Ileana Sonnabend (née Schapira, October 29, 1914 – October 21, 2007) was a Romanian-American art dealer of 20th-century art. The Sonnabend Gallery opened in Paris in 1962 and was instrumental in making American art of the 1960s known in Europe, with an emphasis on American pop art. In 1970, Sonnabend Gallery opened in New York on

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stree ...

, and in 1971 relocated to 420

West Broadway West Broadway is a north-south street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, separated into two parts by Tribeca Park. The northern part begins at Tribeca Park, near the intersection of Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue), Walker Street ...

SoHo SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

where it was one of the major protagonists that made SoHo the international art center it remained until the early 1990s. The gallery was instrumental in making European art of the 1970s known in America, with an emphasis on European conceptual art and

Arte Povera Arte Povera (; literally "poor art") was an art movement that took place between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s in major cities throughout Italy and above all in Turin. Other cities where the movement was also important are ...

. It also presented American conceptual and

minimal art Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or conc ...

of the 1970s. In 1986, the so-called "Neo-Geo" show introduced, among others, the artist

Jeff Koons Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror- finish s ...

. In the late 1990s, the gallery moved to Chelsea and continues to be active after Sonnabend's death.

Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position at the Times. Education and early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawre ...

(October 24, 2007)
"Ileana Sonnabend, Art World Figure, Dies at 92"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''.] The gallery goes on showing the work of artists who rose to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s including Robert Morris (artist), Robert Morris,

Bernd and Hilla Becher Bernhard "Bernd" Becher (; 20 August 1931 – 22 June 2007), and Hilla Becher, née Wobeser (2 September 1934 – 10 October 2015), were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their e ...

and

Gilbert & George Gilbert Prousch, sometimes referred to as Gilbert Proesch (born 17 September 1943), and George Passmore (born 8 January 1942) are artists who work together as the collaborative art duo Gilbert & George. They are known for their formal appearance ...

as well as more recent artists including Jeff Koons, Rona Pondick,

Candida Höfer Candida Höfer (born 4 February 1944) is a German photographer. She is a renowned photographer known for her exploration of public spaces and architecture. In her career she transitioned from portraiture to focusing on spaces like libraries and m ...

, Elger Esser, and Clifford Ross.

Life and work

Sonnabend was born Ileana Schapira in Bucharest to a Romanian Jewish father, Mihail Schapira, and his Viennese wife, Marianne Strate-Felber. Ileana Sonnabend received a degree in psychology from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. Her father, Mihail Schapira, was a successful businessman and financial advisor to King

Carol II of Romania Carol II (4 April 1953) was King of Romania from 8 June 1930, until his forced abdication on 6 September 1940. As the eldest son of King Ferdinand I, he became crown prince upon the death of his grand-uncle, King Carol I, in 1914. He was the f ...

. Sonnabend was, for many years, married to

Leo Castelli Leo Castelli ( Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which Castelli s ...

, whom she met in Bucharest in 1932 and married soon after. The couple had a daughter, Nina Sundell. She and her husband left Europe during the 1940s and settled in New York City. During the 1940s, her mother Marianne Schapira divorced her father and met and married the Russian-born American painter

John D. Graham John D. Graham (, Kyiv, Ukraine – June 27, 1961, London, England) was a Ukrainian–born United States, American Modernism, modernist and Figurative art, figurative painter, art collector, and a mentor of modernist artists in New York City. B ...

(who was a mentor figure to artists such as

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning ( , ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...

, and

Arshile Gorky Arshile Gorky ( ; born Vostanik Manoug Adoian, ; April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian Americans, Armenian-American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent the last years of his life as a national of the ...

). Graham also became a mentor to Ileana and Leo by introducing them to his artist friends in the New York art world. In 1950, the couple curated a show of young American and European painters, which included both

Jean Dubuffet Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (; 31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French Painting, painter and sculpture, sculptor of the School of Paris, École de Paris (School of Paris). His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" a ...

and

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko ( ; Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz until 1940; September 25, 1903February 25, 1970) was an American abstract art, abstract painter. He is best known for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular reg ...

