Sotheby’s Announces Art Bridges Foundation Acquires Landmark Collection of Frank Lloyd Wright Drawings from the Wolf Family Collection
The Most Significant Private Collection of Frank Lloyd Wright
Architectural Renderings Ever Assembled
Acquisition Caps Series of Auctions for Wolf Collection Totaling Nearly $70 Million and Follows Last Week’s Record-Breaking Auction Results for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ceiling Light from the Francis W. Little House, and Fitz Henry Lane’s Bar Island and Mount Desert Mountains from Somes Settlement
Auction Series Soared to 140% of High Estimate, Marking the Most Valuable Collection of American Art and Objects of Its Kind Ever Sold
“The tremendous success of the collection is a tribute to the life and legacy of my family whose collective curiosity and passion for discovery will be treasured by many for generations to come.”
Mathew Wolf“This unprecedented sale series is reflective of the superlative quality and unparalleled depth of the Wolf collection. Sotheby’s had the great privilege of holding a very close and special relationship with the Wolf Family from the onset of their collecting, and it has been an incredible honor to celebrate their unique vision and impeccable taste, culminating in one of the greatest collections of American art and objects of its kind.”
Jodi Pollack, Sotheby’s Chairman and Co-Worldwide Head of 20th Century Design“These important works of art add a new dimension to the Art Bridges Collection. We’re thrilled to make them accessible to communities across the country, where museum visitors and students can come to know this renowned American architect and his unique vision for American architecture through this incredible series of drawings.”
Paul Provost, Art Bridges CEONEW YORK, 28 April 2023 – Marking the close of a watershed series of auctions for the Wolf Family Collection at Sotheby’s, which set a new benchmark for a collection of American art & objects as the most valuable of its kind ever offered, Sotheby’s announces today that Art Bridges Foundation acquired the most significant collection of Frank Lloyd Wright drawings ever assembled in a private sale from the Wolf Collection.
The private acquisition follows Sotheby’s series of sales from The Wolf Family Collection, which achieved an astounding $68 million over the course of 10 cross-category live and online sales, with nine out of the 10 auctions meeting or exceeding their high estimates (sale-by-sale breakdown and further information below).
On public view at Sotheby’s during the exhibition for the Wolf Collection, these thirty-eight architectural renderings by Frank Lloyd Wright were acquired by Art Bridges in a landmark sale that followed a new auction record established for Wright only days earlier when his Ceiling Light from the Francis W. Little House, Peoria, Illinois sold for a record $2.9 million. The collection of drawings was assembled by Daniel Wolf, late son of Joy and Erving and brother of Mathew, who demonstrated incredible prescience of mind and forward-looking vision in the mid-1980s when he acquired the majority of these masterworks directly from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
This unparalleled group of drawings spans six decades of Wright’s prolific career, tracing the evolution of his approach to architecture from some of his earliest independent commissions in the late 1890s to the final designs before his death in 1959. When viewed chronologically, these drawings tell the story of Wright’s progression through his most iconic projects from his earliest drawings depicting the Prairie School period in Oak Park, Illinois to the late drawings which evince how Wright’s style matured and culminated in his most successful and celebrated realizations of organic architecture: Fallingwater, the Edgar J. Kaufmann House (1935) and the Solomon J. Guggenheim Museum (1959).
The acquisition of these major drawings by acclaimed architect Frank Lloyd Wright provides Art Bridges the ability to collaborate with partners across the United States through the exhibition of these works. Art Bridges is especially excited by the prospect of loaning the works to universities with architectural programs that will be able to use Wright’s art as a catalyst for research and curatorial exploration within classrooms.
Wolf Family Collection Overview and Auction Records
The historic auction series comprised a remarkable breadth of exceptional American-focused works of fine and decorative arts, with extraordinary examples of paintings and watercolors, sculpture, furniture, silver, design, jewelry, and Chinese export porcelain, spanning the 18th through 20th centuries.
The sales yielded deep bidding for some of the most renowned names in American Art History including Marsden Hartley, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Paul Howard Manship, among others, setting significant new benchmarks for each artist. Impressively, the body of works by Paul Howard Manship was led by the sculptor’s life-size Indian Hunter and His Dog, which soared above its high estimate, selling for $1.1 million, among the highest values for artist at auction. Strong results were also achieved for Chinese export porcelains, cementing the wide-ranging offering from the Wolf Collection as one of the most significant groups to appear at auction in the last thirty years, led by An Important Chinese Export Topographical ‘Hong’ and ‘Copenhagen’ Punch Bowl, which realized double its presale high estimate.
Additionally, several new auction records were achieved across the sales, most notably for Frank Lloyd Wright, whose Ceiling Light from the Francis W. Little House, Peoria, Illinois sold for $2.9 million, shattering Wright’s previous auction record. Fitz Henry Lane’s Bar Island and Mount Desert Mountains from Somes Settlement led the sales, achieving nearly four times its pre-sale high estimate for a total of $6.1 million, marking a new auction record for the artist, another accolade for the collection.
