Dallas collectors Howard and Cindy Rachofsky are selling a cadmium yellow work by Lucio Fontana at Sotheby’s New York next month, which could fetch an auction record for the Italian post-war artist.
Estimated at $20m to $30m, Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio (1964) is one of 38 works Fontana created in his coveted series of punctured canvases. It was acquired by the Rachofskys for a then record $2.3m in 2003, at a time when Arte Povera had not yet achieved global recognition.
The collectors had begun working with the art adviser Allan Schwartzman in the late 1990s—“trying to form or evolve a collection with a particular personality, and with ideas that weren't necessarily popular at the moment”, says Howard Rachofsky, who made his fortune trading on the stock market.
With a “finite budget”, which meant the Rachofskys weren’t able to “meaningfully collect” Abstract Expressionist or major Pop Art works, they instead turned first to American Minimalist artists and then soon after Italian post-war art, “as a logical jumping off point to globalise our thought process”. They have since built a leading collection of post-war European art, Gutai and Dansaekhwa, which has been pledged to the Dallas Museum of Art.
Howard and Cindy Rachofsky
The Sotheby’s canvas was not the first Fontana the Rachofskys acquired, but they had spent several years looking for a work of its calibre and condition. Schwartzman recounts how he had taken two trips to Switzerland in the late 1990s to view two other works in the Fine di Dio series, both pink, with a view to the Rachofskys acquiring one. Both were priced around the $700,000 mark. “It was a lot of money, but it seemed in proportion to the market and the significance of the works,” Schwartzman says. However, an agreement on price could not be reached.
Five years later, the Sotheby’s picture came up. “We did not go to see this painting with the intention of falling in love with it. But in fact, we did. We thought this was as close to perfect as one could be. And so, we pursued it,” Rachofsky says. The acquisition “raised the bar” of their entire collection, he adds.
The market for post-war Italian art has undergone a correction since 2018, though Fontana’s market generally holds. So why are the Rachofskys selling now? Howard Rachofsky notes how the couple from time to time deaccession works “so that we can continue to have dry powder, so to speak, to take advantage of opportunities in the marketplace”.
He adds: “Quite frankly, at this point in time, I feel like that there are several avenues that I would like to pursue that will improve the breadth and the depth of the collection. I believe it’s more about the opportunities that are present at the moment in a with a market that is generally a little soft right now for certain material.”
All six of Fontana's highest prices at auction have been achieved for comparable La Fine di Dio punctured works. The artist's $29.1m auction record was made by Christie's in New York in 2015 for another cadmium yellow work from this series.
David Galperin, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art in the Americas, describes the current market as “much more selective and judicious”. He observes that “people are willing to stretch for the very best—they’re not willing to even look at the second best”. As for Fontana’s market, Galperin notes there was a sharp rise around ten years ago when American collectors entered the picture, but that the supply has “dried up a little” over the past six years with very few “superlative examples” coming to the block.
Perhaps testament to the confidence in the picture, Sotheby’s is offering it without a guarantee. “I’m happy without,” Rachofsky says. “After 20 years, it’s bittersweet to see the work go, but sometimes you have to let the masterplan define what you’re going to do.”