The Estate of Terry Allen Kramer, a Flashy Heiress and Tony-Winning Broadway Producer, Will Hit the Auction Block This Fall

Terry Allen Kramer, the late
heiress and theater producer behind Kinky Boots, Hello, Dolly!, and The Goat, or Who Is
Sylvia?, was as famous
for her lavish, art-filled homes and she was for the five Tony
Awards to her name. Before she died in May of this year, her
stacked collection of Impressionist and Modern artwork—including
major pieces by Picasso, Degas
and Matisse—were displayed across her New York City
penthouse and her opulent mansion in Palm Beach,
Florida.

Now, you can get a taste of
Kramer’s signature style—and, if you have enough money, own a piece
of it, too. Beginning this fall, more than 260 pieces from Kramer’s
estate will hit the auction
block across multiple sales at Christie’s New
York. Together,
they are estimated to bring in as much as $21 million.

Kramer’s collection
“reflects the spirit of adventure and sense of fun she was
legendary for, spanning the best of Modern art from the late-19th
to mid-20th centuries,” Max Carter, head of Christie’s
Impressionist and Modern art department, said in a
statement. “There’s a sense of vividness and immediacy to
it.”

At a dedicated sale on October
16, a selection of Kramer’s porcelain, prints, furniture, and decor
will be held at the auction house’s Rockefeller Center
headquarters. But the greatest hits of the producer’s storied
collection will be saved for Christie’s evening sale of
Impressionist and Modern art on November 11.

The top lot is Pablo Picasso’s
painting Buste
d’homme (1968), which is
estimated to sell for between $9 million and $12 million. Also on
offer is Camille Pissarro’s 1892 canvas Jardin et poulailler chez Octave Mirbeau, Les
Damps (which carries a
pre-sale estimate of $4 million to $6 million) and a 1937 drawing
by Salvador Dalí, Naissance de l’ameublement
paranoïaque, which was used as the basis for his Mae West
lips couch ($700,000 to $1 million).

Kramer was born in New York in
1933, the daughter of Wall Street financier Charles Allen, Jr.
Though she didn’t produce her first play until age 41, she quickly
developed a reputation for backing big-budget productions,
including several major revivals, that would go on to become
long-running hits.

Battling complications from
pneumonia, Kramer died in Manhattan in May. She was
85. 

The producer’s southeast Florida
estate, a 37,500-square-foot Italian Renaissance-style mansion
called La Follia, sold for $105
million earlier this summer. The sale broke an 11-year-old Palm Beach
record previously set when Donald Trump sold
his mansion to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev
for $95 million in 2008. Kramer’s
Manhattan penthouse is currently on the
market for $45
million.

The post The Estate of Terry Allen Kramer, a Flashy Heiress
and Tony-Winning Broadway Producer, Will Hit the Auction Block This
Fall appeared first on artnet News.