LONDON.- Phillips announced the sale of works from the Estate of Howard Karshan. Over the course of nearly fifty years, Howard Karshan and his wife, Linda, assembled one of the most significant collections of modern and post-war paintings and works on paper. A true ode to the intimacy and unique sensibility of drawing, it encompasses an incredible array of works by artists ranging from Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Sam Francis, and Cy Twombly, to Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz and Bruce Nauman, among many others. The selection of works to be sold at Phillips offers unique insights into the extraordinary legacy of one of the most significant collectors of the past century.

Cheyenne Westphal, Phillips’ Chairman, said, “The collection Howard and Linda amassed spans the breadth and depth of Western art and keeps, at its core, a focus on those elements which make collections truly great: connoisseurship, care, a dedicated vision and, above all, a genuine love of art. In following his passion and his keen eye for acquiring works on paper – and in absorbing himself in the literature and art scenes of the day – Howard created a timeless collection and it is our honor to bring these works to the public.”

The Karshan Collection encapsulates an exceptional odyssey of collecting, spanning over five decades and two continents. Living between London and New York, Howard and Linda Karshan acquired a breadth of works on paper and canvas that are wonderful examples of their respective movements. Born in New York in 1933, Howard Karshan studied philosophy and law at New York University before embarking upon a successful career as a film rights negotiator at CBS, Viacom, MGM, and Turner. It was in the early 1960s that he discovered his true passion, catching the “bug for collecting” as he described it, when he was assigned to work for CBS in Paris in 1962. He met his wife, Linda, for the first time travelling from England to New York on the transatlantic ocean liner SS France. Linda, an accomplished artist in her own right, was crucial in guiding Howard in his journey of studying and collecting art. Following first acquisitions of a work by Alberto Giacometti and a Cycladic idol sculpture, Howard built with great care, passion, and study, one of the most renowned collections of modern and post-war works on paper. The Karshan Collection was not just one to be lived with, but also one to be shared with a wider public by way of exhibition loans and generous gifts to institutions such as the British Museum, London, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, among others. Pursuing his commitment and passion for art also on an institutional level, Howard held the position of the Head of Patrons of New Art at the Tate, London, in which function he crucially initiated the Acquisitions Committee, and was also selected to be on the Jury for the Turner Prize in 1992.

20TH CENTURY & CONTEMPORARY WORKS OF ART
Leading the Karshan Collection is Gerhard Richter’s Hände, which will be offered in the October Evening Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art in London. Painted in 1963, this oil on canvas is a striking early epitome of the artist’s iconic and technically astute photo realist paintings of the 1960s. Between 1962 and 1968 Richter became concerned with pursuing a practice centered around photographic source imagery. This profound shift in practice and commencement of photo painting has had an overpowering effect on the history of contemporary painting. An intimate portrait, in Hände Richter presents the viewer with two blurred, unidentified hands. Considered one of the oldest motifs in the history of art, both as a central tool to creation and as a focus of representation, Richter confronts the onlooker with the most familiar of themes. Here, however, Richter projects the recognisable silhouette into a seemingly unreachable distance or illusion. Hände is a tremendously significant work, as it set Richter on a path of photo realist paintings, which became the core of his oeuvre.

Also included in the London Evening Sale in October are Georg Baselitz’s Untitled, 1967, Cy Twombly’s Untitled, 1969, and Gerhard Richter’s Busch, 1985. Busch was included in the seminal exhibition Gerhard Richter: 40 Years of Painting at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, which also travelled to the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC. These paintings, specifically Richter’s Hände and Busch, were carefully chosen by Howard and Linda, as they spoke to the couple’s deep appreciation for the hand of the artist and their mark making.

Over fifty lots from the collection will be included in the October Day Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art in London, followed by works in the New York Day Sale in November and New Now across London and New York. In many ways, the Karshan Collection is a tale of two cities. Living between New York City and London, Howard became intimately acquainted with the art scene on both sides of the Atlantic. Among the examples of post-war European art to be offered in the Day Sale are works by Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Georg Baselitz, Palermo, and Jean Dubuffet, while American artists include Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, Robert Smithson, Raymond Pettibon, and Wayne Thiebaud. There is equal attention paid in the Day Sale works to the Karshans’ fondness of the artists’ mark marking. Works such as Pollock’s Untitled, 1951, and Sigmar Polke’s Ohne Titel, circa 1965, (illustrated below left), convey the abstract potential of drawing, while works such as Picasso’s Nu couché et homme écrivant, 1969, de Kooning’s Untitled (Group of 8 Drawings), 1965-1970 and Baselitz’s Untitled, 1966, celebrate its ability of distilling the human figure to its most elemental form.

EDITIONS
Ten lots from the Karshan Collection will be included in the New York Editions auctions on 17 October, with five being featured in the Evening Sale and five in the Day Sale. Leading the group is Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Débauche (Wittrock 167). Executed in 1896, this lithograph is one of only three examples printed on silk – one impression is in the collection of the Boston Public Library. It was purchased in 1973 making it one of the earliest acquired works in the collection and is one of Lautrec’s most fluidly drawn and erotic images. The Editions sales will also include a rare set of template drawings by Walter de Maria from 1975-6, a Richard Artschwager, sets of Brice Marden, Robert Ryman etchings, and a monoprint by Ellen Gallagher.