The Tamesis
Just months after Marian Goodman died in January at the age of 97, she was back on the market as a consignor.
Christie’s will feature works from the dealer’s personal collection at a major sale in New York in May, led by a group of paintings by Gerhard Richter, one of which is estimated to be worth $50 million. The materials, which once hung in Goodman’s Manhattan home, are estimated to be worth a total of about $65 million.
The centerpiece is a selection of seven Richter paintings from 1982 to 2009, presented at the start of the 21st Century Evening Sale on 20 May. including paintings from 1982 Kerze (candle), Featuring the artist’s most famous and popular motifs; it has a presale estimate of between $35 million and $50 million.
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The group also documented Goodman’s relationship with Richter, whom she began representing in 1985, when Richter’s U.S. market was untapped. Over the following decades, she handed his work to major institutions while preserving key examples—an approach that helped stabilize prices and shape his popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. (Richter made headlines in 2022 when he left the gallery to join David Zwirner.)
Kerze (candle), In 1982, Christie’s estimated it at $35 million to $50 million in May of this year.
Courtesy of Christie’s Imaging Limited, 2016
This strategy now seems insightful. Richter’s market proved durable, even as demand for high-end paintings softened after the war. his 1986 abstract image In 2015, the work was sold at Sotheby’s in London for US$46.3 million, setting an auction record for a living European artist at the time. Large-scale abstract works from the 1990s also continue to fetch high prices at auction. In this context, Goodman’s Richter collection emerges as rarity and narrative.
Additional works in the collection will be offered via day sale and online auctions, with all works from the Goodman family and excluding artists currently represented by the gallery.
The timing was good for Christie. The market shows a clear preference for well-curated single-owner collections, particularly those associated with institutionally influential figures. Goodman opened her gallery in 1977 with an exhibition of works by Marcel Broodthaers, and she spent decades building one of the most rigorous programs in contemporary art, supporting the likes of Richter, Lothar Baumgarten, Giuseppe Penone, Julie Mehretu and William Kentridge. Kentridge, who left in 2024, has shown unusual consistency.
Her approach is simple, but not popular in the current market: commit early, stay long-term, and deploy carefully. Once she hired an artist, she displayed their work regularly for decades, resisting the turmoil of the gallery boom years of the past few decades.
The May auctions are all remnants of this discipline. Richter’s work, in particular, can serve as a lesson to dealers and collectors on what to sell, what to keep, and when faith should take precedence over easy money or collections.
