NEW YORK, NY.- United by a singular vision, collectors and philanthropists Theodore and Ruth Baum’s infectious passion for life, art, design and philanthropy led them on a deeply personal, decades-long pursuit to cultivate an extraordinary collection – one that was not only among the most distinguished private collections encapsulating the developments of 20th-century art history, but reflective of the forward-thinking vision, refined elegance and intellectual rigor that defined them as partners in life and collecting.

As storytellers in every sense, the Baums were guided by their insatiable curiosity as they built a collection that transcended movements, generations and geographies. Throughout the course of two decades, they traveled around the world in pursuit of great works by the visionaries of American abstraction, the innovators of Pop, Minimalism and Conceptualism, and the radical experimenters of post-war Italian art, assembling a constellation of artists engaged in dialogue with one another, each work challenging and illuminating its counterpart.

The collection is highlighted by a radiant red-and-orange 1967 painting by Mark Rothko, their first acquisition of contemporary art 43 years ago and the catalyst of their collecting journey; alongside an expansive canvas by Joan Mitchell, also held in the Baum’s collection for four decades and making its auction debut this November; an early text painting by Ed Ruscha; post-war European masterworks by Alberto Burri and Lucio Fontana; and more.

Kicking off Sotheby’s New York sales week this November, more than 20 works will be offered in a dedicated Evening Auction on 16 November, with a dedicated Day Auction following on 17 November, with additional works offered through 2027. Featuring works largely unseen at auction for decades, the collection is estimated to achieve in excess of $100 million. Highlights will travel to London, Hong Kong, Paris, and Los Angeles, and New York for pre-sale exhibition.

THE BAUMS’ EXTRAORDINARY COLLECTING JOURNEY

The Baums’ collecting journey began, as many great collections do, with a single acquisition – a John Sloan sketch purchased by Ruth at a charity auction in the late 1970s. What started with one drawing soon evolved into an exploration of drawings and watercolors on paper by 20th century Modern artists such as Fernand Leger and Pablo Picasso. As their passion for collecting grew, the Baums set their sights on acquiring what they imagined would be “one great painting.” In 1983, they believed they had found it when they encountered a radiant red-and-orange 1967 painting on paper by Mark Rothko, their first acquisition of contemporary art. Instead, the painting marked not an endpoint of their collecting ambitions, but became the catalyst for a decades-long pursuit.

As they continued collecting through the 1990s, they acquired works by Joan Mitchell, Sam Francis, Hans Hofmann and more, which together created a rich dialogue of postwar American abstraction. Acquisitions of works by Tom Wesselmann and Roy Lichtenstein in 1999 marked a new chapter introducing American Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptualism. Subsequent acquisitions marked the formation of a panorama of midcentury American innovation, crowned by the inclusion of two masterworks: Ed Ruscha’s Dimple - which paid tribute to Ted’s love of witty wordplay - and Andy Warhol’s The Scream (After Edvard Munch), one of the most iconic examples of Pop appropriation of art historical precedent.

The Baum’s artistic curiosity knew no bounds, as they began travelling far and wide visiting galleries, auctions, exhibitions and art fairs. The Baums assembled an exceptional group of European postwar masterworks over the following years, including important works by Piero Manzoni, Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein and more.

Once acquired, each work began a new life within the Baums’ homes in Palm Beach, Southampton, New Jersey and New York City. As Ruth once explained: they “love the process and love living with the works.” To enter their home was to enter their world of art, where they curated inspiring installations: a radical sculpture against fine European furniture, or a work of abstraction before the expansive view of the ocean. The works that filled the walls of their homes were cherished companions in their daily lives, and their homes were places where friends and family as well as museum groups and guests at philanthropic events alike gathered amid warmth and elegance.

Collection Highlights

Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1967
Estimate $10-15 million

Both the anchor and the impetus of the Collection as the first contemporary work the Baums ever acquired, Rothko’s Untitled has resided in the Collection for nearly half a century. Painted in 1967 - just three years before the artist’s passing in 1970 - Untitled ranks among the greatest of the artist’s mature paintings on paper. Executed during one of the artist’s last periods of luminous color, the fiery red and brilliant tangerine work demonstrates Rothko’s command of color to communicate the breadth of human emotion.

Red examples from this period appear almost red hot to the touch, or as radiant sunbursts drawn directly out of the sky. The Baums were also captivated by the color red, as Ted once explained that its vitality spoke to them both as a metaphor for passion and joy. Red features large throughout the collection in Rothko’s Untitled; Ellsworth Kelly’s bold Red White; Lucio Fontana’s searing red, slashed canvas Concetto Spaziale, Attese; Ed Ruscha’s audacious red palette, Dimple; and more.

