Art from the collection of the late Ghostbusters filmmaker Ivan Reitman and his wife, Genevieve—including a major Pablo Picasso portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter—will be offered in November at Christie’s in New York for a total estimate of more than US$60 million.
The auction house also announced Wednesday morning that it will sell a nearly seven-foot-tall 1955 painting by Mark Rothko, Untitled (Yellow, Orange, Yellow, Light Orange), in the range of US$45 million, at its 20th-century evening sale in New York on Nov. 9. This golden-colored canvas was in Rothko’s personal collection until he died in 1970, and then was owned by Paul and Bunny Mellon until it was sold at Sotheby’s in 2014 for US$36.6 million.
Ten works from the Reitman collection, including Picasso’s Femme endormie, 1934, with an estimate between US$25 million and US$35 million, will be sold as a dedicated group in the 20th-century evening sale; others will be sold in the post-war and contemporary art day sale on Nov. 10 and in future sales, Christie’s said. All works being offered are guaranteed.
The Retimans’ collection of colorful artworks “evoked the same optimism of his movies,” which include Animal House, Kindergarten Cop, and Space Jam, among dozens more, Christie’s said.
“My father had so much hope and his films were positive and optimistic, and I think his art was the same way,” his daughter Catherine Reitman said in the news release.
The couple began collecting after Ivan worked with Pace Gallery founder Arne Glimcher on Legal Eagles, a 1986 comedy thriller. According to Christie’s, Glimcher suggested Reitman borrow original paintings and sculptures to bring authenticity to the set. In the process of choosing objects, the filmmaker “fell in love with art,” the auction house said.
The evening sale will also include works by Jean Dubuffet, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Loie Hollowell, Brice Marden, and Richard Diebenkorn, pieces that filled the couple’s home in Montecito, Calif., which they designed with architect Robert A.M. Stern. The collection, purchased over 40 years, “tell the story of abstraction’s evolution throughout the 20th century and subsequent responses by figurative artists,” Christie’s said.
Picasso’s Femme endormie is one of three joyfully colored portraits of Marie-Thérèse painted by Picasso on July 17, 1934. One is at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., and another is in the Portland Museum of Art, according to Max Carter, Christie’s vice chairman of 20th- and 21st-century art. Picasso originally had kept the painting that was later purchased by the Reitmans, and was only exhibited once, in 1998, Carter said in the release.
The Rothko was painted in the same year as the artist’s first solo exhibition at the Sidney Janis gallery in New York, Christie’s said. The quality of light that beams from the painting’s surface is described in the introductory essay of Rothko’s catalogue raisonné, Christie’s said.
After the Sotheby’s sale in 2014, Untitled (Yellow, Orange, Yellow, Light Orange) was sold again in 2018 by Helly Nahmad Gallery in New York to the private collectors who are consigning it to Christie’s. The painting is guaranteed.
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