When Kasper König - legendary German curator, Museum Director, and collector - passed away in Berlin this summer, the news shocked and saddened the art industry. This loss was described by Hans Ulrich Obrist in The Art Newspaper as the world losing one of the most significant curators of the second half of the 20th century.
König, who was the Director of the Ludwig Museum in Cologne from 2002 to 2012 (his 80th birthday last November saw him donating to the important institution a small part of his collection, 50 works including pieces by artists Günter Brus, Isa Genzken, Jenny Holzer, and Donald Judd), left a mark on the art discourse of the last five decades. Before Cologne, he had taught at the Düsseldorf Art School, the Städelschule in Frankfurt, and had founded Portikus and the Münster Sculpture Project.
The upcoming sale of his personal collection, titled "The Kasper König Collection - His Private Choice", will occur as scheduled with the German Auction House Van Ham on 1 and 2 October 2024. König himself supervised the organization of the event since the first visit from Van Ham executives to his home in February 2023.
The Cologne-based Auction House, known for the successful, white glove single-owner sale of the Thomas Olbricht Collection, hammered in seven auctions between 2020 and 2022, achieved a total turnover of €26 million in the first half of 2024.
The catalogue of "The Kasper König Collection - His Private Choice" includes over 200 paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures by 179 artists, spanning German and American Pop Art and Conceptual Art. Notably, there are also works by older masters such as drawings by Caspar David Friedrich, Max Klinger and a small oil on canvas by Gustave Moreau.
Kasper König has built the collection over more than 60 years through direct purchases and gifts from the artists. Van Ham Executive Manager Markus Eisenbeis and Van Ham Art Estate Director Renate Goldmann stated that the collection not only tells König's associative cosmos of thought but also his network from decades of international exhibiting and publishing.
The König Collection comes as an expression of loyalty to artists that he has accompanied throughout his life and supported at the beginning of their career (or even later in a critical situation).
Many of the works from König’s legacy – writes Prof. Günther Herzog in the Auction’s catalogue - reflect the content and the evolution of the international art system, in whose dynamic development the German curator has participated since the beginning of the 1960s as a catalyst and motor. In a recent conversation with his successor at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Yilmaz Dziewior, König described himself as an "agent" and a "doer" whereby the term "doing" encompasses all the sociological and thus also the economic aspects of the system, to which not a few works on sale allude in a critical or sometimes ironical manner.
Below is a selection of some of the most interesting artworks that will be auctioned during the Evening Sale on October 1. The lots essays are well worth a read at the following link:
Lot 11. John Chamberlain
Fleabane (Marsh). 1973
aluminium foil with acrylic lacquer and synthetic resin. 43 × 48 × 58.5 cm
Provenance:
- Ivan Karp, USA (directly from the artist)
- Ben Birillo Collection, USA
- Mourtala Diop Collection, Dakar
- Guy Pieters Gallery, Knokke-Heist
- Private collection
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin
Literature:
- Sylvester, Julie: John Chamberlain, A Catalogue Raisonné
of the Sculpture 19954-1985, New York 1986, WVZ. no. 423, ill.
€ 30.000 - 50.000
Lot 13. William Copley
Untitled. 1956
oil on canvas. 54 × 80.5 cm
Signed and dated: CPLY 56.
Provenance:
- Roberto and Sonali Dasgupta Rossellini Collection, Rome (since ca. 1960)
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin (since ca. 1997)
Exhibitions:
- Gallery 1900-2000, Paris 1988
- Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau 2000 (label on verso)
Literature:
- Exhib. cat. William N. Copley: CPLY, Gallery 1900-2000, Paris, ill.
€ 60.000 - 80.000
Lot 19. Caspar David Friedrich
Forest study. Circa 1811
pencil on paper. Mounted. 19 × 12 cm
Signed verso: ‘Friedrich f.’ Frame.
Verso:
Pencil sketch with spruce trunks and signature.
Provenance:
- Kühl Gallery, Dresden 1928
- Hirschland Collection, New York 1966
- Private collection, New York 1974
- Gallery Heiner Friedrich, Munich ca. 1970
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin
Exhibitions:
- ‘Caspar David Friedrich the graphic artist. Hand drawings and etchings.’ Art exhibition Heinrich Kühl, Dresden 1928, no. 89.
- Thomas Fischer Gallery, Berlin 2018
Literature:
- Ch. Grummt: Caspar David Friedrich. The Drawings - the complete oeuvre, volume II, Munich 2011, p. 633, no. 655 with ill.
€ 40.000 - 60.000Lot 23. Dan Graham
Lot 30. On Kawara
‘MAY 7, 1967’. 1967
acrylic on canvas, with enclosed newspaper ‘The New York Times’ from Sunday, 7 May
1967, in original cardboard. 33.5 × 44 cm
Titled and dated in the centre: MAY 7, 1967. signed and dated again on the verso.
Provenance:
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin (directly from the artist)
€ 500.000 - 700.000
Lot 42. Claes Oldenburg
‘Ghost Wardrobe for M. M.’. 4-piece. 1967-1983
wardrobe, hangers, cords, shoes (metal, nails and concrete), wires.
Approx. 178 × 107 × 60 cm
Titled, monogrammed and dated: Ghost Wardrobe for M. M. co 67-83.
Also signed, dated and inscribed underneath: Oldenburg 67-83 G.W.M.M.
Provenance:
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin (directly from the artist)
Exhibitions:
- Sidney Janis Gallery, New York 1967, no. 33
- National Portrait Gallery, London 2007-08
- Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart 2008
- Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden 2009
- MUMOK, Vienna 2012
- Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 2012
- Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao 2013
- Museum of Modern Art, New York 2013
- Walker Art Center, Minneapolis 2013-13
- Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden 2017/2018
Literature:
- Ginsburg, Susan, Claes Oldenburg: Sculpture, 1960-1968. A Catalogue Raisonne. (Volumes I and II), 1991, CUNY Academic Works, no. 360
- Exhib. cat. Homage to Marilyn Monroe, Sidney Jannis Gallery, New York 1967
- Lawrence Alloway, Marilyn as Subject Matter, in Lawrence Alloway, Topics in American Art since 1945, New York 1975, pp. 140-144, here p. 144
- Exhib. cat. America America, How Real is Real? Museum Frieder Burda, Esslingen 2017, p. 50, ill.
€ 100.000 - 150.000
Lot 47. Sigmar Polke
Masterpiece auctioned off as junk.
mixed media on canvas. 39.5 × 49.5 cm
Titled in the centre. Inscribed and signed verso: Ramsch als Meisterwerk veredelt! bitteschön Sigmar Polke.
Frame.
Provenance:
- Erhard Klein Gallery, Bonn
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin
Exhibitions:
- Gallery Thomas Fischer, Berlin 2018
€ 30.000 - 50.000
Lot 54. Andy Warhol
Somebody Wants to Buy Your Apartment Building! (Negative). 1985-86
acrylic and colour silkscreen on canvas. 41 × 51 cm
Provenance:
- Estate of the artist
- Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., New York
- Private collection
- Private collection
- Sotheby's Contemporary Day Sale, Auction 19 November 2011, lot 314
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin
€ 100.000 - 150.000
Lot 58. Franz West
Prototype of the Auditorium Sofa. 1991
Steel, foam, cardboard, carpet 110 × 208 × 80 cm
Provenance:
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin (directly from the artist)
€ 20.000 - 30.000
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