We have been fortunate enough to receive paintings from the Asbjorn Lunde Foundation collection in our auction exhibition gallery. This exhibition is a retrospective of modern, contemporary and design paintings from the Asbjorn Lunde Foundation...

Asbjorn Lunde was born on Staten Island in New York City in 1927 to parents who had recently immigrated from Norway and died in 2017. Like his brother, the renowned art historian Karl Lunde, he had a passion for culture since childhood. A brilliant lawyer, Asbjorn Lunde travelled extensively and was a well-known connoisseur of museums and art galleries as well as a great lover of music, concert halls and operas. He was a lifelong supporter of many of these institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, his favourite museums in his home town. Armed with a keen and tireless eye, Asbjorn Lunde built up a collection of paintings consisting of Old Master paintings and 19th century mountain landscapes.

The Asbjorn Lunde Foundation was established to support qualified American non-profit organisations in the practice and presentation of art and music. In art museums, the foundation supports curatorial activities that make exhibitions possible, research and publication, and curatorial training and professional development. Mr. Lunde’s lifelong interest is in European Old Master painting, European prints and sculpture, 19th century Swiss and Norwegian painting, South Asian painting and sculpture and Asian decorative arts.

At the beginning of 2023, Sotheby’s is honoured to present its first exhibition of this remarkable collection by the Asbjorn Lunde Foundation. An exhibition that reflects the image of this erudite, curious and passionate man. Asbjorn Lunde’s insatiable appetite as a collector also led him to take an interest in French and Italian sculpture as well as Asian decorative art and Indian painting and sculpture.

The first sale of the paintings from the collection will be held on 23 March 2023 in Paris. All profits from the sale of these works will be donated to the activities of the Asbjorn Lunde Foundation.
The exhibition will last for almost 10 days in our auction gallery, with the exception of Saturday 28 January and 4 February 2023 from 10 am to 5 pm. An exhibition that includes a series of paintings from the upcoming sales in Paris on 23 March 2023 and in London.

Johan Christian Dahl (1788 – 1857): Vesuvius By Night – Oil painting 74.3 x 87 x 7.6cm

The ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were covered with a thick layer of volcanic ash after the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Covered in ash, forgotten and dormant for over a thousand years, Pompeii was rediscovered in the mid-18th century and soon many artists, wanderers and explorers began to visit the area. One curious wanderer who visited Mount Vesuvius was the Norwegian painter Johan Christian Dahl.

Suzanne Fabry (1904 – 1985) : Charcoal on paper – 44 x 36cm executed in 1944

Self-portrait dedicated, signed and dated to Edmond Delescluze Suzanne Fabry.

This book was published on the occasion of the exhibition Une vie à l’Opéra – Suzanne Fabry et Edmond Delescluze presented in Brussels, Galerie du Crédit communal. Twenty years of the life of Suzanne Fabry (1904 – 1985) and Edmond Delescluze (1905 – 1993) at La Monnaie in Brussels, and the influence of the opera on their lives as artists. These two artists were responsible for most of the set and costume design for new productions at La Monnaie between 1940 and 1960.