Gerhard Richter painting to be sold to fund new Linda Pace art space

A work by Gerhard Richter that belonged to the late collector and philanthropist Linda Pace will be sold at an auction in November to help fund the creation of a new art space for Pace’s foundation in Texas.

Christie’s will sell Richter’s 1992 painting “Abstraktes Bild (774-4)” at a New York auction on Nov. 12. The abstract painting, which Pace acquired shortly after its creation and has rarely been seen in public, is expected to sell for between $14 million and $18 million.

Pace’s foundation said that the sale will help fund a new art space to be designed by British architect David Adjaye. Additional funds for the space, to be located in San Antonio, will come from the foundation.

The new space will showcase the Linda Pace Foundation’s permanent collection of art. Pace, who was an heir to the Pace Foods fortune, died in 2007 following a battle with breast cancer. She was 62.

The choice of the Richter painting was “a complicated decision. [the foundation] has deaccessioned pieces in the past, as gifts to museums. Its our sense that this piece was acquired in a different spirit than the core of collection,” said Kathryn Kanjo, a foundation trustee. (Kanjo is also chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.)

She said the new space won’t be a museum, but rather a venue to display works from the permanent collection, which features more than 600 works.

During her life, Pace established Artpace, an international artist residency program in San Antonio.

Richter’s “Abstraktes Bild (774-4)” is an oil on canvas work that measures approximately six and a half feet by six feet.

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