Great Estates

Sol LeWitt Andy Warhol Milton Avery Pablo Picasso Agnes Martin Alberto Giacometti Francis Bacon Henry Moore

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When Theo van Gogh died, in 1891, his widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, was left with an attic of full of paintings by her brother-in-law, Vincent, and the conviction that they were worth more than the rest of the world thought. Over the next three and a half decades, she cannily oversaw the elevation of Vincent’s reputation by donating his paintings to museums and publishing his correspondence with Theo.

Her degree of prescience may be rare, but others connected with deceased artists, professionally as well as personally, have skillfully managed to nurture their posthumous reputations and markets. Dealers, in fact, have found that representing late talents can be as lucrative as working with those still producing. In the past decade or so, the competition for estates — whether of well-known artists or ones ripe for rediscovery — has become more intense, with powerhouse galleries luring some executors away from dealers with whom they had had longtime relationships. In the late 1990s, for example, the executors of the David Smith estate, which had been managed by Knoedler & Company, in New York, for more than 25 years, decamped to Gagosian. And last fall, the estate of the painter Alice Neel, long represented by the Robert Miller Gallery, moved to David Zwirner.

For executors, a gallery with a large staff and significant capital provides access to important forms of assistance, from the basics of researching, photographing and conserving works to financial support for museum exhibitions and the preparation of catalogues raisonnés. Peter Stevens, the executive director of the David Smith estate, says that one reason behind its switch to Gagosian was the size of the dealer’s Wooster Street gallery, in SoHo, which at the time was unique — and important for mounting sculpture shows.

In addition, switching to a blue-chip gallery can effectively present a deceased artist’s work as "new." Stevens cites as another factor in the estate’s decision to change representation the fact that Gagosian "was moving the art business in a different direction, which was able to connect more with the contemporary gallerygoer." In October 2008, the London and Zurich gallery Hauser & Wirth, with the Old Master dealer Colnaghi, mounted a show in London of the work of Henry Moore in collaboration with the Henry Moore Family Collection, a body comprising the sculptor’s daughter, Mary, and her children. Moore’s sculptures were installed on curving platforms designed by the architects Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher that were meant to complement their organic shapes. For Londoners familiar with Moore’s work, "it was an interesting challenge to see it in a contemporary context," says Florian Berktold, a director of Hauser & Wirth in Zurich.

Jeremy Lewison, the art consultant and curator who advises the Neel estate, echoes this rationale in explaining the decision to move to Zwirner. "We felt it was important to see Alice in the contemporary context and not simply as a historical figure who’s dead and gone," he says, adding that many contemporary artists are interested in Neel’s work, including such painters on Zwirner’s roster as Marlene Dumas and Chris Ofili.

The change of context can push up values. After Hauser & Wirth took on the estate of Lee Lozano, in 2004, prices for her paintings reportedly increased from the low five figures to almost a million dollars.

Estates and their needs are as varied as the artists involved. There may be just one executor, perhaps the artist’s widow, son or daughter, or a more formal organization.

A large amount of work may be available to sell, as in the case of Andy Warhol, or very little, as with Eva Hesse, who died in 1970 at just 36. By the time Hauser & Wirth took on Hesse’s estate a decade ago, most of her major sculptural pieces were already in public collections. Some artists stipulate in their wills that their estates should support charitable missions. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts is charged with using its assets to provide grants for institutions, scholars and critics, while the Pollock-Krasner and Joan Mitchell foundations make grants to living artists.