Paul Allen Collection at Christie's

Worth billions: the most extraordinary art auction in history

Christie's is proud of this auction. It is said to be »the largest and most exceptional in history.« On November 9 and 10, the auction house will sell the billion-dollar art collection of Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen. It also reveals what will happen to the proceeds.

November 07, 2022
Paul G. Allen at Flying Heritage Collection, located at Paine Field, Everett, Washington, United States.
Miles Harris, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license*
Paul G. Allen at Flying Heritage Collection, located at Paine Field, Everett, Washington, United States. 2 April 2013

After the eyelid opens, the pupil dilates for a split second. It looks at the Space Needle, Seattle's most famous building, a Steinway grand piano, a computer center, a well-stocked library, an old computer into which someone is inserting a floppy disk, a rocket rising. They had been visionaries, says an off-screen voice that audibly accompanies the image film for the largely announced auction at Christie's.

Although he was the co-founder of Microsoft, he enjoyed less international fame than his colleague Bill Gates. Paul G. Allen maintained an art collection worth billions: Cezanne, Hockney, Picasso, Manet, Monet, Richter – the list of top-class artists is never-ending. The collection comprises more than 150 works from a good 500 years of art history. Christie's now plans to auction them off on November 9 and 10 at Rockefeller Center under the title Visionary: The Paul G. Allen Collection. From October 29 to November 8, interested parties were allowed to view the works there in person.

The auction house is letting the whole world know in advance that the art auction »is poised to be the largest and most exceptional in history, valued in excess of $1 billion.« The proceeds go to philanthropy, as Allen, who died in 2018, had wished for his estate.

*This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.Art.Salon

Deep dive:

Dive deeper into the art world

London, Tate Britain

It was one of the most moving decades in the history of the United Kingdom: the 1980s, characterized by strikes, protests and AIDS. Photographers documented this period and in some cases became political activists themselves through their images. The exhibition The 80s: Photographing Britain opens on November 21 at the Tate Britain in London.

November 21, 2024
Guido Klumpe

It is in the context of functional architecture in urban spaces that Guido Klumpe finds the motifs that he stages with his camera as the poetry of the profane. His picturesque images unfold an opulent effect with a reduced formal language, showing us the beauty of the moment in the flow of everyday life.

by Felix Brosius, November 19, 2024