Gunter Sachs’ £20 Million Art Collection to Sell at Sotheby’s

Up to 300 artworks and objects from the collection of late German photographer Gunter Sachs will be auctioned in London on 22 May and 23 May, 2012.

The single-owned collection includes various collecting categories from surrealism to Pop Art and Art Deco and is estimated to fetch over £20 million.

According to Sotheby's Cheyenne Westphal, Chairman of Contemporary Art, the sale "captures the essence of Gunter Sach's life in the 1960s and 1970s and reveals his little known side as one of the most visionary and influential collectors of the 20<sup>th century."

"The confluence of zeitgeist, exceptional provenance and arresting images of style icon Gunter Sachs and movie star Brigitte Bardot, his second wife by the hottest artists and most accomplished photographers of their time, including Andy Warhol and Richard Avedon, makes this assemblage among the most desirable single owner collections ever to come to market," Westphal said.

According to the Guardian, the sale will include works depicting his second wife Brigitte Bardot, over whose house he dropped 1,000 red roses from a helicopter hours after meeting her. There will be Warhol's 1974 silkscreen portrait of Bardot - estimated at up to £4m - as well as Richard Avedon's source photograph from 1959, a limited edition print estimated at £40,000-£60,000.

Sotheby's website mentions that the two-day sale is set to be one of the most remarkable single owner collections and will stand as a lasting treatment to the extraordinary life and visionary art collection of Gunter Sachs.

Throughout his life, Sachs had accumulated a world-renowned assemblage of art and furniture. In 1972 he opened a gallery in Hamburg and organized the 1st European exhibition of his friend Andy Warhol. His big art collection included works by Jean Fautrier, Andy Warhol, César, Arman, Yves Klein, René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann and Allen Jones.

Apart from the artworks, the furniture in the sale includes everything from classic French art deco to his more sexualised bedroom furniture designed by Allen Jones in 1969 and featuring scantily-clad mannequins.