The Most Important Collection of Color Field Paintings to Ever Appear at Auction
Updated: Mar 14, 2019
Sotheby's is honored to announce that we will offer works from the esteemed private collection of Blema and H. Arnold Steinberg across a series of sales through 2019. Passionately assembled across decades by the Canadian collectors from the mid-1960s through to 2014, the 100+ works offered this year together are estimated to achieve in excess of $40 million. While representing the vast sphere of artistic innovation that took place across the United States and Canada in the post-war decades, from Abstract Expressionism to the Hard Edge and Minimalist movements, the heart of the Steinberg Collection lies in its extraordinary assemblage of Color Field painting- the finest ever to appear at auction. In addition to important works by Agnes Martin, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland and Adolph Gottlieb, the collection is led by two utterly captivating and transcendent paintings by Mark Rothko, both executed in the final year of his life: Untitled (Red and Burgundy Over Blue) (estimate $9/12 million) and Untitled (Red on Red) (shown above, estimate $7/10 million).
