NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s announced Leonard & Louise Riggio: Collected Works will be offered during Spring Marquee Week in a single-owner evening sale. The artworks comprising the sale come from the esteemed collection of Leonard and Louise Riggio, generous patrons of the arts who played an instrumental role in shaping the landscape of New York’s art world in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. With more than 30 works that represent an anthology of changing ideas, the works in the collection range from Surrealist musings to reflections on the influence of Classicism. Highlights include singular examples by the world’s most notable artists including Mondrian, Magritte, Picasso, Giacometti, and Warhol, among others.
Louise Riggio remarks, “When Len and I bought a piece of art, we felt as if we were inviting that work into our home to live with us, to become part of our family. We always talked about the dialogue each of the pieces had with each other, which inspired and complemented their placement. While it will be like saying goodbye to old friends, I’m happy to share these pieces with the world.”
Bonnie Brennan, Christie’s Chief Executive Officer, remarks, “It is an honor to be entrusted with this inimitable collection, a tribute to Leonard and Louise Riggio and their enduring legacy as patrons of the arts and passionate collectors. Each artwork included in this encyclopedic collection is exemplary, demonstrating the Riggios’ deep appreciation for human creativity. Christie’s strives to present exceptional art and objects, and this seminal collection, to be offered to a global audience this spring, will be a highlight of the year. We are so grateful to Louise for the opportunity to steward this collection into its next chapter for new collectors to enjoy.”
The top lot is a rare painting by Piet Mondrian from 1922, Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue. A near-perfect square, the canvas is Mondrian at his best; a distillation of his iconic visual language of black lines and primary colors that inspired a century of creativity. The selection also features two exemplary Surrealist paintings by René Magritte, including the first work from his most highly coveted series, L’empire des lumières, and Les droits de l’hommes completed just a year prior, in January 1948. Further highlights include a 1937 Pablo Picasso portrait of the renowned photographer Lee Miller and three Alberto Giacometti sculptures, including Femme de Venise I, conceived in 1956 and cast in 1958. The sale also presents offerings from artists whose practices came to define the post-war and contemporary era, such as Andy Warhol, whose Last Supper is a superb example of the artist’s mature aesthetic. The legendary Pop artist’s 1986 reimagining of the Renaissance masterpiece is simultaneously a tribute to Da Vinci’s original and a completely groundbreaking moment in the arc of art history which has now, forty years later, been canonized. Collectively, the artworks in the sale are expected to realize in excess of $250 million.
A lifelong New Yorker, Leonard “Len” Riggio was born in Manhattan and grew up in Brooklyn. After finishing high school, he studied briefly at NYU before founding his own bookstore, Student Book Exchange (SBX). An alternative to the university bookstore, SBX quickly became a part of the cultural fabric of New York in the 1960s, with Len welcoming students in to print antiwar leaflets. In 1971, Len took out a loan to purchase Barnes & Noble—democratizing the concept of bookstores, offering customers a place to read and a cafe with refreshments. This concept proved successful; by the turn of the century, it had become the world’s largest bookseller.
In 1974, Len and Louise met and married. The couple were trusted partners in all aspects of life— from business to philanthropy to art. Their collecting journey began in earnest in the 1990s, the moment Len saw Richard Serra’s Torqued Ellipses at Dia: Chelsea. From that moment forward, the couple became entrenched in learning about art and lovingly collaborated on each acquisition. Len was drawn to contemporary objects; Louise’s preferences are more historical. Though their tastes varied, they blended beautifully. Over the course of 30 years, the couple assembled one of the world’s most significant collections of 20th century art.
Children of the Civil Rights Era, Len and Louise were passionate about social justice and together became deeply involved with advocacy initiatives for an array of causes, including art, literacy and public education. Their work included the development of Project Home Again, a foundation constructing homes in New Orleans following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, and the development of a scholarship program at Weill Cornell Medical School which provided financial support to Black students. Len was also a longtime board member of the Children Defense Fund, and funded the 1996 Stand for Children March in Washington, D.C.
Of their achievements, perhaps the most notable in the realm of the arts was the creation of Dia: Beacon in Hudson, New York. Opened to the public in 2003, Dia: Beacon holds a comprehensive collection of artworks from the 1960s through today and remains the largest and most important museum to open in New York since the MoMA in the late 1930s.
