Article translated by Amritee Mahabir

Last October, the death of Ileana Sonnabend launched an upset in the art world. A woman of refined taste, for decades she was the point of reference for contemporary art, defined by the critic Achille Bonito Olivia as “the greatest gallerist of the second half of the XX century”. She was the “historical” wife of the extraordinary art dealer Leo Castelli, and was considered the emperor of art and also a money queen, at the same time she was rightfully described by Calvin Tomkins as “half Buddha and half Machiavellian”. Many artists adored her, a seldom occurrence for gallerists who are often betrayed by exactly those who contributed to launch them. “If Ileana said so, then it must be true”, Andy Warhol once said in defence of his favourite gallery owner. “I never once finished a painting without thinking about what Ileana would have done”, declared Robert Rauschenberg.

For years Jasper Johns acted as a spokesman between artists or perhaps it was he who had influenced her to the point of deciding her cultural politics. Sonnabend began her artistic life together with Castelli: in 1939 they had opened a gallery in Paris dedicated to the Surrealists; following which, they established themselves in New York where they made a fresh start as private dealers, collecting works, networking, and opening a gallery only in 1957. Three years after marrying Michael Sonnabend, Ileana opened a gallery with him in the French capital in which they exhibited Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and so much more Pop Art which gained her the namesake “the Mum of Pop”.

Ileana Sonnabend’s greatest intuition was bringing American art to Europe, but in 1971 she did the opposite: she decided to bring European art to America opening a gallery in the Soho area of New York. The site was inaugurated with a performance featuring the English artists Gilbert and George. In the past few years, they promoted artists like Jeff Koons, Ashley Bickerton and all the celebrated artists from the late eighties who have ruled till the mid-nineties. Sonnabend continued to be an active gallerist well into old age, but especially as a collector. There’s almost everything in her collections which are now left in the hands of her adopted son Antionio Homen Sonnabend and her natural daughter Nina Sundell: for decades many conceptual and minimalist works of art have been hidden away in boxes, sculptures by Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Anselm Kiefer, but also leaders of arte povera (literally ‘poor art’) such as Jannis Kounellis and Mario Merz. Everyone questioned what had happened to this collection. Many hoped to see it in a Foundation, but latest news confirm that they were put up at auction as several pieces from the historical collection of contemporary art. Ileana Sonnabend’s heirs or rather Antonio Homen Sonnabend and Nina Sundell, have announced the sale at auction to cover their estate taxes, estimated at around 400 million dollars: not a small amount, if one considers that the taxes, according to New York fiscal state laws could reach up to half the entire capital. According to some contemporary directors, Christie’s and Sotheby’s should already be happy the assignment of the sale, while Antonio Homen Sonnabend recently declared that he was still gathering information regarding this matter.