Barbara Gladstone’s extraordinary art collection is set to go under the hammer at Sotheby’s this May, featuring seminal works by Richard Prince, Andy Warhol, and Mike Kelley among others.
A single-owner sale will present twelve works from the discerning trove of legendary dealer Barbara Gladstone, showcasing seminal pieces by Richard Prince, ‘Man Crazy Nurse and Are You Kidding?’ , Andy Warhol, ‘Flowers series’ , Mike Kelley and Rudolf Stingel.
Barbara Gladstone is an Australian art dealer and gallerist.
She is the founder of Barbara Gladstone Gallery, which was established in 1983 in New York City.
The gallery focuses on showcasing contemporary art from around the world, with a particular emphasis on international artists who are pushing the boundaries of modern art.
Under her leadership, the gallery has become a prominent platform for emerging and established artists alike.
A Lifetime Commitment to Artists and Expression
Barbara Gladstone’s collection was shaped by her relationships with artists and the societal issues she championed. For Gladstone, collecting art and running a gallery were inseparable pursuits, reflecting her commitment to institutionally celebrated artists who addressed urgent societal and political issues from the AIDS crisis to ecological disaster, war and grief.
Gladstone Gallery’s roster includes some of the most celebrated artists of our time, such as Matthew Barney, ‘Joan Jonas‘ , Carroll Dunham, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Carrie Mae Weems. The gallery also represents major estates, including those of Keith Haring and Robert Rauschenberg.
Highlights from the Collection
The single-owner sale will open with a sentimental, intimate-scale painting by Elizabeth Peyton: ‘Lohengrin’ (est.: $600,000-$800,000), inspired by Richard Wagner’s opera. Leading the auction will be two seminal pieces by Richard Prince, Man Crazy Nurse and Are You Kidding? (est.: $4 million to $6 million and $2.5-3.5 million respectively). These works showcase Prince’s postmodern strategies, critiquing American visual culture while subverting the sleek artifice of pulp fiction.
Richard Prince is an American artist known for his appropriation art.
He gained international recognition in the 1980s with works that recontextualized existing images, often from advertising and popular culture.
Prince's use of 'appropriation' raises questions about authorship, ownership, and the nature of creativity.
His works have been exhibited globally and are held in prominent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Gagosian Gallery.
A rare black version of Andy Warhol‘s Flowers series will also go on the block, with a high estimate of $1.5 million. Rudolf Stingel’s Untitled (Bolego), 2006, is expected to sell for between $1.5 million and $2 million, depicting the artist drinking wine and smoking in a wry investigation of identity, habit, and myth.
Andy Warhol was a renowned American artist, director, and producer who played a pivotal role in the development of the Pop Art movement.
Born on August 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Warhol began his career as a commercial illustrator before transitioning to fine art.
He is best known for his silkscreen prints of Campbell's Soup cans and Marilyn Monroe's face.
Warhol's unique style blended high art with popular culture, influencing generations of artists and designers.
Other notable works include Mike Kelley’s Memory Ware Flat #42 (est.: $1 million), Rudolf Stingel’s self-portrait Untitled (Bolego), Alighiero Boetti’s Senza titolo (Seguire il filo del discorso. Tra l’incudine e il martello. Cinque x cinque venticinque…) , and a group of seven works on paper by Raymond Pettibon.
A Legacy of Vision and Intuition
Sotheby’s chairman, ‘Lisa Dennison’ , stated that Barbara Gladstone changed what it meant to live with art—and what it meant to believe in it. Each piece is meaningful, lived with, and reflects a collector who saw something unique in it. These works stand as its most powerful expression, offering us a profound new lens into who she was as a collector and her enduring legacy.
The single-owner sale will take place on May 15 at 6:30 p.m., alongside another major trove: the art collection of Israeli art dealer and Luxembourg+Co founder Daniella Luxembourg. The sale is expected to generate totals in excess of $12 million, with high expectations for several notable works.
