Mnuchin's Dad Is Selling a De Kooning for as Much as $35 Million

(Bloomberg) -- Bob Mnuchin, the art dealer father of U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, is preparing to sell an abstract painting by Willem de Kooning, 15 years after acquiring the work for a fraction of the price.

Mnuchin will offer de Kooning’s “Untitled XXII" at Sotheby’s next month as part of its contemporary art auction in New York, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified as the details are private. The work is estimated at $25 million to $35 million, Sotheby’s said, declining to name the seller.

The elder Mnuchin, who worked at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for three decades and now operates a gallery in Manhattan, declined to comment.

Paintings by de Kooning, a key Abstract Expressionist in postwar America, have become some of the most desirable trophies among the global billionaire set. Ken Griffin bought the artist’s “Interchange” for $300 million in a private transaction in 2016, the highest price for a work of art after Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi.” A decade earlier, Steve Cohen paid more than $130 million for “Woman III," a canvas of a monster-goddess that de Kooning painted in the 1950s.

Traditionally a mainstay of top U.S. collections, de Kooning has become more popular in Asia, according to Brett Gorvy, a New York dealer and former Christie’s executive. Months before his death last year, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen sold his 1977 de Kooning for $35 million at a fair in Hong Kong through Levy Gorvy gallery.

Auction prices for the artist have lagged private sales, primarily because the most desirable pieces have sold outside the glare of the public. Last November, “Woman as Landscape" (1954-55) fetched $68.9 million at Christie’s. No other de Kooning at auction has exceeded $15 million since 2016, according to Artnet data.

Bob Mnuchin retired from Goldman in 1990 after running their equities division. He opened his Upper East Side gallery a few years later, catering to many of the top U.S. collectors. Mnuchin gained wide attention in May when he reportedly bought Jeff Koons’s stainless steel bunny sculpture for $91 million at Christie’s on behalf of hedge fund manager Cohen.

Mnuchin’s de Kooning arrives during an auction season low on star power. There are no big estates and top lots have to be procured one by one by the auction houses. Sotheby’s sought out the de Kooning, according to the person with knowledge of the sale.

Sotheby’s has reduced the seller’s risk by giving a guarantee and lining up a third-party backer who’s agreed to place an irrevocable bid. That ensures the painting will be sold. It showed the work in London last week and plans to display it in Los Angeles.

The work’s provenance is brief. The current owner acquired it in 2004 from Mitchell-Innes & Nash gallery in New York, which got it from the de Kooning estate it represented for several years after the artist’s death in 1997, according to David Nash, a co-owner. The gallery sold about 100 of the artist’s works with prices ranging from $500,000 to $3 million, Nash said.

“This was one of the best from that period,” Nash said about “Untitled XXII," declining to comment on the identity of the buyer. “Now, 15 years later, they are extremely rare. They’ve been dispersed to private collections and museums.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Katya Kazakina in New York at kkazakina@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven Crabill

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