Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — The personal art collection of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen might fetch more than $1 billion when it is auctioned in November. He described the event as the largest ever auction sale.
For its part, Christie’s Auctions, which is responsible for the sale, said that the art collection will be displayed at its headquarters in New York, and its proceeds will go to charitable causes.
The collection includes works from different periods in the past 500 years of art history, and the sale includes Paul Cézanne’s “La Montagne Sainte-Victoire”, or Mount Sainte-Victoire, by French painter Paul Cézanne, which is expected to fetch more than $100 million.
The sale will include American painter Gasper Johns’ painting “Small False Start”, which is valued at more than $50 million.
Guillaume Cerruti, CEO of Christie’s, said: “Paul Allen’s inspiring personality, exceptional quality and diversity of artwork, and the dedication of all proceeds from the sale to philanthropy create a unique combination that will make the sale of the Allen Collection an unprecedented event.”
Allen, who co-founded Microsoft Corporation in 1975 with Bill Gates, died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2018, at the age of 65.
Paul’s sister and executor, Jodi Allen, said in a press release that for her brother the art was “analytical and emotional”.
She continued, “[Paul]believed that art expresses a unique vision of reality, combining the artist’s inner state with the inner eye, in a way that can inspire us all.
“His collection reflects the diversity of his interests, with its charm and beauty,” she added.
After spending several decades assembling his art collection, Allen loaned his works to museums around the world.
He also held exhibitions of the most prominent holdings in his collection, for example, the 2016 “Vision of Nature” exhibition, during which he displayed 39 important landscape paintings.
“Living with these pieces of art is really cool,” Allen told Bloomberg in 2015. “I feel like you have to share some work to give the audience a chance to see it.”
