Robert Mnuchin: Collector at Heart

Few have navigated the worlds of finance and art with such aplomb as renowned dealer and collector Robert E. Mnuchin, whose first career as a legendary investment banker gave way to a life dedicated to pursuing his love of art. This May, a selection of works from Mnuchin’s collection will emerge at auction, estimated to achieve in excess of $130 million. Assembled together with his wife Adriana across decades, the deeply personal collection is a true expression of the pair’s shared, fervent devotion to pursuing works they loved and wanted to live with, embodying Mnuchin’s collecting ethos that “the reason to buy art is because you love it, you love it, you love it”. (Robin Pogrebin, “At 80, Mnuchin Remains a Passionate Promoter of Postwar Art”, The New York Times, October 13, 2013) Renowned across the art world for his discerning eye for the artists represented in his personal collection - including Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, and Willem de Kooning - the superlative quality of the examples that Mnuchin chose for himself reflect this extreme level of connoisseurship. Acquiring the works that resonated with him in their ambition and achievement, the group of works is led by Mark Rothko’s towering Brown and Blacks in Reds from 1957 (estimate $70-100 million).

Mark Rothko
Brown and Blacks in Reds
Executed in 1957.

Equally legendary was Mnuchin’s presence in the auction room, where his passion for art and the thrill of the hunt coalesced. Known for shouting out his bids, Mnuchin was eager to acquire masterworks on behalf of his clients. Reflecting on his love of auction, Mnuchin once said: “I love going to auctions. All the people in the room love it, too—otherwise they would just call in their bids.” (Sarah Douglas, “The Wise Men” Art & Auction Magazine, August 2008) The sale of the selection of works will kick off with an 11-lot dedicated evening Auction this May in New York, with additional works offered in Contemporary and Modern Day sales.

In celebration of Mnuchin’s incredible life and legacy as one of New York’s most beloved dealers and collectors, a selection of works from the collection are currently on public view in a special exhibition at Mnuchin Gallery from 11-15 March, before highlights travel to Hong Kong, Los Angeles, London, and back to New York for pre-sale exhibition at the Breuer ahead of the auctions this May.

Born in New York City, Robert Mnuchin graduated from Yale University in 1955, and subsequently served in the U.S. Army. In 1957, he joined Goldman Sachs. Driven and steadfast, over the course of three decades he ascended throughout the organization to director, and eventually joined the management committee. Affectionately known to his colleagues as “Coach”, his legacy at Goldman Sachs is marked by his central role in developing their block trading business alongside Gus Levy.

Franz Kline
Harleman
Executed in 1960.

Early in their collecting journey, Robert and his wife, Adriana, set out in pursuit of their shared love of art, visiting museums and galleries and learning what they liked. Along the way, they discovered a particular love for abstraction, a movement which would come to define Mnuchin’s career as an art dealer. From works by Willem de Kooning - among Mnuchin’s favorites, who he often visited at the artist’s Springs, New York studio, and featured in countless exhibitions - to Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, and more, the pair’s collecting philosophy was simply to acquire the works that they loved and wanted to live with. In an unprecedented pivot, he retired at age 56 to dedicate himself to pursuing a career in art, similarly rising the ranks in the art world to become one of the most legendary dealers of today. In 1992, Mnuchin and James Corcoran opened C&M arts, where he presented groundbreaking exhibitions.

The collection is led by two paintings by Mark Rothko, both dating to pivotal years of the artist’s career. Standing nearly 8 feet tall, his 1957 Brown and Blacks in Reds hails from the artist’s most important decade, when he developed his signature rectangular bands of color (estimate $70-100 Million). Executed in Rothko’s coveted red, the painting illustrates the artist’s famed mastery of color. Acquired circa 1957 by Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., the color palette of this work surely would have played an important influence in the development and conceptualization of the seminal Seagram Mural commission in the years to follow. This painting is one of 15 monumental (90+ in.) canvases created in 1957, most of which reside in museum collections including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Offentliche Kunstsammlung Basel; Australian National Gallery, Canberra; and The Panza Collection at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among others. Held in Mnuchin’s collection for more than two decades, Brown and Blacks in Reds has been exhibited in some of the most important exhibitions dedicated to the artist, from the 1978-79 traveling retrospective organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Rothko, Tate London, 1987; to the celebrated recent show at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.

