NEW YORK, NY.- Highlighting Doyle New York’s auction of Impressionist and Modern Art on November 5 will be paintings from the Collection of Norman E. Mack, II. The collection comprises works by Gabriele Münter, Andre Lhote, Milton Avery, Francois Pompon, Max Pechstein, Camille Bombois and Anthony Thieme.

Norman E. Mack, II was born into affluence and privilege in Buffalo, New York. His grandfather and namesake was a prosperous Buffalo newspaperman and prominent figure in Democratic politics. He founded The Buffalo Times in 1879, and fifty years later in April, 1929 sold it to Scripps-Howard for the then-staggering sum of $6 million. The younger Norman Mack maintained homes in Nantucket, MA; Charleston, SC; and Palm Beach, FL. He preserved and renovated more than thirty historic houses in his lifetime, and the Rotunda of Buffalo’s Burchfield Penney Art Center is named in his honor.

Two paintings by German artist Gabriele Münter (1877-1962) highlight the Mack Collection. Münter was an important figure in the Munich avant-garde during the early 20th century. Financially independent at a young age, she was able to lead a highly unconventional life for a woman of her time. In 1902 she traveled to Munich to study art, where she enrolled at the Phalanx School, an avant-garde academy founded by a group of young artists to foster new approaches to painting. There she met Wassily Kandinsky, the school’s co-founder and director, with whom she began a long professional relationship that soon became a personal one as well.

In 1911, Münter, along with Kandinsky and several artists, founded the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) group, which was dedicated to the publication and exhibition of German Expressionist painting. That same year Münter painted Stilleben mit Russische Decke II (Still Life with Russian Blanket; also titled Russian Easter) (est. $250,000-450,000). This beautiful and enigmatic painting is thus an important example of Münter’s art at a pivotal moment of her career. Two years later she painted the idyllic Alpine landscape, Strassendurchstich (A Road Pressing Through) (est. $250,000-450,000). Both of these are classical expressionist works in that their intent is not only to describe the subjects in abstract form, but also to express their emotional content.

Highlights from other collections in the November 5 sale include works by Stuart Davis, Reuven Rubin, Auguste Rodin, Gustave Loiseau, Louis Ritman, Henry Moore, Giovanni Boldini, Ferdinand Parpan, Leon Augustin Lhermitte and Bernard Buffet.

The public is invited to the exhibition on view from November 1 through 4. Doyle New York is located at 175 East 87th Street in Manhattan.