Highlights From The Virginia Zabriskie Collection
At Auction September 21, 2021
Featuring a Selection of 20th Century Paintings, Sculpture, Drawings, Prints & Photographs
A Pioneering Career & Personal Collection
We are honored to offer the collection of Virginia Zabriskie in a special single-owner auction that opens our 2021 fall season. Virginia Zabriskie’s personal collection was built during a pioneering career spanning more than five decades, marked by audacity and innovation in a field that was seldom encouraging to professional women.
About the Collection
After acquiring her New York gallery in 1954, at the age of 26, Zabriskie inherited a promising roster of young artists. Her connoisseurship and faith in artists’ visions informed her groundbreaking exhibitions which were developed around the juxtaposition of media and historical eras. She is responsible for both launching the careers of artists and bringing forgotten, unappreciated artists to light. Zabriskie’s diverse program—a reflection of her unique curatorial vision and individual aesthetic—brought photography to the forefront at a time when the medium was still considered vanguard, and encompassed a wide range of work, from Surrealist masters to American icons like William Klein and Harry Callahan.
Lot 123: Man Ray, Boîte d’allumettes, card stock, wood, and paper tape matchbox with photographs and advertisement collage, and two striking surfaces, with felt, inscribed “Feutre.” Estimate $15,000 to $20,000.
Coming to Auction
The auction will include a wide array of these artists, including works from the early-to-mid twentieth century by Alexander Archipenko, Ralston Crawford, Elie Nadelman, Joseph Stella and Abraham Walkowitz, to the contemporary artists of her day such as Robert De Niro Sr., Mary Frank, Lester Johnson, Milton Resnick, Lucas Samaras and Richard Stankiewicz. Robert Frank’s Paris (Lovers on a Bench), a diverse selection of Man Ray works, including his most important ready-made objects and photographs, Parisian scenes by Eugène Atget and Brassaï, and Paul Strand’s Lupin are among notable photographs on offer from this personal collection.
Lot 191: Richard Stankiewicz, Wind Gong, welded steel, circa 1960. Estimate $40,000 to $60,000.
American Early Modernism
American Realism, Precisionism & Naîve Art
American & European Cubism, Modernism & Abstraction
Dada, Surrealism and Modern Photography
American and European Modernism
Lot 143: Alexander Archipenko, Torso, Female Torso, terracotta with black paint, 1948. Estimate $20,000 to $30,000.
American and European Abstract Expressionism, Mixed-Media Abstraction and Figural Abstraction
American and European Nouveau Réalisme and Assemblagist Art
Modern Figuratism and Social Landscape Photography
Abstract and Kinetic Sculpture
Modern and Contemporary Photojournalism, Fashion and Portrait Photography, Sculpture and Abstraction