Joan Mitchell, Green Book of Barbara Guest, 1960

Originally held in the artist’s own collection, Joan Mitchell’s Green Book of Barbara Guest has remained in the collection of Theodore and Ruth Baum for four decades. It will make its auction debut this November, and will appear on public view for the first time in six decades.

Executed at a pivotal moment in the artist’s career, the painting stands as an exceptional example from the onset of Mitchell’s most highly celebrated period and first mature body of work. The title references Mitchell’s friend, art critic, and poet Barbara Guest, marking a rare example of a title which provides a glimpse into the artist’s inner circle rather than referencing landscapes or natural forms. In 1959, Mitchell moved to Paris, and in 1960, she published a book of poems in collaboration with John Ashbery. Executed at this pivotal moment of increased productivity and creative innovation, Green Book of Barbara Guest embodies the vigorous, poetic energy that marked a new stage in Mitchell’s artistic development, with her early 1960s paintings reflecting a newfound surge of motion.

Ed Ruscha, Dimple, 1964
Estimate $10-15 million

Ed Ruscha’s early text paintings from the 1960s stand among the artist’s greatest contributions to Postwar painting, transforming ordinary language into arresting visual statements. Paying tribute to Ted Baum’s love of witty wordplay, Dimple heralded a critical turning point in art history: the emergence of the then-nascent Pop and Conceptual art movements. An early example of Ruscha’s iconic 1960s output, Dimple is one of only seven paintings featuring the exceedingly rare C-clamp motif, two of which reside in The Menil Collection in Houston and the Museum Brandhorst in Munich. This work is also notably one of just four works featuring this text.

Andy Warhol, The Scream (After Edvard Munch), 1984
Estimate $4-6 million

When Ruth once remarked “the fact is, you love things that you don’t get easily,” she spoke not only to the couple’s pursuit of extraordinary works, but to the love for challenge that animated their collecting. The Baums acquired Warhol’s The Scream (After Edvard Munch) at Sotheby’s London in June 2006. When the Baums encountered a work they believed to be truly exceptional, they were determined to collect it.

Warhol’s canvas The Scream (After Edvard Munch) translates Munch’s most emotionally charged image into a seductive, reproducible, unmistakably Pop icon. Warhol’s fascination with Munch developed over two decades. For a twentieth-century American visionary captivated by celebrity images, the nineteenth-century Norwegian artist offered a revelation: an art that expressed intense and specific emotions but still resonated with audiences across time and place. After Warhol repeatedly visited a 1982 exhibition of Munch’s work at Galleri Bellman in New York, the gallery’s owner and art dealer Tor Uppstrom commissioned him to create fifteen paintings after four Munch prints: Madonna, Self-Portrait with Skeleton Arm, The Brooch (Eva Mudocci), and The Scream. Warhol opted to recreate the lithograph of The Scream instead of the painting— the already reproduced version of an image destined to saturate modern culture. The last example from this series to appear at auction came from the personal collection of legendary patron and aesthete Pauline Karpidas and achieved £6.6m at Sotheby’s London, September 2025, well-exceeding its £4.1m high estimate.

Italian Art

Alberto Burri, GA1, 1954
Estimate $4-6 million

Acquired in October 2005 at Sotheby’s London, Burri’s GA1 has been held in the Baum Collection for more than two decades. A highly accomplished example from the artist’s canonical Sacco paintings, GA1 from 1954 proffers the artist’s revolutionary vision of art in the wake of war. Examples from this series are held in prestigious institutional collections around the world, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, among others. Burri’s use of burlap is highly charged, as a material he encountered as medical personnel during World War II, and again as a prisoner of war. Transforming the fabric once used for tents, curtains, and camouflage for helmets and trucks, Burri collides conflict, material and memory in one of the most important bodies of work to emerge from the Postwar years.

Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, Attese, 1960
Estimate $4-6 million

Concetto Spaziale, Attese is an early, striking red example from Fontana’s seminal Tagli series - a pivotal contributor to the development of post-war and contemporary art when he revolutionized the definition of painting by transforming the pictorial plane with his slashes through canvas. The work has been held in the Baum collection for nearly three decades after they acquired the work at Sotheby’s London in 2000. Fontana’s explorations into the unexplored territory of the broken canvas were also relevant for world events in the 1950s and 60s, as he developed the Tagli alongside advances in space travel. The ‘Space Race’ set the moon as the next frontier for human exploration and dominated the global political and social zeitgeist. Fontana sought to emulate the burgeoning scientific and technological developments in his artistry.