The woman who brought Andy Warhol to Paris The Times Louisa McKenzie The woman who brought Andy Warhol to Paris new Ileana Sonnabend introduced American pop art to European high society. Now key pieces from her collection are being sold in an auction expected to reach $50 million Ileana Sonnabend in her Soho gallery in 1982 with a painting by AR Penck michel delsol/Getty images Louisa McKenzie Wednesday October 21 2026, 4.05am BST , The Times Listen 0:00 / · 7:40 min Share Share this article Email Twitter Facebook Link Save Puzzles Challenge yourself with today's puzzles. M ost collectors buy the art they love. Ileana Sonnabend had a more demanding approach. “I only want what I don't like,” she once declared. Unfamiliar work gave her something to investigate. Christie's forthcoming auction The Collection of Antonio Homem Sonnabend gives us a taste of what her contrarian instinct achieved. The collection may bear her son's name, but behind it, ultimately, was a woman who repeatedly recognised the future of art while others were still arguing about whether it was art at all. Now collectors have a chance to buy into that history. Christie's expects the collection to achieve more than $50 million across several international sales, with major highlights offered in New York in November. The attraction is an opportunity to acquire works with a direct connection to the people who helped to establish these artists' reputations. Roy Lichtenstein's Large Spool , 1963, for example, was already owned by Ileana and Michael (her second husband) by 1967 and passed to Antonio in 2007. Most commented 1 Budget 2026 predictions: when is it and what could be announced? Economics 236 comments Ileana Sonnabend was born in Bucharest in 1914, the daughter of the wealthy industrialist Mihail Schapira, and went on to become one of the most influential dealers and collectors of postwar art. With her first husband, Leo Castelli, a Trieste-born banker's son whose mother came from a wealthy coffee-importing family, she helped to establish New York's Castelli Gallery in 1957. Ileana's family wealth helped to underpin their early ventures, supporting Castelli's first gallery in Paris, which he opened with René Drouin in 1939. The couple left Europe at the outbreak of the Second World War. Their New York gallery launched or established the careers of, among others, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Frank Stella. Ileana's judgment helped to shape the programme that would establish its reputation, particularly through Johns and Rauschenberg. Castelli became renowned for his strategic skill and ability to build artists' careers, while Ileana brought an instinctive engagement with the work itself and close relationships with its makers. Rauschenberg gave her a partly sucked Life Saver sweet encased in metal before her departure for Paris. She wore the charm for years. Antonio Homem in front of a portrait of Ileana Sonnabend by Andy Warhol marco secchi/Getty images Ileana and Castelli divorced in 1959 but remained close friends and professional allies. Ileana's Paris trip in 1962 was to open a gallery with her second husband, Michael Sonnabend, a Polish-born Dante scholar whom she had married in 1960. Here she introduced European audiences to artists including Warhol, Johns and Rauschenberg. “The dealer, curator and collector Ileana Sonnabend was one of the most important figures in postwar European and American art,” explains Sara Friedlander, the chairman of Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art. The Sonnabends' private collection “became the envy of their contemporaries”. Top stories 1 10 shows to watch after Slow Horses TV & Radio 2 Tripsnacking? Finally a travel trend I can get on board with Advice 3 Belgium's most stylish autumn weekend break — and it's not Bruges Belgium 4 17 of the best cruise lines for solo travellers Cruises 5 This cosy hotel is perfect for an autumnal trip to the Lake District Lake District Their world encompassed artists, powerful dealers and immensely wealthy buyers: in 1998 the publishing magnate SI Newhouse Jr acquired two of Ileana's early Johns paintings for a reported $20m, keeping one and arranging for the entertainment mogul David Geffen to acquire the other. Later based in New York, Ileana continued supporting challenging new work, including that of Jeff Koons. When she died in 2007, she left both an extraordinary collection and an enduring influence on contemporary art. Advertisement Antonio Sonnabend Homem worked alongside Ileana for more than 50 years. Born in Lisbon in 1939 into an upper-class Portuguese family, Antonio Homem started working in the Ileana Sonnabend Gallery at 37 Quai des Grands-Augustins in Paris from 1968. Ileana and Michael formally adopted him in 1986, when he was in his forties. Friedlander describes their Paris gallery as having been “the crossroads for new European and American art”. Ileana and Michael championed American pop and minimalism while advancing European artists including Jannis Kounellis and Mario Merz. In 1970 the Sonnabend enterprise expanded to New York. At 924 Madison Avenue, Ileana, Michael and Antonio introduced European artists and Californians to the city, where their work was less familiar. The subsequent relocation of their gallery to 420 West Broadway in SoHo turned it into, in Friedlander's words, “the global epicentre of the contemporary art world”. Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Can (Turkey Noodle), 1962 Their influence extended beyond readily saleable paintings. Ileana supported conceptual and performance art which was challenging, and which widened the scope of what a commercial gallery could present. MoMA acknowledged her contribution in its 2013-14 exhibition Ileana Sonnabend: Ambassador for the New , following the family's donation of Rauschenberg's Canyon , 1959. She helped to push the boundaries of the institutions that would eventually celebrate her artists. One of Jasper Johns' Numbers paintings Antonio's own collection, now on offer at Christie's, carries that history forward. Friedlander describes it as “a grouping that represents the extraordinary creativity that was to be found in Europe and America during this pivotal postwar period”. Friedlander singles out Johns, Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly and Lichtenstein as central to that transformation. Across roughly a decade, she says, they “dramatically transformed what was considered high art”. Objects and ordinary imagery entered artworks as physical material or subject matter. Seen together, the collection's different artistic languages reveal how thoroughly that generation unsettled inherited assumptions. Roy Lichtenstein's Large Spool, 1963 Collectors should watch for works that encapsulate those changes. Rauschenberg's Untitled (Collage with Cuff) , 1957, incorporates an actual shirt cuff; Lichtenstein's Large Spool , 1963, gives a humble object monumental presence. Warhol's Campbell's Soup Can (Turkey Noodle) , 1962, belongs to the year of his defining soup-can breakthrough. The financial transformation has been equally dramatic. In 1962 the dealer Irving Blum bought Warhol's separate group of 32 soup-can paintings, now at MoMA, for $1,000 in total. In 2017 a single, larger canvas, Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) , fetched $27.5 million at Christie's — an eye-watering increase even accounting for inflation. Rauschenberg's Untitled (Collage with Cuff), 1957 The auction also helps to secure the collection's public future. Sonnabend Collection Mantova opened in Mantua's medieval Palazzo della Ragione in November 2025, displaying about 100 works. Two of the foundation-owned paintings — Lichtenstein's Large Spool and Warhol's Campbell's Soup Can — are being offered to build an endowment for the Sonnabend Collection Foundation, supporting its continuing mission as an international exhibition programme to carry the family's legacy forward. Advertisement The Collection of Antonio Homem Sonnabend will be offered at Christie's in a series of sales across Paris, London and New York, with works headlining the 21st Century Evening Sale in November Life & Style LUXX Share Share this article Email Twitter Facebook Link Save