Johanna Flaum, Christie’s Vice Chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art. CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2026
It’s art week in New York, and while this week is all about the fairs, next week all eyes will be on the auctions. A certain kind of art history head will no doubt be visiting Christie’s this weekend, eager for their last chance to see highlights from the collection of Marian Goodman, one of the greatest dealers in the business, who passed earlier this year. We caught up with Johanna Flaum, Christie’s Vice Chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art, to hear more about this important group of works and how they will be sold.
Congratulations on landing this banner consignment! Breaking Ground is structured across three sales: the Evening Sale on May 20, the Day Sale on May 21 and a 53-lot online auction running May 8-22, with the whole group estimated at around $65 million. How did the three-tiered structure get decided, and who decides what goes where?
We’re really excited for this collection. Marian Goodman played such a crucial role in shaping the landscape of contemporary art today, so we felt it was important to present her collection in a way that felt authentic and personal to her life and legacy. We decided to take a multipronged approach in constructing the sale. First, we focused on the Richters. Gerhard Richter and Marian Goodman had a decades-long partnership, and his works were the core of her collection and her home for nearly half a century. Richter’s artworks were the pieces that Ms. Goodman chose to live with, more than any other artist. We felt it was critical to recognize that with a headlining moment in our 21st Century Evening Sale on May 20.
The second element we took into consideration was the composition of the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on May 21. Through this platform, we wanted to provide a comprehensive look at a wider range of what Ms. Goodman chose to surround herself with, and a more nuanced feel of artists she collected over time. One fantastic example from the Day Sale is a painting by Franz Kline. In the early 1960s, Ms. Goodman organized a fundraising exhibition for her children’s school—which was in fact her first foray into selling art. She asked Franz Kline, who was a friend of her father, to donate an artwork for the auction. To mark the occasion, Kline then gifted her with this work, which she held on to and cherished for the rest of her life.
The third and final piece we wanted to bring in was the story from Marian Goodman’s earliest years in the art world as a co-founder of Multiples, Inc. This was a company founded in 1965 with a mission to make art accessible, democratizing the distribution of blue-chip names through printing in editions. Our online sale is a tribute to this, with a fantastic selection of prints and editions quite reasonably priced.
LOT 20B: Gerhard Richter, 18. Juni 2009, 2009. Signed, titled and dated, oil on photograph, 4 x 5 7/8 in. (10.2 x 14.9 cm.) CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2026
Eight Richters, spanning 1982 to 2009, will open the Evening Sale, with Kerze (1982) carrying a $35 to $50 million estimate. These candle paintings are scarce. Christie’s specialists have put the total at 27, with some destroyed and several in museums. What does it take to organize a Kerze sale in 2026, given how rarely they trade?
Created during the brief period from 1982 to 1983, the paintings in Richter’s candle series are exceptionally rare and are certainly his most sought-after. It has been 15 years since a candle painting has come to auction. The quality and rarity of the series, in conjunction with the superb provenance, is what sets the example we are selling apart; it is truly singular. Kerze was acquired by Ms. Goodman in the 1980s, just a few years after it was painted. It represents both her foresight and understanding of Richter, a testament to her faith in his practice and a premonition of the vast global resonance his artwork would ultimately achieve. In the years and decades that followed this acquisition, Marian Goodman’s influence as a gallerist grew exponentially, and Richter became an icon of the contemporary era; he is now regarded as the greatest living artist of our time. We’re so thrilled to be offering such a seminal masterpiece.
The collection includes a striking range of works from artists Goodman never represented. Warhol Flowers, three Lichtensteins, Rosenquist, Jasper Johns, a Morandi still life, Venini and Angelo Lelii lighting. What does her personal collection tell you about her eye that the gallery roster didn’t?
Quite a few of the works you’ve mentioned—the Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rosenquist and Johns—are editions, and these offer a real glimpse into Marian Goodman’s origin story and the incredible work she did with Multiples, Inc. Along with her co-founders, she was able to democratize art collecting by selling blue-chip names at reasonable prices in the 1960s. As recently as 2021, Ms. Goodman revisited this aspect of her personal history with a project at her eponymous gallery in London that honored Multiples, Inc. and its legacy with an exhibition of seminal editions published between 1966 and 1992, shown for the first time together. The Venini and the Angelo Lelii lamps in the online sale add another layer to the collection as a whole. Both Italian designs from the 1940s, these lighting pieces are a testament to her great taste in everything she surrounded herself with. This speaks to Marian Goodman as a truly great collector, someone who appreciated authenticity, aesthetic and great craftsmanship coming from artisans across the world.
Goodman began representing Richter in 1985, when his U.S. market was still underdeveloped. The strategy was to place key works with major institutions and hold others back. Looking at the eight paintings you’re now offering, was there a logic to her personal collection that’s distinct from what she sold along the way?
The works in Marian Goodman’s personal collection demonstrate both Richter’s evolution as an artist and the history of their collaboration over the course of four decades. As you mentioned, the dates of the works range from 1982 to 2009, and the examples included in the sale really are a visual timeline of the shows that the two put on together. Marian Goodman had both the instinct and the prescience to acquire a truly great example from each exhibition they collaborated on, and this collection is the result—beautifully charting the pivotal periods of the most important artist of our time together with the definitive professional relationship that guided him.
Barbara Gladstone’s estate came to market at Sotheby’s last May, and now Goodman’s lands at Christie’s. Are dealer estates from this generation performing differently from other single-owner consignments?
Each of these sales is a great collection that has come to market telling a story larger than the art market. It’s representative of a generational shift—the present generation is undergoing a wealth transfer unlike those of past eras. We’re seeing new types of estates, with different collecting interests, including more contemporary. Historically, older generations collected the art of their time, and now, between Marian Goodman, Hank McNeil and Aggie Gund, we are seeing great collectors’ estates come to market that focus on the Postwar and contemporary sphere.
The online sale runs deep into the gallery’s editions side. Multiples, Inc. material from the 1960s and 1970s, including Beuys, Oldenburg, LeWitt, Man Ray and the Ed Ruscha artist’s books. That’s the publishing venture Goodman started in 1965, before the gallery existed. Can you talk about the market for this material? Does Multiples, Inc. hold a special place in the hearts of collectors of editions?
Editions make collecting accessible to more people in their very nature, which was a foundational principle central to Multiples, Inc. and something Marian Goodman believed in for the entirety of her career. Multiples, Inc. was never a print publisher in the traditional sense; it stood as a defining platform of the time, allowing artists to experiment with what an “edition” could be. Rather than conceiving artworks as single objects, artists conceived with an intention of creating in editions and, for this reason, began to experiment with new materials and manufacturing techniques. Works published by Multiples, Inc. certainly hold a special place for collectors of editions; it has a scholarly weight and an institutional credibility that very few edition publishers can match. The market for the material consistently remains strong, engaging both seasoned buyers and sellers and those looking for entry points into collecting. Our online sale comprises 53 exemplary editions, sculptures, design objects and conceptual works of art that reflect both the ethos of Multiples, Inc. and capture the spirit of Marian Goodman’s singular collecting sensibility.
