ZAP // Sotheby’s
Sue Tilley poses in front of her portrait by Lucian Freud, at Sotheby’s gallery, Bond Street, London (left). On the right, “Nu assis au collier”, by Amedeo Modigliani (composition)
Joe Lewis’ private collection brought works by Picasso, Klimt, Magritte, Modigliani and Lucian Freud to Sotheby’s, in a million-dollar sale marked by a European record for the Italian painter and one of the most famous images in contemporary British art.
The first part of an auction in London of a museum-worthy private collection raised US$392.6 million (about 345 million euros), driven by a nude Amedeo Modigliani which set a new European record.
Also a painting of a nude woman, by Lucian Freudwas sold for almost 39 million dollars, around 34 million eurostells .
At the auction, which took place this Wednesday and Thursday, 48 works by artists such as Picasso, Magritte and Klimtbelonging to the collection of Joe Lewisformer owner of Tottenham Hotspur.
Lewis, 89 years old, transferred his majority stake in the London club to a family fund in 2022 and now has a fortune valued at 5.8 billion pounds, according to the list of the richest in .
Modigliani’s painting “” (“Seated Nude with Necklace”) was sold for 63.9 million dollars, about 56 million euros — the highest price ever achieved at auction in Europe for a work by the artist, reported .
The full-length portrait ““the Gustav Klimtsreached the second highest value of the night. Disputed by seven bidders, the work was sold to a private collector in Asia for US$47.9 million.
“”, of Lucian Freudreached 38.8 million dollars. Nude portrait of his model and muse Sue Tilley, the work had been part of the Lewis collection since it was acquired from Acquavella Galleries in 1996, the year it was completed.
“Mona Lisa wasn’t alive when she became famous — but I am“, said Tilley, now 69, in an interview with in 2024.
Tilley he was working at a job center when he met the artistgrandson of the famous psychologist Sigmund Freud. The paintings he made of his muse in the 1990s are today among the most famous in modern art — and also among the most valuable.
“It really changed my life” Tilley told the Associated Press last month, sitting in front of the 7-foot-tall nude image of herself in the auction house’s showroom. “Who would have thought I would end up at Sotheby’s?”
Lewis also purchased paintings by artists from the Vienna Secession movement, such as Egon Schieleas well as modernist and surrealist works by Rene Magritte e Pablo Picasso.
The 23 works that were auctioned on Thursday include Picasso’s “” (“Bust of a Woman”) from 1938, which depicts the French artist Dora Maar.
The current auction sale record for a single private collection in Europe was set in 2009 by the late fashion designer’s art collection Yves Saint Laurent and your partner, Pierre Bergé.
The collection had an estimate of 200 to 300 million euros, but the works ended up being sold at Christie’s for 373.9 million eurosso about 333 million pounds.
In a return to major art auctions, sales in New York this spring set record prices for works by Constantin Brancusi and Mark Rothko.
