An Era Defined: The Emily Fisher Landau Collection

During this past auction season, The Emily Fisher Landau Collection boasted a new high of $406.4 million for its white-glove evening sale at Sotheby’s New York on November 8th. The following afternoon, an additional 80 lots sold for $18.3 million during the day auction, bringing the collection’s total to $424.7 million.

The top lot was none other than Picasso’s masterpiece, Femme à la montre (Woman with a Watch), a portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter, from 1932, which sold for $139 million. It is the most valuable artwork to have sold at auction this year, and the second highest price ever achieved for the artist at auction. The winning bidder behind the masterpiece is rumored to be local Palm Beach resident, Ken Griffin.

Palm Beachers will remember Mrs. Fisher Landau, who died here in March at the age of 102, and Femme à la montre, which was shown in 2022 as part of A Remarkable Gathering: The Fisher Landau Family Collection at The Norton Museum in West Palm Beach. Her daughter, Candia Fisher, lives in Palm Beach and is on the board of The Norton.

“One of Emily Fisher Landau’s first major purchases, Femme à la Montre is Pablo Picasso’s Mona Lisa,” says Sotheby’s Global Chairman, Brooke Lampley. “Painted 1932, when the artist is preparing for his major retrospective, there’s a feeling that he is literally painting his legacy, looking back at the past and reflecting on his own place in art history. The works from this moment are magnum opi meant to represent him at his apogee, which is just what this painting does.”

Numerous records were set thereafter, including with the collection’s next highest lot, Jasper Johns’ Flags from 1986, which established a new high for a painting from his landmark series at $41million.

Rounding out the collection’s top three lots was Securing the Last Letter (Boss) by Ed Ruscha, an artist with whom Landau had a deep and lasting friendship, which sold for $39.4 million, the artist’s second highest price at auction.

Additional benchmarks were set for Agnes Martin, whose Grey Stone II (1961) realized $18.7 million after eight bidders brought it to more than double its high estimate, and Mark Tansey, whose Triumph Over Mastery II (1987) achieved $11.8m after a four-way bidding battle – both auction records for their artists.

Additionally, when Robert Rauschenberg’s Vitamin (1960-68) sold for $3.5 million, it established a new record for the artist’s works on paper. Works by Cy Twombly ($26.8 million), Mark Rothko ($22.2 million), Robert Indiana ($825,500); Andy Warhol; and Georgia O’Keeffe sold to collectors in Asia during the evening sale, which also saw high institutional activity.