Over seven decades, the Abrams family revolutionized the fine art and illustrated book publishing industry, bringing art into the homes of millions through the publication of beautiful and meticulously written books. The art they collected through patriarch Harry N. Abrams and his son Robert [Bob] Abrams was of the same uncompromising quality and scholarly depth, driven by a shared passion for championing artists. This Fall, Sotheby’s will offer works from the Abrams Family Collection, a multigenerational effort that tells the story of one family’s passion for art and for amplifying artistic voices through the power of print, expanding the art historical canon within the 20th Century, and forging friendships along the way.
Assembled mainly from the 1930s through the 1980s and beyond, the Abrams Family Collection reflects an unwavering belief in the art of one’s time, and the acquisitions from each decade chart a remarkable and fearlessly nonlinear story of contemporary production. Marked by their unwavering confidence in the present, their collecting philosophy across decades was fittingly surmised by Bob as ‘Art without boundaries – without anything to consider other than the art itself”. From Isamu Noguchi to Bob Thompson, Marisol to Georges Mathieu, the collection presents a comprehensive window into each moment of output represented within each decade, combining dominant artistic tides alongside the experimental and works or schools that were, at the time, were less widely recognized. Many of the works appear at auction for the first time, after being acquired directly from the artists.
Selected works from The Abrams Family Collection will be offered in a dedicated live auction on 27 September in New York and a dedicated online auction from 20 - 30 September. Additional works from the collection will be featured in various auctions throughout the Fall. Works from The Abrams Family Collection will be exhibited in Los Angeles from 4 – 8 September before returning to New York for a pre-sale exhibition on 21 – 26 September.
