THE ANN & GORDON GETTY
COLLECTION
TOTALS IN EXCESS OF $200 MILLION

NEW YORK – On Friday, October 20, 2023, Christie's concluded the yearlong celebration surrounding The Ann & Gordon Getty Collection. A series of sales from June 2022 to October 2023, The Ann and Gordon Getty Collection has surpassed $200 million in total sales. Proceeds from these sales will go to support charities designated by the couple. These auctions now rank among the top three collections of fine and decorative arts ever to be auctioned at Christie's.

In total, the two live sales and one online sale of the Wheatland property achieved a combined $9,870,714. The top lot of the first live sale was an Early George III Ebony and Chinese Reverse-Painted Mirror Breakfront Bookcase which realized $756,000 over twice the low estimate. Another sale highlight was a painting by Maurice Brazil Prendergast (1859-1924) Snowy Day, Boston. The work, which sold for an impressive $252,000 against a low estimate of $70,000, was acquired by the Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY.

Gordon Getty says: "Our series of sales with Christie’s has been a momentous celebration of my wife Ann and her exceptional eye. She was a passionate collector, and her legacy and artistic patronage will live on through these objects."

Jonathan Rendell, Christie’s Deputy Chairman – Americas, commented: “Working on the Ann and Gordon Getty over the past few years has been an extraordinary journey for so many of us at Christie’s. Broadway with its grand volumes and inventive interiors filled with so many great objects, Temple of Wings with it quirky spaces filled with the greatest examples of nineteenth century paintings and furniture and now Wheatland the childhood home of Ann Getty which she designed as a homage to her Dutch ancestry. Running through it all Ann Getty’s appreciation of textiles pulled everything together. It has been a privilege to get to know Ann Getty’s extraordinary taste and her eye for the decorative arts.”

A highlight from the initial series of October 2022 sales was Mary Cassatt’s Young Lady in a Loge Gazing to Right which shattered the artist’s 15-year-old record and achieved $7,489,000, in an acquisition for the Pola Museum of Art in Japan. In the Temple of Wings auction this past June, the top lot of the series was Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s A Coign of Vantage which realized $7,068,000, more than triple its estimate.

Throughout the sequence of sales, multiple world auction records have been established for artists such as Jules Bastien-Lepage, Jean-Antoine Watteau, and Jacques-Émile Blanche. Additionally, a notable result was achieved for Henri Matisse's Paysage avec cyprès et oliviers aux environs de Nice during the initial series of October 2022 sales, selling for $2,220,000 against a low estimate of $150,000.

As a whole, the series has demonstrated the strength of the decorative arts market, with a Royal Early George III Mahogany China cabinet by William Vile achieving $2,700,000 and a set of 12 German painted panels realizing $2,280,000. The sales also celebrated Ann Getty's aesthetic vision – a harmonious blend of elegance and artistry, enriched by her profound passion for textiles that transformed every space into a tapestry of timeless beauty.

Additionally private sales contributed to the overall total, with works now on view at major institutions including The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Leighton House, London.

ABOUT ANN AND GORDON GETTY

Ann Gilbert Getty (1941-2020) is remembered as a philanthropist, publisher, author, interior designer, and patron of the arts. A California native, Ann Getty grew up on a farm in Wheatland, CA. She founded Ann Getty and Associates, a San Francisco-based residential interior design firm. Ann Getty was an influential benefactor to countless organizations throughout her lifetime, including the University of California Berkeley, the San Francisco Opera, the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Leakey Foundation, and the Napa Valley Festival. In New York, she served on the boards of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, and New York University.

Gordon Peter Getty (b.1933) is a philanthropist and American composer who has made a lifetime of contributions to the world of classical music. In 2019, he was awarded the prestigious European Culture Prize, recognizing his extraordinary legacy. Gordon Getty's music has been performed in such prestigious venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Vienna’s Brahms-Saal, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall and Bolshoi Theatre, and Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, as well as at the Aspen, Spoleto and Bad Kissingen Festivals, and Festival Napa Valley. He is the fourth child of J. Paul Getty (1892-1976), whose celebrated collection of art and antiquities formed the basis of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.