Joe Lewis Collection Shatters European Auction Record at Sotheby’s
The first part of the auction, featuring 48 works including pieces by Picasso and Klimt, was led by a Modigliani nude that sold for $63.9 million.
A London auction of artworks from the private collection of billionaire Joe Lewis has raised $392.6 million, establishing a new European record for a single private collection sale. Conducted by Sotheby’s on Wednesday, the event was headlined by an Amedeo Modigliani nude portrait that sold for $63.9 million, exceeding the previous benchmark set in 2009 by the Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge collection.
The Modigliani work, titled "Nu assis au collier" (Seated Nude Wearing a Necklace), achieved the highest price for a piece by the artist sold at auction in Europe. The sale featured 48 works by prominent artists including Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, and Gustav Klimt, drawn from the collection amassed by Lewis, the former majority owner of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.
Gustav Klimt’s full-length society portrait "Bildnis Gertrud Loew" secured the second-highest price of the evening, selling for $47.9 million to a private collector from Asia. The piece was pursued by seven bidders. Lucian Freud’s "Sleeping by the Lion Carpet," a nude depiction of model Sue Tilley, sold for $38.8 million. Lewis had acquired the Freud work from Acquavella Galleries in 1996, the year it was completed.
Lewis, 89, transferred his majority stake in the London football club to a family trust in 2022. According to The Sunday Times Rich List, he is now valued at £5.8 billion. The current auction record for a single private collection in Europe was previously held by the 2009 sale of the Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge collection at Christie’s, which sold for 373.9 million euros.
The second part of the auction is scheduled for Thursday, featuring 23 works including Picasso’s "Buste de femme" (1938), which depicts French artist Dora Maar and is valued at £12-18 million. This event follows a return to blockbuster art sales in New York this spring, where works by Jackson Pollock, Constantin Brancusi, and Mark Rothko set record prices. In March, four other paintings from the Lewis Collection by British School of London artists sold for £35.8 million.
