The billion dollar art collection of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen will go under the hammer this November in one of the biggest art auctions in history.
In a statement, Christie’s said that the famed auction house will sell off more than 150 ‘masterpieces’ belonging to Allen’s foundation. The collection spans over 500 years of art history while the value of the works is more than $1 billion. The auction is titled: ‘Visionary: The Paul G. Allen Collection.’ The proceeds will be divided up among various charities.
Among the artists’ whose work is featured in Allen’s collection include Paul Cezanne, Jasper Johns, David Hockney, Edward Hopper, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Georgia O’Keefe, Paul Gauguin, Roy Lichtenstein and Claude Monet. Following Allen’s death, it was revealed that he was the anonymous buyer of Monet’s haystacks painting titled Meule in 2016. The painting sold for $81.4 million.
Allen passed away in October 2018 at the age of 65 due to complications from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a rare form of cancer. He never married and had no children.
He struck gold when he founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975, his childhood friend who he convinced to drop out of Harvard to start the company. He left the company in 1983 but remained on the board until 2000.
At the time of his death, Allen’s net worth was estimated to be over $20 billion. In 2010, Allen signed a pledge to leave most of his fortune to charity.
The auction will take place at Christie’s Rockefeller Center this November. The exact date was not confirmed.
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Source: Daily Mail
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