The famed collection of the founder of the Museu de Arte Modern in Brazil will be auctioned at Sotheby’s Paris sale.
In an evening thriving with Brazilian Modernism, Sotheby’s Paris has organized an auction on April 10. The sale would be of the collection of Niomar Moniz Sodré Bittencourt. Bittencourt was a businesswoman, journalist, and perhaps most notably, the founder of the Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM). She founded the iconic museum in Rio de Janeiro in the 1940s.
Niomar Moniz Sodré Bittencourt has been an underrated but influential figure. She founded the MAM at a time when modernism had no place among the elite circles of the Brazilian art scene. Against all odds, she managed to establish the Museu de Arte Moderna (thanks, in part, to Nelson Rockfeller, then-president of MoMA New York). Bittencourt was equally trailblazing as a journalist, writing fiercely against the military dictatorship and even getting arrested for it in 1969.
The Bittencourt collection contained famed names like Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, and Max Ernst. More than just a collector, Bittencourt also had personal relations with the artists she sought. She also included Brazillian artists of the era, like Almir Da Silva, in her collection. Unfortunately, much of her collection was lost to fires – first in 1978 and then in the 1980s. Only a small portion of the extended collection stored in her Paris apartment (where she lived after being exiled) survives.
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This is the collection heading to Sotheby’s Paris. The highlight of it would be Femme nue à la guitare (1909) by Picasso, which might fetch $1.5 million – $2 million. Other works to look out for are Giacometti’s Femme debout (1952), expected to fetch $3.2 million – $5.2 million, and Ernst’s Les Fiances (1930), expected to be sold for $2.5 million – $3.8 million.
