Highlights From The Virginia Zabriskie Collection

At Auction September 21, 2021

Featuring a Selection of 20th Century Paintings, Sculpture, Drawings, Prints & Photographs



Lot 98: George L.K. Morris, Composition #9, oil on canvas, 1936. Estimate $30,000 to $50,000.

A Pioneering Career & Personal Collection

We are honored to offer the collection of Virginia Zabriskie in a special single-owner auction that opens our 2021 fall season. Virginia Zabriskie’s personal collection was built during a pioneering career spanning more than five decades, marked by audacity and innovation in a field that was seldom encouraging to professional women.


About the Collection

After acquiring her New York gallery in 1954, at the age of 26, Zabriskie inherited a promising roster of young artists. Her connoisseurship and faith in artists’ visions informed her groundbreaking exhibitions which were developed around the juxtaposition of media and historical eras. She is responsible for both launching the careers of artists and bringing forgotten, unappreciated artists to light. Zabriskie’s diverse program—a reflection of her unique curatorial vision and individual aesthetic—brought photography to the forefront at a time when the medium was still considered vanguard, and encompassed a wide range of work, from Surrealist masters to American icons like William Klein and Harry Callahan.

Lot 122: Man Ray, Object indestructible, metronome with holographic paper ready-made, 1922-70. Estimate $40,000 to $60,000.

Lot 123: Man Ray, Boîte d’allumettes, card stock, wood, and paper tape matchbox with photographs and advertisement collage, and two striking surfaces, with felt, inscribed “Feutre.” Estimate $15,000 to $20,000.


Coming to Auction

The auction will include a wide array of these artists, including works from the early-to-mid twentieth century by Alexander Archipenko, Ralston Crawford, Elie Nadelman, Joseph Stella and Abraham Walkowitz, to the contemporary artists of her day such as Robert De Niro Sr., Mary Frank, Lester Johnson, Milton Resnick, Lucas Samaras and Richard Stankiewicz. Robert Frank’s Paris (Lovers on a Bench), a diverse selection of Man Ray works, including his most important ready-made objects and photographs, Parisian scenes by Eugène Atget and Brassaï, and Paul Strand’s Lupin are among notable photographs on offer from this personal collection.


Lot 113: Eileen Agar, My Muse, ink on paper collage with found objects, 1936. Estimate $7,000 to $10,000.

Lot 191: Richard Stankiewicz, Wind Gong, welded steel, circa 1960. Estimate $40,000 to $60,000.


American Early Modernism

Lots 1 to 53

American Realism, Precisionism & Naîve Art

Lots 54 to 83

American & European Cubism, Modernism & Abstraction

Lots 84 to 113

Dada, Surrealism and Modern Photography

Lots 114 to 142

American and European Modernism

Lots 143 to 181


Lot 294: Julian Opie, Off the Shelf, oil painted steel, 1984-85. Estimate $8,000 to $12,000.

Lot 143: Alexander Archipenko, Torso, Female Torso, terracotta with black paint, 1948. Estimate $20,000 to $30,000.


American and European Abstract Expressionism, Mixed-Media Abstraction and Figural Abstraction

Lots 182 to 228

American and European Nouveau Réalisme and Assemblagist Art

Lots 229 to 239

Modern Figuratism and Social Landscape Photography

Lots 240 to 259

Abstract and Kinetic Sculpture

Lots 260 to 266

Modern and Contemporary Photojournalism, Fashion and Portrait Photography, Sculpture and Abstraction

Lots 267 to 295


Lot 137: Robert Frank, Paris (Lovers on a Bench), silver print, 1949. Estimate $15,000 to $20,000.

Get Notifications For Auction Day