As the autumn auction season approaches in New York, a fierce high-stakes tug-of-war is unfolding behind closed doors. The rainmakers at Christie’s and Sotheby’s are locked in a duel to secure the $60 million estate of investment banker and legendary art patron Herbert Lust, who passed away in May at the age of 99.
Lust’s legacy is not that of a conventional collector assembling a polished, hyper-curated trophy room. Over three-quarters of a century, his acquisitions morphed into a sprawling, claustrophobic archive.
Across his Greenwich home and Manhattan pied-à-terre, masterpieces lined every surface: Hans Bellmers crowded the walls, Alexander Calder mobiles swayed overhead, and Alberto Giacometti’s ghostly bronzes stood like quiet sentinels in every corner.
Sartre, Paris, and the Giacometti Obsession
Lust’s journey into the upper echelons of postwar collecting began almost by accident. Arriving in Paris in 1949 on a Fulbright scholarship, he met Alberto Giacometti. Initially, Lust admitted to finding the sculptor’s emaciated, elongated human figures repulsive.
His perspective shifted dramatically after reading Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist essays on the artist. Realizing the profound psychological weight of those fragile silhouettes, Lust underwent an intellectual conversion.
Among the estimated 300 works up for consignment, the ultimate trophy is an edition of Giacometti’s 1964 bronze Figure, demie grandeur. Standing 45 inches tall, it holds a unique place in the master’s catalogue raisonné:
“It’s the only nude Giacometti made that has a real face,” Lust once observed, highlighting the striking human intimacy carved into its textured surface.
Market analysts project that Figure, demie grandeur could easily push into upper-tier territory. Comparable mid-sized Giacometti bronzes, such as Femme de Venise III, fetched over $25 million at auction in recent years, while larger figures like Femme Leoni commanding $28.4 million underline the insatiable appetite for the artist’s postwar vision.
Bellmer, Bargains, and the Art of Pure Obsession
While Giacometti represented the emotional spine of the collection, Hans Bellmer revealed Lust’s fiercely pragmatic, contrarian streak. Recognizing the market gap between Surrealist icons, Lust systematically bought up Bellmer’s unsettling, body-deconstructing graphic works, eventually amassing a collection larger than the top four global museums combined.
His strategy was simple yet sharp: why acquire a single René Magritte canvas when the same capital could secure fifty supreme Bellmers?
The House Edge: Sotheby’s vs. Christie’s
While both auction houses remain tight-lipped, Sotheby’s enters the fray with a distinct advantage. The house spent decades cultivating a relationship with the eccentric collector. In 2017, Sotheby’s successfully brought 27 Robert Indiana works from Lust’s estate to the block.
Two years later, they dispatched a camera crew to his Greenwich residence to film the 93-year-old collector holding court amidst his cluttered wonderland.
Yet, as the battle for the remaining 300 pieces heats up, the victory will depend on who can best frame Lust’s idiosyncratic legacy. Even after gifting hundreds of objects to institutions like the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Hirshhorn Museum, Lust’s remaining holdings reflect a rare, unadulterated ethos.
He didn’t buy for market speculation or prestige; he bought out of an overwhelming, lifelong love for the object. Whichever house wins the contract will not just be selling art—they will be auctioning a slice of postwar history built on pure passion.