NEW YORK—The private collection to be auctioned off as part of Christie’s November 12 evening auction of postwar and contemporary art belongs to Richard S. Fuld Jr., CEO of Lehman Brothers, which declared bankruptcy last Monday, and his wife Kathy Fuld, a trustee at MoMA, the New York Times reports.

According to Kathy Fuld, the sale, which includes 16 drawings dating from the 1930s to '70s by such artists as Barnett Newman, Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, and Agnes Martin and is estimated to earn $15–$20 million, has nothing to do with the Lehman collapse, which she called “profoundly sad.” She says she began talking to Christie’s and Sotheby’s over the summer and completed the deal with Christie’s in July. The auction house has given the Fulds a guarantee, reportedly close to $20 million.  

The Fulds began collecting in the 1980s and their collection now contains some 100 works in total. According to Kathy Fuld, they focused on drawing because it was an underappreciated medium. She says that she now plans to concentrate primarily on in-depth collecting of works by a few living artists, including Jasper Johns, Brice Marden, Cy Twombly, Sigmar Polke, Ed Ruscha, Bruce Nauman, Ellsworth Kelly, and Roni Horn.