Samuel Goldwyn heirs to sell art collection at auction

The heirs of the Goldwyn movie dynasty will sell art from the family’s private collection at a series of auctions this spring, Sotheby’s said Wednesday. The announcement of the sale comes two months after the death of producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr.

Sotheby’s said it will offer for sale 25 pieces from the Goldwyn collection, including paintings by Matisse, Picasso and David Hockney. The auction house estimates the total value of the pieces to be in excess of $25 million.

One of the collection’s most highly valued works is a 1948 Picasso canvas titled “Femme au chignon dans un fauteuil” (Woman with a hair bun on a sofa), which depicts the artist’s lover, Françoise Gilot. The auction house estimates that the piece will sell for between $12 million and $18 million.

The Picasso painting, along with works by Matisse and Hockney, will go on view at Sotheby’s in Los Angeles on March 25 and 26. The actual sales will be spread out over nine auctions in New York and London, starting May 5 and ending in October.

The art collection includes pieces collected by various members of the family, including Samuel Goldwyn Sr., the prominent Polish-born movie producer who was one of Hollywood’s earliest moguls.

Sotheby’s said the first piece that Goldwyn collected was a Matisse canvas titled “Anémones et grenades” (Anemones and pomegranates). The auction house said that the producer paid $13,500 for the painting in 1948. The piece is expected to sell for between $5 million and $7 million.

His son Samuel Goldwyn Jr. was also a producer and made a number of independent movies through his production company Samuel Goldwyn Co. The younger Goldwyn, who died in January at 88, had different tastes than his father, collecting paintings by Hockney, Diego Rivera and Milton Avery.

The auctions will feature two Hockney canvases collected by Goldwyn Jr. -- “Fruit in a Chinese Bowl” and “Malibu House.”

In a prepared statement, the Goldwyn family said that “our father and grandfather’s collection was a living and constantly-evolving entity... It was a deeply personal pursuit for both of them, and many of the pieces speak to their lives and passions.”

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