Carmen Thyssen is putting one of her most emblematic paintings up for sale once again. The baroness, who has recovered from a serious bout of ... pneumonia in recent months, is parting with a remarkable work by Edward Hopper, The "Martha McKeen" of Wellfleet (1944).
The painting ranks among the highlights of Sotheby's modern art auction in New York on 18 November. It also has a connection with Malaga: in 2015, it was the star attraction at Días de verano. De Sorolla a Hopper: a temporary exhibition organised by the collector's museum in the city. Thyssen herself inaugurated the exhibition and posed for photographs alongside its centrepiece.
The oil painting is expected to command one of the highest prices at the upcoming New York auction. Sotheby's estimates that the seascape could fetch between22.4 million and 33.6 million dollars.
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The painting also has a story of its own. Edward Hopper (Nyack, 1882–New York, 1967) gave it its title in tribute to the McKeen family, who invited him to go sailing during their holidays in Wellfleet, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Bright and nautical in atmosphere, the painting stands in stark contrast to some of the American artist's best-known works, in which hotel rooms and late-night cafés capture the isolation, loneliness and alienation of urban life.
The work has become one of Hopper's most sought-after paintings among museums and galleries since its first exhibition at the Carnegie Institute's Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. It later travelled to institutions including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, London's Hayward Gallery, the Vatican Museums in Rome, Tokyo's Bunkamura and the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen, Switzerland.
Its longest stay came at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, from where it travelled to Malaga for the 2015 exhibition.
Tense negotiations
The Thyssen family have owned the painting for almost half a century. The work has passed through New York's Frank K. M. Rehn and Kennedy art galleries and the private collection of Harold Harris. During that period, museums across the US exhibited it regularly.
Baron Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza bought the painting in 1980 and its international profile grew as it featured in major exhibitions around the world. After the collector's death, the work became part of Baroness Carmen Cervera's private collection and went on long-term loan to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.
The painting remained there until 2020, when the owner withdrew it, along with other works from her private collection, amid tense negotiations to renew the loan agreement covering part of her collection at the museum.
Its appearance at auction six years later offers a rare opportunity for major collectors. The painting belongs to a mature phase of Hopper's career and forms part of his nautical series, which comprises just five works. The "Martha McKeen" of Wellfleet was the last of them he painted. Its artistic appeal is enhanced by its more than four decades in the Thyssen collection and its unusual subject matter: Hopper seascapes rarely come up for auction.
Sotheby's has placed the Hopper among the leading lots in its November sale, which will also feature paintings by major artists including Paul Signac, André Derain, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt and Málaga-born Pablo Picasso.
Four works from Picasso's late period will go under the hammer, including Femme nue et homme au fanion and Couple, neither of which has appeared in public since 1970. Another work attracting considerable interest is a classic painting by René Magritte featuring one of his trademark bowler-hatted men. It could fetch as much as 35 million dollars.
The future of the Malaga museum remains uncertain
Baroness Tita Thyssen has put The "Martha McKeen" of Wellfleet on the market to raise cash and the final price could reach the upper end of Sotheby's estimate.
The collector has kept a low public profile for months while recovering from health problems. She has not explained why she is selling one of her most representative works, although she has auctioned other celebrated paintings in the past, including John Constable's The Lock, to generate income to maintain her property and art collections.
In 2021, Thyssen reached an agreement with Spain's Ministry of Culture to lend her private collection to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid for 15 years, in return for annual payments of 6.5 million euros. The deal secured the collection's presence in Spain for that period and gave the state a right of first refusal to purchase it in 2037.
A separate agreement with Malaga city council is now under discussion to secure the future of the Carmen Thyssen Museum in the city. The original 15-year contract expired in June, so the two sides extended it until the end of this year to give them time to negotiate a new deal.
The aim is to keep Thyssen's collection of 19th- and 20th-century Spanish paintings at the Palacio de Villalón. As Mayor Francisco de la Torre has previously explained, the negotiations involve not only the collector herself but also her heirs.