.Charles Darwent (October 27, 2007)
"Ileana Sonnabend – Queen of the SoHo art world"
''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

''. After divorcing Castelli (with whom she remained lifelong friends) in 1959 she married Polish-born scholar Michael Sonnabend, whom she had met during the 1940s. Two years later, they opened Galerie Ileana Sonnabend on in Paris, where she introduced art by

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein ( ; October27, 1923September29, 1997) was an American pop artist. He rose to prominence in the 1960s through pieces which were inspired by popular advertising and the comic book style. Much of his work explores the relations ...

and others, and helped establish a European market for their work.Mary Rourke (October 27, 2007)
"Ileana Sonnabend, 92; influential N. Y. art dealer, collector"
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

''. In 1965, they acquired an additional apartment on Ca' del Dose in Venice. In 1968, the couple closed the Paris showroom and moved back to New York. At one time, the couple thought that Michael Sonnabend would run the New York gallery while Ileana oversaw their Paris establishment, but he soon found that the art business did not suit him. Ileana

In 1971, she opened the Sonnabend Gallery, in a building at 420 West Broadway in Soho. The industrial chic restoration instantly became the center of the emerging SoHo art scene. She inaugurated her gallery with a performance by

. She exhibited American artists like Jeff Koons and

Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an American performance art, performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His performan ...

, and introduced European artists like

Christo Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks a ...

Georg Baselitz Georg Baselitz (born 23 January 1938) is a German Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor and Graphic arts, graphic artist. In the 1960s he became well known for his Figurative art, figurative, expressive paintings. In 1969 he began painting his ...

, and

Jannis Kounellis Jannis Kounellis (; 23 March 1936 – 16 February 2017) was a Greek Italian artist based in Rome. A key figure associated with Arte Povera, he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. Life and work Kounellis was born in Piraeus, Greece i ...

to U.S. audiences. When the performance artist Vito Acconci announced that his performance piece ''Seedbed'' called for him to masturbate in her gallery for two weeks in 1972, Sonnabend simply replied, "You do what you have to do." In 2000, after she had closed her other galleries, Sonnabend and her adopted son Antonio Homem moved the SoHo gallery to West 22nd Street in Chelsea.

Collection

After Sonnabend died in her Manhattan home in October 2007 at the age of 92, the

estate tax International tax law distinguishes between an estate tax and an inheritance tax. An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and pr ...

return pegged her total worth at $876 million, triggering a $471m tax bill. Her heirs subsequently sold a portion of her postwar-art collection for $600 million—reportedly the largest private sale in history. Although the family had been in talks with the auction houses, they chose to sell parts of the collection privately because of the uncertainties surrounding the financial markets during the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.

. Backed by members of the Al Thani family, the art-dealers collective GPS Partners purchased $400m of paintings and sculptures dating mainly from the 1960s on behalf of private clients. This first cache is said to have included Jeff Koons's 1986 sculpture ''

Rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

'', which has been valued in excess of $80 million, as well as Roy Lichtenstein's cartoon painting ''Eddie Diptych'' (1962), Cy Twombly's abstract ''Blue Room'' (1957) and Andy Warhol's ''Silver Disaster'' (1963), one of the artist's paintings of an electric chair. The second transaction, a selection of paintings by Warhol, was sold to

Gagosian Gallery The Gagosian Gallery is a modern and contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most well-known artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. As of 2024, Gagosian employs 300 people at 19 exhibiti ...

for a reported $200m. Among the Warhols sold by the heirs are ''Four Marilyns'' (1962); two paintings of

Elizabeth Taylor Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was an English and American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 19 ...

; and three small paintings from the artist's "Death and Disaster" series. In 2011, 59 paintings, sculptures, and photographs by 46 artists, selected from Sonnabend's personal collection, were shown in "Ileana Sonnabend: An Italian Portrait" at the

Peggy Guggenheim Collection The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is an art museum on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro ''sestiere'' of Venice, Italy. It is one of the most visited attractions in Venice. The collection is housed in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, an 18th-century ...

. In 2014, the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

in New York paid tribute to Sonnabend's legacy with an exhibition entitled, ''Ileana Sonnabend: Ambassador for the New'' (21 December 2013 – 21 April 2014). The exhibition included the work of approximately 40 artists, including

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" or "Bob" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combine painting, Combines (1954� ...

Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, draftsman, and printmaker. Considered a central figure in the development of American postwar art, he has been variously associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and ...

, and Andy Warhol.Ileana Sonnabend: Ambassador for the New
. MoMAPRESS. Retrieved 28 December 2013.

Life and work

Collection

References

Further reading