NEW YORK, NY.- 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.

The collection begins with Harry N. Abrams, who founded his eponymous publishing agency in 1949. The first company in the United States to specialize in the creation of art books, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. distributed monographs and surveys of global art to the masses, leaving an indelible mark on American visual literacy.

Harry’s discerning eye and standard of excellence mirrored his collecting ethos. In the 1930s, he made his first acquisitions of American Realist paintings before turning his attention to European Modernism. Harry was an established collector when Sidney Janis opened his gallery across the street from the Harry N. Abrams, Inc. offices and watched Stable Gallery, Leo Castelli, and Virginia Dwan successively open spaces in New York City. Through them, he wholeheartedly embraced Pop in its nascent years, befriending artists such as Tom Wesselmann, Jim Dine, Chryssa, and Andy Warhol through his patronage. Prolific Pop Art acquisitions were accompanied by a faith in the work of other radical contemporaries: for example, Abrams acquired a Jesús Rafael Soto sculpture out of the 1964 Venice Biennale. A model for a new generation of American collectors, in 1966, The Jewish Museum – widely considered a cultural hotbed for established and emerging contemporary art – mounted an exhibition dedicated to the collection.

By 1977, Harry and his son Bob founded a second publishing house, Abbeville Press. However, with Harry’s passing two years later in 1979, Bob took the helm of Abbeville Press at a young age. Determined to continue their mission, Abbeville Press became synonymous with scholastic rigor, artistic integrity, and a passion for sharing a history of creation with the widest possible readership. The Abrams cemented their legacy in publishing by taking on ambitious projects, including a limited edition oversized volume of The Vatican Frescoes of Michelangelo (1980), which Bob presented to Pope John Paul II in a private audience, reissuing Audubon’s Birds of America in 1985, in a massive double-elephant folio; how-to’s such as The Expectant Father (1995), and later joined by Cynthia’s editorial insight in publishing iconic books such as the children’s favorites How Artists See (1996) and Flip-O-Saurus (2010);

The Abrams continued to steward the family’s art collection with the same dedication and care, supporting artists not just through Abbeville Press’ publications of their work but also by forging deep friendships with many of these artists and generously loaning works from his collection to each artist’s most important exhibitions.

Disinterested in strict categorization, what united Harry’s holdings was his steadfast commitment to the artists he lived alongside, only concerning himself with acquiring “the great things of today”1 – a philosophy Bob continued to uphold. Broad in scope, the collection spans leading Coenties Slip artists such as Robert Indiana; international abstraction, including Manolo Millares and Georges Mathieu; sculpture, highlighted by a Noguchi marble acquired directly from the artist; and more. Women artists also feature large, especially works by artists who have had relatively little exposure thus far at auction, such as a very early and rare sculpture by Marisol, one of the best examples of a work by Chryssa, and more.

Testament to the Abrams Family’s keen aesthetic sense, Bob and Cynthia created a beautiful, tailor-made home in the Hudson Valley, designed by leading architect Joel Barkley. With a stunning library at its heart, the open, sun-drenched “Art Barn” perfectly showcases the collection, from large-scale paintings to sculpture.

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.

Isamu Noguchi, Study for Energy Void, 1971 Estimate $3-5 million

“At the heart of the energy, there must be a terrific void. Energy and nothingness come together.” - Isamu Noguchi

Acquired by Bob Abrams directly from the artist in 1979, Noguchi’s Study for Energy Void served as the core of the collection for more than half a century. The sculpture took pride of place upon entry into Bob and Cynthia’s art-filled home, overlooking the vast grounds in the distance (pictured left). Carved from a singular slab of marble, Study for Energy Void materializes the artist’s decades-long investigation of the concept of the ‘energy void’ – achieving the implausible feat of materializing the void, solidifying the notion of form and emptiness as one. Of the three sculptures he executed exploring this concept, this example is the only one made from marble. Noguchi made four additional sculptures with the concept of the void, only one of which was executed in marble and resides in the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum collection. A related example from this variation, Six-Foot Energy Void, is held in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. So central is this motif to Noguchi’s body of work that Sam Hunter — who wrote what is widely regarded as the artist’s most exhaustive monograph, published by Abbeville Press— considered the Energy Void “among his most refined and hauntingly beautiful monumental forms.”

After being raised predominantly in Japan, Noguchi attended an experimental boarding school in Indiana and, subsequently, the Leonardo da Vinci Art School in Manhattan. A Guggenheim Fellowship led the artist to France and several countries in Asia, and eventually, thanks toa serendipitous turn of fate, Noguchi became Brancusi’s studio assistant in Paris. He then traveled eastward, inaugurating an investigation of Asian visual culture. His exposure to Indian, Chinese, and Japanese art and religion, notably Buddhism, changed the cadence of his work. Marrying Zen minimalism with Brancusi's affinity for visual simplification, Study for Energy Void simultaneously conjures modern and ancient associations, offering the best of Noguchi’s sculptural output.

Marisol, The Bicycle Race, 1962-63 Estimate $250-350,000

Venezuelan-American artist Marisol rose to prominence in the late 1950s amid the white male- dominated New York Pop scene. She became the first woman to both exhibit at and be given a solo show at the legendary Leo Castelli gallery the year it opened in 1957. Crowned as the “first woman artist with glamor” by her friend Andy Warhol, Marisol became a prominent society figure featured in fashion magazine spreads. However, despite success in the early 60s, Marisol faded to relative obscurity for some time. Now, her “three-dimensional portraits”, as she called her sculptures, are being reexamined for their unflinching critiques of society and, in particular, her influence as a pioneering feminist artist.

