Christie’s just announced another major trophy consignment for this season, spanning more than 30 categories, but led by two museum-grade Alberto Giacometti sculptures and two Alexander Calder works. Debuting on the rostrum this November as part of the auction house’s 20th Century Evening Sale, the complete trove is expected to bring in tens of millions of dollars across sales over several years.
Behind this consignment is Max Berry, an international trade lawyer and, before anything else, a humanist connoisseur turned relentless collector. His holdings are encyclopedic, stemming initially from a childhood fascination with stamps, coins and marbles and then later expanding to American and Chinese art, Modern masters and Judaica. Guided less by market trends than by his passion for cultural and creative expression, Berry’s collecting activities have evolved into the present to encompass important art and artifacts from Nantucket and Western and Indigenous works.
Now nearing 90, Berry has begun planning his succession. His trove of masterpieces and historically significant artifacts will roll out in stages, first in November’s marquee 20th-century sale and later in a private selling exhibition of Judaica in December, a single-owner series of American art in January 2026 and, finally, his extensive Chinese art holdings across the Chinese Works of Art sales from March 2026 through 2027.
Headlining the November sale is Calder’s Acrobats, the artist’s first wire sculpture, created in 1929 as he began turning his toy-maker’s ingenuity into pure artistic form. Estimated at $5-7 million, Acrobats shares a direct link with Calder’s Cirque Calder, the hand-built, suitcase-sized circus he assembled in Paris between 1926 and 1931—a miniature theater populated with hundreds of tiny wire, cork, leather, cloth, string and found-object figures and props that remains one of the most extraordinary experiments of that pivotal period.
The work comes to market just as the Whitney opens “High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100,” a centennial tribute to the artist’s most formative creation, which the museum acquired in 1982 as a gift from the Calder family. “In Calder’s Circus, we find the essence of his brilliance: an artistic spectacle modest in scale yet bursting with drama and humanity,” said Whitney curator Jennie Goldstein in a statement. Berry, echoing the sentiment, tells Observer that the late 1920s and 1930s were “Calder’s strongest and most desirable period to collect. That’s when he came into his own full creativity.”
Also hitting the rostrum after years of floating in Berry’s D.C. home is Calder’s yellow hanging mobile Untitled (1938), estimated at $1.5-2 million. “Both works lived with me in Washington,” Berry says in an exclusive interview ahead of the sale’s announcement. “The hanging piece was always moving—even in the dead of summer, when there was no breeze, it was still shifting. It’s rare.” He recalled a Calder documentary he recently found on YouTube: “It confirmed what I’ve always believed—Calder was like a child in a man’s body, but with an adult artist’s talent. These toy-like sculptures aren’t just playful; they open a new dimension of art. Through them, you see his life, his joy and how that joy shaped the future of art.”
The other star consignments include Giacometti’s bronze sculpture Buste d’homme (Diego), signed, numbered 2/6 and inscribed with the foundry mark, carrying an estimate of $5-8 million, and a 1938 still life painting, Nature Morte, estimated at $1.5-2 million.
Most of the collection Christie’s is offering comes from a trust Berry created for his children, who are not themselves collectors and plan to keep only a few personally meaningful works. “It’s time for me to use what I know to start bringing to market the things I love,” Berry explains. “I’ve given several pieces to museums that matter to me, but these are the works I want to sell before I leave this wonderful world, so my family can inherit them as cash and investments instead of objects they wouldn’t know how to manage.”
As we spoke, Berry was candid about the difficulty of letting go of objects that have been part of his daily life for years. The pieces he’ll miss most read like a roll call of American painting, modern and ancient treasures: Winslow Homer’s Mountain Climber Resting, George Inness’s Delaware Water Gap, Albert Bierstadt’s Yosemite Valley, Sunset, all of his Prendergasts, William Merritt Chase’s Afternoon in the Park, William Harnett’s An Evening’s Comfort, Calder’s Acrobats, Tang Dynasty guardians, the Kowtowing Official, a vast inlaid bone mirror and a triple-glazed Tang horse. “Too many to mention—all exquisite pieces and remembrances,” he says.
“They’re more than memories—they become part of your life. What you loved so many years ago still holds its place in your heart; the interest never fades,” he reflects. Yet even as he admits letting go is bittersweet, he’s adamant that his decision is rooted in pragmatism. “It’s simply time.”
Whether this is the right time, market-wise, is a question that could generate mixed feelings. Strong results for recent single-owner sales—Pauline Karpidas’s $100 million white-glove auction at Sotheby’s London and Christie’s $272 million Riggio collection in May—suggest that top-tier material still commands high demand. Yet the art world was stunned when Giacometti’s Grande tête mince (Grand tête de Diego) went unsold at Sotheby’s in spring, failing to meet the $70 million target set by its consignor, the Soloviev Foundation. From Berry’s trove comes the same subject in another version, making its reception a test case for both market appetite and Christie’s pricing strategy. As recent auction successes and failures prove, the final result will depend far more on whether consignors’ expectations and strategic estimates align with actual buyer demand.
