Barnes & Noble Widow to Auction $250 Million Art Collection

For decades, a small but mighty painting by the artist Piet Mondrian has greeted visitors in the grand vestibule of the Park Avenue apartment where the Barnes & Noble founder, Leonard Riggio, entertained guests. But the book mogul’s death last year prompted his widow, Louise, to think about downsizing; many of the artworks that she and her husband collected would need to go.

“This is tough for me to say goodbye to old friends, but I will not put them in storage,” she said of the artworks. “They need to be seen.”

On Thursday, Christie’s said it would offer nearly 30 artworks with a total estimated value in excess of $250 million in their upcoming spring sales, including works by Magritte, Picasso, Giacometti and Warhol. The Mondrian from the family’s vestibule is expected to be the auction’s top lot with a high estimate that is expected to top the $51 million record for a similar painting set in 2022.

The announcement capped an intense bidding war between the auction house and its rival, Sotheby’s, which took the unusual step of bringing in Pace Gallery as a third-party partner in an attempt to woo Riggio, according to two senior advisers close to the negotiations. (Sotheby’s and Pace declined to comment.)

“We have a longstanding relationship with Christie’s,” Riggio said, adding that the financial aspects of the deal were more appealing than what other companies provided. (Christie’s declined to say what favorable terms it offered, though auction houses will often guarantee a minimum price for artworks to attract sellers.)

The art market has suffered a significant decline in sales over the last few years, leading to industrywide layoffs and nervous sellers. The Riggio collection will test the market’s strength, coming after the chaos of the presidential election but in the midst of uncertainty over how American tariffs might affect the global art trade.

It will also test the mettle of a new chief executive; early this month, Bonnie Brennan was promoted into the leadership position after more than 12 years with the company.

“There is a depth and breadth to what the Riggios collected,” Brennan said in an interview, recalling how Leonard would personally attend the major auctions, waving his paddle in the air to purchase multimillion-dollar artworks. “They are true collectors.”

The art being offered at Christie’s provide a more intimate view of the Riggio family’s collecting habits, which are more closely associated with monumental and minimalist works. The couple have been major supporters of the Dia Art Foundation for decades, and the couple’s home in Bridgehampton, N.Y., includes an outdoor sculpture by Richard Serra that can be seen from space satellites.

But the artworks from the Riggio apartment in Manhattan belonged to an earlier period of collecting, one that Louise, in the interview, described as having a personal touch. “We bought quietly,” she recalled. “It was instinct. Art tells a story and we liked being part of that story.”

Riggio had a passion for art history, using the rooms of her home to showcase the collection. For example, one René Magritte painting offered in the sale, from his “Empire of Light” series, used to hang above the fireplace in the family’s den, near works by Max Ernst and Arshile Gorky. The living room had examples by Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti and Fernand Léger, while the dining room was home to abstract expressionist works by Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and others.

Still mourning the loss of her husband after nearly 45 years of marriage, Riggio said that there are some artworks from the apartment that she is not yet willing to sell. The last piece that he bought for her was a Van Gogh drawing of a little girl with a baguette under her arm. And for a birthday some years back, he presented her with a battered box signed as a gift from their dog, Cookie.

“I’m thinking it is going to be a funny picture or a shirt,” she recalled. “It was a Degas.”

The collection was full of those personal memories. “It was about our love and our time together,” Riggio said.