T his coming fall, winter and spring, the remarkable Collection of Howard and Saretta Barnet will be offered across multiple auctions at Sotheby’s.
The Barnets were visionary collectors, far ahead of their time. The rarity, quality and importance of the individual works in the Barnet Collection are difficult to overstate, and even more significant is the astonishingly clear and erudite vision that brought these works together. From seemingly disparate geographic origins and historical eras, these works are united in one all-important characteristic: beauty.
The Contemporary Art in the Barnet collection, to be offered in both the Evening and Day sales this November, shows great refinement and taste with a true appreciation for the vitality of color in 20th-century art. Whether in the dazzling palette of the Noland, the subtle sunlit shades of the Agnes Martin or the nuanced black-on-black of the Reinhardt, the Contemporary paintings in the Barnet Collection declare the genius of these masters in boldly creating compositions embodied entirely of color and luminosity.
There is an extraordinary sense of harmony and aesthetic consistency that seems to run through the entire collection, with each and every object in dialogue with one another. Their collection of works on paper, led by a remarkable group of Old Master drawings, will be offered in a single-owner auction in January 2018. The group covers an eye-watering chronological span of around half a millennium, from the serene view of Fiesole, executed around 1500 by Fra Bartolommeo, to Lucian Freud’s probing 1989 portrait of Balthus.
The Collection of Howard and Saretta Barnet will also include offerings in our March Important Design auction, our April Prints & Multiples auction and a dedicated sale of an exceptional group of sculpture in May 2018, featuring important African and Oceanic Art, Pre-Columbian Art, American Indian Art and Antiquities.
Sales Calendar
Contemporary Art Evening Auction
Featuring The Color of Beauty: Works from the Collection of Howard and Saretta Barnet
16 November 2017
Contemporary Art Day Auction
Featuring The Color of Beauty: Works from the Collection of Howard and Saretta Barnet
17 November 2017
The Line of Beauty: Drawings from the Collection of Howard and Saretta Barnet
Featuring Old Master, Impressionist and Contemporary Drawings
31 January 2018
Master Paintings
1 February 2018
Design
March 2018
Prints
April 2018
The Shape of Beauty: Sculpture from the Collection of Howard and Saretta Barnet
Featuring African and Oceanic Art, Pre-Columbian Art, American Indian Art and Antiquities
May 2018
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