Berry, for his part, is unconcerned about timing. For him, the market’s ups and downs have never been the point. “I’ve been watching art auctions for a long time, across all kinds of markets—hot markets, soft markets and markets shaped by economic troubles. All of that plays into value, whether it’s coins, stamps or art,” he notes. “However, it doesn’t matter as much what a piece sells for. What matters is that I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of living with it since I acquired it.”
Max Berry’s relentless journey of learning and collecting
Born in Oklahoma and raised in Tulsa, Max Berry earned his degree in international law and trade from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. He built his fortune as an international trade lawyer, practicing in Washington from 1967 until 2010. Over his career, he represented industries and governments across Europe and South America, as well as the Canadian government in its agricultural trade disputes with the U.S. He also advised U.S. corporations and trade associations exporting products abroad. His primary clients included French wine, spirits, dairy and vegetable exporters; Eastern and Western European meat processors; Dutch and Danish chemical companies; Brazilian specialty steel manufacturers; the Colombian leather industry; and the Finnish paper-making and dairy industries. It was a career that, in his words, allowed him to engage with both the practical and the aesthetic pleasures of a “full” life.
Not born into a family of collectors, Berry found his way to art on his own, starting with stamps and coins. At ten, he joined the Tulsa Philatelic Association with a cousin. “We were just kids, surrounded by men in their 50s and 70s, trading and talking,” he recalls. “I didn’t have anyone in my family who was a collector, though I imagine people might assume otherwise. It just isn’t true. As a little boy, I simply liked collecting things.”
Asking questions and seeking out expertise became the foundations of his collecting journey. Over time, his focus shifted and evolved across categories, always driven by curiosity and a willingness to learn. What is extraordinary about Berry’s extensive collection is that it is entirely the product of this humanist exercise—studying, questioning and learning about cultural expression—guided by the modesty and honesty of a self-taught connoisseur.
He has always looked for top experts, engaging them in passionate discussions that deepened his understanding of the very different rules and dynamics of markets from Chinese art to Americana to Judaica. “Experts like to talk, and there’s no reason not to reach out,” he counsels. “When I became more serious, and real money was at stake, I didn’t want to make a costly mistake. For anyone just starting out, I’d recommend spending a few months—even a year—talking to experts before you begin buying.” Even mistakes, he admits, are valuable teachers. “You can buy a fake, and that’s a hard lesson. Every collector makes mistakes and has regrets, but you learn from them.”
Berry also built his encyclopedic knowledge through regular museum visits. “Living in cities like New York gives you the chance to learn about art the easy way: go to museums, talk to people, attend lectures—many of them free—and spend your days immersed in culture,” Berry advises. He regards the Metropolitan Museum of Art—where he served on the Board of Trustees for 15 years—as perhaps the greatest museum in the world for its encyclopedic collection. He also considers the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., very special, and the Phillips Collection, where he served on the board for 16 years, especially meaningful.
Berry also confesses a deep affection for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, where he grew up and still serves in an honorary capacity. As soon as he could afford it, he began giving back to the cultural institutions that shaped him—serving actively on boards, lending works and donating significant pieces. Among many accolades, he received the John Singleton Copley Medal for distinguished service from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and was named one of D.C.’s top art patrons.
The Met’s American Wing has particularly benefited from Berry’s collection, thanks to his early focus on American artists and artifacts before they were widely appreciated. “Sometimes, when curators visited, I’d show them the work enough times that they began to acquire pieces themselves,” he notes. One example is his collection of Nantucket scrimshaw—carvings made from whalebone during the island’s era as the world’s whaling capital, an important chapter of American history often overlooked in museum collections. Berry donated a small group of scrimshaw pieces to the Met, now on display in the American Wing’s courtyard gallery near the restaurant and balconies. “It’s not the most expensive gift I’ve given them, but it’s one I’m proud of,” he says. “They’ve never shown scrimshaw like this before. Someone from the Met saw my collection and went back saying, ‘We don’t have anything on whaling, and it’s a big part of American history.’ The acquisition committee agreed, so now the test is whether they say, ‘Yes, let’s go to Berry’s collection.’”
Berry has owned thousands of objects across various genres—and still owns thousands more. But he insists the number is not what matters: “It is the quality, rarity, condition, history and societal importance of the objects that matter.”
His hope is that his works will find new owners who cherish them as he has. “This may sound a little ridiculous, but I want the people who buy the pieces I love to love them as much as I do, but not more,” he says. “I just hope they all end up in good homes. It may sound silly, because they’re not human beings or animals, but I do still feel a responsibility toward them, almost like a duty to place them well.” Berry’s ultimate wish is that the works are enjoyed, whether by private collectors or in institutions. “It will be wonderful if a museum acquires some of them and makes them public, where they can sit alongside other objects of a similar nature to tell the story of their artistry and their times.”
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