Art and design from the collection of 20th-century golden boy Gunter Sachs
will be auctioned in London this month.
Handsome, charismatic Sachs (1932-2011)—famed in his early days mostly as a
wealthy international playboy and later as a photographer—passionately built a
formidable collection over 50 years, often being the first to buy many of
today's most coveted artists. Among some 300 works at Sotheby's in London May
22 and 23 will be paintings by such artists as Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, Andy
Warhol, Roy Liechtenstein, Tom Wesselmann and Mel Ramos, mixed with
20th-century furniture by Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Diego Giacometti.
Born into the German industrialist family of von Opel, he bought his first
artwork when he was 16 years old, a print by Eugène Delacroix. At the age of
26, Sachs moved to Paris, then capital of the art world. Buying an apartment on
the Avenue Foch, he first decorated it with top artists like Pablo Picasso
before moving on quickly to Parisian artists little known in international
circles—among them Klein, Arman and Jean Tinguely. From those days emerged a pattern
of friendship with and financial support of artists that was to characterize
Sachs's collecting style. "He wasn't interested in buying what was
fashionable," says Sotheby's contemporary-art specialist Oliver Barker.
Pop Art was to
become a major love. Sachs first met Warhol when sitting in a bar with his
second wife, Brigitte Bardot, during the Cannes Film Festival in 1967. They
became close friends and, in 1972, Sachs organized Warhol's first exhibition in
Germany at his gallery in Hamburg. Nothing was sold; to prevent embarrassing
Warhol, Sachs secretly bought a third of the exhibition himself. Sachs was
later to say that it was one of the best deals he ever did.
A top lot of the
Sachs sale will be a superb, golden 1974 portrait by Warhol of Ms. Bardot, who
Sachs famously courted by dropping hundreds of red roses from a helicopter onto
her villa in the French Riviera. "It symbolizes great fame and great
beauty," Mr. Barker says. The portrait (estimate: £3 million-£4 million)
is based on a black-and-white photograph taken by Richard Avedon in 1959. The
photograph was produced in an edition of 35, and one of the series is in the
sale, valued at £40,000-£60,000. Sachs commissioned the Warhol work as a
companion piece for his own portraits by Warhol. One showing Sachs with pink
hair and in a blue shirt from 1972 is expected to fetch £400,000-£600,000.
Among the other
Warhol items will be one of his signature "Flowers," from 1964-65, in
orange, blue and pink (estimate: £3 million-£4 million); "Self-portrait
(Fright Wig)" (1986), showing a pink-hued artist with a crazy hairdo
(estimate: £2 million-£3 million); and "Mao" (1972), a complete set
of 10 color prints based on the Chinese communist leader's official portrait
(estimate: £300,000-£500,000).
Sachs lived surrounded by art. In St. Moritz, his penthouse in the tower of
the Palace Hotel housed favorites from his Pop works such as Liechtenstein's
"Composition" (1969), created especially for the apartment and
incorporating various aspects of the artist's images, including his sunrise
series (estimate: £600,000-£800,000); and French design icon "Moutons de
Laine" (1968), a group of white sheep made from wool and wood created by
Francois-Xavier Lalanne (estimate: £250,000-£350,000).
An anecdote in the
Sotheby's catalog illustrates Sachs's importance for his artists. Mel Ramos,
noted for his Californian pinups, recalls meeting Sachs at the opening of an
exhibition of his works in Zurich in 1971. At it, Sachs purchased Ramos
pictures, including "A.C. Annie," a typical Ramos nude pictured
beside a giant sparkplug (estimate: £150,000-£200,000). It was one of the
artist's first exhibitions in Europe and, he says, the purchase represented
"the highlight of his career to date."
Write to Margaret
Studer at wsje.weekend@wsj.com