 million to $2.5 million); Georgia O’Keeffe’s “White Rose with Larkspur No. 1” ($6 million to $8 million).
What held Allen’s eclectic collection together was, as those who knew him, his passion for each piece of artwork. He chose these works himself and did not delegate the decision to his art advisors. Allen knew firsthand that art can be a lucrative investment.In 2016 he sold Gerhard Richter’s painting of an American fighter jet for $25.6 million, compared to the $11.2 million he paid a decade earlier. In 2014, he paid $56.2 million for a painting by Mark Rothko, and in 2007, $34.2 million.
But Pablo Szgrenski, director of art collections for Allen’s investment firm, Vulcan, said, “How the pieces came together and what physical and emotional experiences they evoked. was driven primarily by strong aesthetic responses and historical appraisals. , from 1998 until he 2005.
“It was a personal collection,” added Schugrenski. “He knew what was in it, he knew why he got it. He lived with art and enjoyed visiting it.”
Jodie Allen The executor of her brother’s estate, she said she and Paul grew up in a creative household — their father was a librarian and their mother a teacher. I devoured it,” Jodi said in an email. “From an early age we were encouraged to exercise our creativity, and Paul especially loved music and art as a form of expression and depiction of the world around us.”
In an interview for the ‘Nature’ show – done by Mary Ann Prior Director of Vulcan’s art collection from 2014 to 2016 — Allen recalls being drawn to making and seeing art as a child. “There were books about Picasso’s later years, and he was doing pottery, painting, making funny paper hats and sculptures for the kids around him,” he said. rice field. “When he was a kid, he remembers being fascinated by the book and looking at it for hours.
“My parents were very encouraging in trying to make my own art,” he continued. “I was drawing all my life, but my mother kept all my pencil drawings. Most of them had to do with rockets and robots and other kinds of scientific devices,” he added. I was. “And at one point I was encouraged to try a little watercolor and oil painting. You can’t say I was born, but I was decent.”
Allen described how his father used to read the newspaper after work under an engraving of the King holding flowers by the house. George Rouault, fascinated by Chinese and Japanese ceramics. (“He took a vase and turned it in his hand and watched him for ten minutes.”) I remembered how I collected the works of contemporary artists. and Walter F. Isaacs.
On a trip to London in the early 1980s, Allen visited the Tate, where for the first time Roy Lichtenstein, John Everett MillaisOphelia” (1851-52) and the work of Monet. He was also influenced by friends, including media mogul David Geffen, an avid collector.
“It’s great to make the pilgrimage to museums, but after a while you start questioning what it’s like to live with great works,” Allen told Prior. It was David, “See how I live in these pictures around me.” ”
Always fascinated by the Impressionists, Allen’s first purchase was Monet’s Water Lily Pond (1919). He then gathered curiosities that fueled his other activities, including software, education, music, sports, his team, and diving. Allen branched out from Impressionism into African art, Aboriginal art, and New Guinean art. He built an extensive collection of antiques, including glass, pottery, and sculpture. He collected items from his pop culture, his science fiction, costume history, and military history.
Allen has always wanted to educate himself to discover talent and content.
“It could be Antony Gormley, it could be Eric Fischl,” Allen said. “David He loves Hockney’s work. Now he’s probably famous for his 1960s and his 70s work, but I also love his later work.”
Allen brought some degree of businessman rationality to his collection by assessing whether paintings were likely to be valued. Also, his mind has taken the lead.
“There’s a collecting side that becomes almost impulsive,” he says in an interview with Nature about how he pursued O’Keeffe’s “picture gems.” she. “
“Many years ago there was a self-portrait that Van Gogh supposedly painted for his mother, but the bid was too high. I think it was over $75 million,” he continued. “It’s probably worth a lot more than that now, but we have to be very careful not to get into a bidding war.”
Allen said part of the appeal of Impressionism to him was related to his background in technology. “I am drawn to pointillism and Jasper John’s ‘numbers’ work. Because they come from breaking something down into its constituent parts, like bytes and numbers,” Allen said.
At the same time, Allen was not drawn to digital art, seeing it as looking “almost perfect.”
Allen regularly loaned his work to museum and gallery shows to share his enjoyment with a wider audience. “Sometimes when you live with art, you stop looking at it the way new people see it,” he said. “I want to be able to give people the same eye-opening experience they had when they first went to Tate over 30 years ago.”
Often times, impresarios like Allen become isolated by their quirky skill set and extraordinary success. Allen, who died from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, apparently felt a personal affinity for his paintings, as if they were with him.
“Each artist has his own view of reality that relates to his inner state and inner world, which allows him to see the world the way he sees it,” Allen said in an interview. “The way he seeks to present it may be mysterious, enigmatic or elusive. Or it may be the beauty of a particular scene or the chaotic nature of things, the It could be a celebration of your queer nature.”
Below are some of Allen’s exceptional paintings, along with descriptions by Max Carter, Vice Chairman of Christie’s.