As Samuel Irving “S.I.” Newhouse Jr. assembled one of the great private art collections of the modern era, he relied on the same instincts that helped build his hugely successful publishing empire — a demand for quality and a willingness to pay whatever it took for the very best.
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Now, nearly a decade after his death, a significant portion of that collection is heading to auction.
Christie’s will sell 16 works from the private collection of S.I. Newhouse on May 18 in what is expected to become one of the most valuable single-owner sales in auction history.
The collection — featuring works by some of the towering figures of 20th-century art, including Jackson Pollock, Constantin Brancusi, Pablo Picasso and Jasper Johns — is expected to fetch roughly $450 million, which combined with recent sales from the rest of his collection could top $1 billion.
Max Carter, the global chairman of 20th- and 21st-century art at Christie’s, told NBC News that Newhouse collected “fearlessly” and always went for the best and most significant modern art, rather than settle for good examples.
The centerpiece of the sale is a large-scale Jackson Pollock drip painting that Christie’s says will be the first work of its kind ever offered at auction. Pollock died in his mid-40s, and most of his drip paintings went to museums. Also expected to command enormous interest is a rare golden Brancusi sculpture that art experts describe as emblematic of the birth of modernism. Each is estimated to sell in the neighborhood of $100 million.
For Newhouse’s widow, Victoria Newhouse, the decision to sell was driven less by the market than by practicality and time.
“I’m 88 years old, and I’ve lived in a very large apartment for over 40 years,” she said in an interview. “And I thought the time had come to downsize, to let some other people enjoy the art that I’ve been privileged to live with for all these years.”
Newhouse, who died in 2017 at age 89, was one of the most powerful figures in American media. Alongside his brother, Donald Newhouse, he controlled Advance Publications, the family-owned company founded by their father in 1922. Its holdings included Condé Nast — publisher of Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker — as well as newspapers across the country and major stakes in cable and entertainment businesses.
Tobias Meyer, an adviser to the Newhouse family and the former worldwide head of contemporary art at Christie’s, described Newhouse as singularly focused on acquiring the finest examples of an artist’s work.
“S.I. always looked for the highest quality, regardless of what he was looking at,” Meyer said in a press release. “Works of art that expressed what the artist — whether Picasso, Brancusi, Pollock or Johns — wanted to say at the peak of his creative output.”
Meyer said Newhouse was also unusually disciplined in reshaping his holdings over time, frequently selling works, reacquiring others and refining the collection over decades.
“He owned the most important paintings by the most important artists,” Meyer said in the release.
Victoria Newhouse said collecting art became an almost lifelong pursuit for her husband — one fueled by competition, scholarship and instinct.
“It was a great thrill for him to find important works of art and to pursue them and to acquire them,” she said. “He just couldn’t resist going on and improving the collection.”
That pursuit sometimes came with regrets.
Victoria Newhouse recalled Pollock’s masterpiece “Number 7A” that S.I. Newhouse initially rejected, having discovered it hanging in a kitchen and covered in years of cooking smoke and grime.
“He took one look at it at the time and just turned it down because he thought it was hopeless,” she said.
Years later, after learning more about restoration techniques and realizing the rarity of the work, Newhouse reconsidered.