Marisol’s work is held in permanent collections in nearly all of the major museums in the United States, and her work is now more widely recognized for its essential role in the art of the 1960s. Within the past decade, Marisol’s work has also been highlighted across various important exhibitions, including the 2013 exhibition MCA DNA: Warhol and Marisol at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, followed by MARISOL: Sculptures and Works on Paper at El Museo del Barrio in New York in 2015, Marisol and Warhol Take New York at the Andy Warhol Museum in 2021.

Among the artist’s most important sculptures, Marisol’s 1962-63 The Bicycle Race is poignantly provocative for its time in its questioning of gender, sexuality, and identity – themes that she incorporated throughout her work. The work has also been widely exhibited and featured on the covers of multiple publications. It was also included as one of only eight works exhibited in the Venezuelan Pavilion at the 1968 Venice Biennale. Earlier this year, Bicycle Race was included in a major Marisol retrospective at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and Toledo Museum of Art: Marisol: A Retrospective. (It has been requested for the final leg in Dallas). With the artist’s auction record set nearly 20 years ago, Bicycle Race is among the most important works by the artist to appear at auction in decades.

Alex Katz, Joan, 1974 Estimate $1.5 - 2 million

Alex Katz’s 1974 portrait of Joan – a fashion designer and friend of the Katz family – is an extraordinarily rare example of a nude sitter by the artist. The sun streaming through the hazy cityscape behind Joan perhaps imitates the view from the artist’s industrial loft-studio in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, situating the work as an early union of Katz’s most celebrated genres: portraiture and landscapes.

Testament to the family’s prescient eye for the greatest makers of their time, Joan was acquired directly from Marlborough Gallery the year of its execution and has been held in the Abrams Family Collection for fifty years. Today, recognized as one of the most influential artists in contemporary figurative painting, Katz was recently honored with a watershed retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, from 2022-23.

Bob Thompson, Nativity Scene, circa 1964 Estimate $500,000 – 700,000

Acquired directly from the artist nearly seven decades ago, Ben Thompson’s Nativity Scene has enjoyed pride of place in the Abram’s homes over the years. The vibrant painting depicts a group of silhouetted figures in kaleidoscopic hues across a horizontal frieze-like plane. As the title suggests, the composition is somewhat reminiscent of a nativity scene, as a central figure lies by a kneeling horse, an angel hovering above, holding a young child. Figures gather on the periphery of the composition, watching over the scene, their patience and wonder recalling the imagery of the Adoration of the Shepherds. The central figure’s horizontal position also alludes to the Dormition of the Virgin, or the moment of Mary’s death. Fra Angelico’s interpretation of this scene provides a powerful reference point, showcasing the serene, frieze-like quality of his composition, the rich use of saturated hues, and his ability to simultaneously convey peace and mourning.

While color is central to Thompson’s practice, so too is rhythm. The improvisational methodology of jazz music profoundly impacted Thompson’s painterly language. Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, Thompson would listen to records by Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis. Years later, he would continue playing music while painting in his studio – his brush moving to the rhythm of songs by Ornette Coleman, Nina Simone, Charlie Haden, and Moondog, all of whom he considered his close friends. Thompson’s love of jazz is evident in some of his most celebrated paintings, such as The Garden of Music (1960) and Homage to Nina Simone (1965). The sinuous lines of Nativity Scene similarly reverberate like a melody, with a vibrant, kinetic energy that pulses through the surface of the composition.

Nativity Scene remains one of the few works of this size by Thompson left in private hands, with most comparable works held in esteemed museum collections across the United States. The work was prominently exhibited in the critically acclaimed retrospective Bob Thompson: This House Is Mine at the Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville; Smart Museum of Art, Chicago; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.

Fernando Botero, El Cardenal, 1977 Estimate $700,000-1,000,000

Fernando Botero's El Cardenal (1977) is a serene yet whimsical work that epitomizes the artist’s signature style of voluminous forms and vivid colors. The central figure—a Cardinal adorned with an emerald episcopal ring and holding a gleaming golden crozier—evokes the authority of the church. However, Botero contrasts this regal and religious stature by placing the Cardinal in an unconventional outdoor setting, where he appears asleep. This juxtaposition highlights Botero’s critical yet affectionate stance on religion while also referencing historic portraits of Cardinals present in the work of the Old Masters. The lush green surroundings subtly allude to Botero’s Colombian heritage, evoking the landscape of the Andes mountains near his native Medellín.

Painted in 1977, the work dates from a pivotal point in Botero's career, marked by his growing international reputation and the coining of his signature “Boterismo” style. During this period, Botero’s work was increasingly shown in major exhibitions across Europe and the Americas, capturing the attention of collectors beyond Latin America. Quick to alight on the artist’s talent and importance, the Abrams acquired this work from the Marlborough gallery in 1979, just two years after it was painted.

ABBEVILLE PRESS CURATED MINI LIBRARIES

To highlight The Abrams Family’s remarkable legacy as pioneers of publishing and their mission to share art with as wide of an audience as possible, Sotheby’s will offer a selection of archive copies of art books originally published by Abbeville Press, most of which are no longer in print, or otherwise only available in limited quantities. Featuring many of the artists on offer in the auction, titles included in the curated mini libraries range from Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists (1958–1968), featuring Chryssa and Marisol, to Sam

Hunter’s Isamu Noguchi (1978), and Tom Wesselmann by Slim Stealingworth, the artist’s alter ego. The selection of books will be available at Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries from 21 – 30 September, and online on Sotheby’s Buy Now platform.