See Inside Leonard Lauder’s Art Collection in His Fifth Avenue Apartment

When Leonard A. Lauder, the visionary beauty-industry executive, philanthropist, and art collector passed away in June, questions arose about the fate of his extraordinary art collection. The answer arrived earlier this fall when Sotheby’s New York announced that it would present a landmark sale of works from his private holdings on November 18 at the auction house’s new home at the Breuer on Madison Avenue. The evening auction, which will include Klimts, Matisses, and a Munch, is expected to realize more than $400 million.

In 2011, when the collection was still inside his home, however, it was meticulously photographed in situ by Stinehour photography. Sotheby’s is now releasing a few, never before seen, images from this series. The photographs offer a unique view into Lauder’s curatorial hand, which Emily Braun, who has served as the Curator of the Leonard A. Lauder Collection since 1987, has traced back to a childhood exploring the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he’d later donate the Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection in 2013. When he grew up and built his own collection, he’d hang them, “to have conversations,” she said.

Lisa Dennison, Chairman of Sotheby’s North and South America, and former director of the Guggenheim Museum, recalls seeing the results of Lauder’s curation, particularly when, “The Klimt Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer ultimately had to go from the living room—where it had this pride of place—to the dining room when he bought this giant Léger.” When she visited, she also remembered that, “The Cubist collection hung on one wall, the Lederer portrait in the living room, and Blooming Meadow above the bed.”

At the heart of the Sotheby’s sale are three paintings by Gustav Klimt, the crown jewel of which is the Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (executed from 1914–16), estimated to sell for more than $150 million, which Lauder bought from Serge Sabarsky in 1985. The painting’s sitter, the daughter of August and Serena Lederer, two of Klimt’s most important patrons, anchors the work in Viennese cultural history. Two others, Blumenwiese (Blooming Meadow) (circa 1908) and Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee (Forest Slope in Unterach on the Attersee) (1916), are expected to bring more than $80 million and $70 million, respectively.

Sotheby’s has turned the auction into the centerpiece of a larger project to celebrate Lauder as a benefactor and collector, and they’ve produced a catalog and and a four-part documentary film to commemorate the sale. The photographs of the apartment will be featured in the catalog. (Exhibition catalogs were another passion of his. Braun remembers that when they worked together, he had a special one “made of the labels of the Met’s (2014) Cubism and (2022/2023) Trompe l’Oeil exhibitions.” Braun co-curated the latter with Elizabeth Cowling.). The documentary will include sections devoted to the importance of provenance in Lauder’s life, as well as his contributions to the Whitney and American art more broadly. A separate, shorter, film narrated by Nicholas Chow, the Sotheby’s Worldwide Head of Asian Art, explores the Japanese and Chinese influences in the Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer.

Of course, it’s the auction itself, held at Sotheby’s new Breuer location, that will stir the most excitement. As a trustee and chairman of the board of the Whitney, Lauder spent many years there in its previous iteration. Against the stark grey walls of the 1966 construction, the art will strike a different note than in his warm interiors. Braun, for one, is looking forward to seeing them displayed against the “envelope of that luminous grey.” With the newly released photographs of Lauder’s home, however, we’ll have the opportunity to compare.

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