Christie’s Nabs Oscar-Winner Maximilian Schell’s Estate

Maximilian Schell in 2011 Photo: Udo Grimberg

Christie’s has announced that they will auction 45 works from the estate of the late Austrian actor Maximilian Schell in London, Amsterdam, and Paris, Salzburger Nachrichten reported. The film and stage actor died on February 1 of this year at the age of 83.

The sale includes works by Josef Albers, Jean Dubuffet, Franz Kline, Jean Tinguely, and Roy Lichtenstein. Highlights include Albers’ Study for Homage to the Square: Kind Regards (1958) which is due to hit the auction block in Amsterdam as part of the Postwar and Contemporary evening sale, and is slated to sell for between €150,000 to €200,000 ($190,000-$250,000). Jean Dubuffet’s painting Dramatique IX (1984) and Franz Kline’s black and white Untitled (1957) are both estimated to sell for between €70,000 to €90,000 ($88,000-$113,000).

Marie Christine Gräfin von Huyn, spokeswoman of Christie’s Munich said in a statement Schell “collected art that was important to him by artists whom he admired. The artworks being put on the market in the sale from the estate of Maximilian Schell are artworks that were close to his heart.”

Schell was influenced from a young age by parents who had a strong affinity to arts. He enjoyed an accomplished stage career. However, he excelled in film, often serving as writer, director, and producer for the films in which he starred. He won the academy award for Best Actor in 1961 for the Hollywood film Judgment at Nuremberg. Schell started collecting art at a young age and was noted for saying that after death “what remains is the art.”


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