The Story Behind the Auction of One of the Greatest American Art Collections

This month, Sotheby’s will auction off one of the greatest American art collections. Emily Fisher Landau spent decades buying works by Picasso, Georgia O’Keefe, Mark Rothko, Jasper Johns, and Ed Ruscha. After she died in March at 102, her daughter Candia Fisher brought the collection, which began with an Alexander Calder mobile bought in 1968, to Sotheby’s, where it will be sold on November 8 and 9.

“Flags” by Jasper Johns, 1986.

courtesy of Sotheby’s

“Emily Fisher Landau has her footprint or thumbprint on the history of 20th-century art as we learn it in this country,” says Brooke Lampley, the global head of Sotheby’s fine art division.

file the art collector and patron emily fisher landau sits in front of fernand legers etude pour les constructeurs for les constructeurs 1951 in the dining room of her home in manhattan on jan 31 2002 fisher landau a new yorker who used a lloyds insurance settlement from a spectacular jewel heist in her apartment to fund what would become one of americas premier collections of contemporary art died on march 27 2023 in palm beach fla she was 102

Emily Fisher Landau in front of Fernand Léger’s 1952 work “Étude pour Les Constructeurs.”

CHESTER HIGGINS JR.

One of the most significant items for sale is Picasso’s “Femme à la Montre,” a portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter (seen at top), which Fisher Landau acquired in 1968, just as her collection was beginning to take shape. “[It] would have been a significant acquisition at that time and she just knew she couldn’t pass it up,” Lampley says. “She couldn’t miss that moment. It became a keystone of her collection for the next five decades. She hung it over the fireplace in her apartment and often referred to it as her favorite work.” The painting is expected to sell for more than $120 million.

“Untitled XV” by Willem de Kooning, 1983.

courtesy of Sotheby’s

In 1969, Fisher Landau’s New York City home was broken into and her extremely valuable jewelry collection, which included a 39-carat blue white diamond, was taken. She took the theft as a chance to start something new and used her insurance payment to begin aggressively purchasing art. Twenty-eight years later, she turned a Queens factory into the Fisher Landau Center for Art, where she displayed 1,200 pieces to the public until 2017.

a black and white collage by robert rauschenberg

“Sundog” by Robert Rauschenberg, 1962.

courtesy of Sotheby’s

Fisher Landau’s approach to collecting is as fascinating to Sotheby’s as the works themselves. “What really drives the market today is not just great objects or masterpieces but the story of great collectors. How they develop their eye, how they learn how to collect and the taste that they formed based on their perspective, their situation in the world, the information available to them at the time,” says Lampley. “It’s that nexus that people are most interested in.”