Mark Rothko
No. 1
Executed in 1949.

Distinguished by its bright, vivid palette, Rothko’s 1949 No. 1 dates to a critical year of transition in the artist’s practice, as he made the shift from the nebulous multiforms of the late 1940s to the iconic stacked bands of color that would define his mature output from the early 1950s onward (estimate $15-20 million). In this work, both formats coexist, presenting a rare combination of his two most significant bodies of work. Included in a seminal 1950 exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery, the early champion of the Abstract Expressionists, No. 1 stands at the very threshold of Rothko’s breakthrough.

Of the leading Abstract Expressionists, Robert Mnuchin once described Willem de Kooning as “Chairman of the Board”, ranking him among his most revered artists. It was, in fact, a work by de Kooning that ignited Robert and Adriana’s steadfast collecting journey. Early on, while teaching themselves about art by immersing themselves in museums, literature, and galleries, the couple encountered an exceptional de Kooning exhibition at James Corcoran Gallery in California. With Adriana’s encouragement, the pair bought one of the works, marking their first acquisition of the artist and establishing abstraction, and de Kooning in particular, as a guiding force in their collection for decades to come. (Marion Maneker, “It Took a Lot of Courage for Robert Mnuchin to Become an Art Dealer,” Artnews, 2 April 2021) A subsequent friendship with the artist’s legendary dealer Xavier Fourcade deepened this commitment, with visits to de Kooning’s studio in Springs, NY studio to view the artist’s latest works. Mnuchin continued to add paintings to his personal collection, while spotlighting the artist in countless exhibitions, culminating in the seminal de Kooning: Five Decades in 2019.

Willem de Kooning
Untitled XLII
Executed in 1983.

The selection on offer this May presents a retrospective encapsulation of de Kooning’s career, featuring works spanning four decades from the 1950s through the 1980s. It is led by the artist’s 1983 Untitled XLII, a superb example of his late, lyrical style distinguished by fluid passages of blue, red, pink and violet. Making its auction debut, the painting is the most significant work from de Kooning’s final decade to appear since Untitled IV achieved over $18.9 million in the landmark Macklowe Collection sale in November 2021.

Mnuchin’s unmatched eye for Franz Kline was well-respected in the art world. Held in Mnuchin’s collection for more than two decades, Harleman is the finest work by the artist to come to auction in a decade. Executed in 1960, the work is a monumental example of the artist’s seminal black-and-white paintings, which rank among the most iconic achievements of Abstract Expressionism. Named after the artist’s friend Stanley Harleman, the work subtly anchors his radical abstractions in the figures and places of his Pennsylvania hometown.

Jeff Koons
Louis XIV
Executed in 1986, this work is the artist's proof from an edition of 3, plus 1 artist's proof.

Robert Mnuchin was among Jeff Koons’s earliest supporters, demonstrating the ambition and conviction of a commercial gallery by boldly staging what was effectively the first major retrospective of the artist’s work in New York. The artist’s Louis XIV is an icon of the artist’s celebrated Statuary series, and stands alongside his most important early works. Koons first adopted his signature polished stainless steel in this seminal body of work, which would become synonymous with his practice. Inspired by a fiberglass bust the artist encountered on Canal Street, Louis XIV marks Koon’s first direct engagement with canonical “high” art. Moving beyond domestic commodities and advertising imagery, Koons turned to art history as the subject. The work has been included in nearly every major retrospective of his work. This example is the artist’s proof from an edition of 3, plus one artist’s proof. The rest of the editions are held in museum collections, including the Nasher Sculpture Center, The Broad, and the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art.