NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s announced that it will offer Property from the Collection of Joan Oestreich Kend across a series of auctions beginning this November in New York. This family collection reflects a generations-long affinity for acquiring works of fine and decorative art and jewelry, characterized by a high level of taste and connoisseurship across a range of collecting categories including Impressionist & Modern Art, Chinese Works of Art, and Americana.

The collection is led by Pablo Picasso’s Le Peintre et son modèle, a large-scale painting from 1963 that was acquired by Mrs. Kend’s father Charles Oestreich nearly a half a century ago. The work will highlight Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art in New York on 14 November 2016, when it is estimated to sell for $12/18 million. Le Peintre et son modèle will be on public view beginning this Friday in Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries, as a highlight of the exhibitions for our marquee November auctions of 20th- and 21st-century art.

JOAN OESTREICH KEND
Mrs. Kend’s parents, Charles and Sophy Oestreich, began collecting art in the early 1950s. Born in 1898 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Charles (“Charlie”) Oestreich was a first-generation American citizen whose parents had emigrated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the United States. As a young man, he worked as a salesman for E. C. Carter & Son, a successful importer of European lace, eventually ascending to the role of manager of the company’s growing perfume business. During the late 1920s, Charlie expanded the company, diversified its products and renamed it The Lander Company. By the 1930s, Lander Company cosmetics had become a staple in “Five and Dime” chain stores across America.

In 1932, Charlie married Sophy Reis, also a first-generation American whose parents had emigrated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Known as “Spo” to her friends and family, she introduced Charlie to the world of art collecting. It was on a trip to Paris that the couple first saw Picasso’s Le Peintre et son modèle and fell in love with its scale and vibrant palette.

As a young girl growing up in Great Neck, Joan Oestreich Kend was surrounded by her parents’ collection of and appreciation for beautiful objects. A graduate of Northampton School for Girls, Joan attended Vassar College and graduated from Columbia University’s School of General Studies, eventually launching and sustaining a career in finance as one of the few female stockbrokers on Wall Street. Her life in New York City was centered around her Fifth Avenue apartment, where the majority of the Oestreich/Kend collection was displayed. On the weekends, she retreated to Millbrook, New York, where she owned a country estate that housed her personal collection of Americana among other objects.

IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART
14 & 15 November 2016
Works from the Kend Collection are led by Pablo Picasso’s Le Peintre et son modèle, which will be offered this November with an estimate of $12/18 million. Painted in 1963 and measuring more than five feet across, the painting exemplifies the dynamic force of the artist’s late work on a magnificent scale. Here Picasso depicts the powerful relationship between artist and model, one of the greatest recurring motifs of his late career. The male figure - one of the most astonishing self-portraits of the artist’s oeuvre - paints a female nude in a well-appointed studio. Le Peintre et son modèle is entirely fresh to the market, having descended through the Oestreich family since it was acquired in 1968 from Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris.

The collection also offers a strong selection of sculpture by Auguste Rodin, Henri Laurens, Aristide Maillol and Ossip Zadkine. The group features a cast of Rodin’s iconic Penseur (Thinker) – one of the most recognizable sculptures in the history of art (estimate $700,000/1 million). Like Le Peintre, Penseur, petit modèle has descended through the Oestreich family for nearly five decades, since being acquired at a Parke-Bernet Galleries auction.

MAGNIFICENT JEWELS AND FINE JEWELS
8 & 9 December 2016
Joan Oestreich Kend’s jewelry collection offers a broad selection of understated pieces by the legendary maker Bulgari, quintessential 1970s gold jewelry, and is completed by an exquisite diamond ring. A highlight of the collection is a classic set of ‘Parentesi’ Necklace and Earclips by Bulgari (estimate $18/22,000), worn on numerous occasions by Mrs. Kend (pictured page 2 at an outing to the historic Harmonie Club in New York City). The collection is led by this striking 15.11-Carat Emerald-Cut Diamond Ring (estimate $425/525,000).

IMPORTANT AMERICANA
January 2017
The collection features a highly-personal selection of Americana that Mrs. Kend herself acquired for her estate in Millbrook. The group is a celebration of form and function, highlighted by vivid Folk portraiture and dramatic, sculptural weathervanes. The January sale will offer a Gilt and Painted Molded Copper Goddess of Liberty with Flag Weathervane, crafted in New York circa 1880 by J.W. Fiske Ironworks, which stands an impressive three feet tall (estimate $100/150,000).

CHINESE WORKS OF ART
March 2017
The Oestrich Collection also features a number of Chinese Works of Art, a wonderful counterpart to the works by Pablo Picasso and other Western artists. The group is led by an exceptional pair of Famille-Rose Porcelain Figures from the Qing Dynasty (estimate $150/250,000). Likely representations of Ksitigarbha, the Buddhist supreme leader of the underworld, the works of art are finely modeled and beautifully enameled. In fact, the pair is a fantastic representation of the skill and innovation of the famed potters from Jingdezhen – the figures, with their complex form and new and varied color palette, showcase the incomparable talent and recently-developed technologies of the late-18th / early-19th century artisans in the area.