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New York | +1 212 606 71 | Lauren Gioia | Lauren.Gioia@Sothebys..com | Dan Abe 176 ernethy | Dan.A Abernethy@Sot thebys.com Lon ndon | +44 20 7293 6000 | Simon Warren | Simon.Warre en@Sothebys.co om

SO OTHEBY TO OFFER YS R MA ASTERP PIECES OF AB S BSTRAC EXP CT PRESSIONISM M

FROM A DISTI INGUISH HED PR RIVATE A AMERIC CAN CO OLLECT TION

Eigh Painting by Artis Includiing Jackso Pollock ht gs sts on k, Clyfford Still and Willem de Kooning Will be O d W e g Offered o the on Evening of 13 Nove E o ember 20 in New York 012 w
h New York, NY - On the evening of 13 November 2012 in New York, Sothebys will prese eight 20th century N 3 w ent

masterworks from part of the extensive collection of Sidney and Dorothy Kohl. Acquired predominant in the s f e o tly early 1970s the offerin features prime examples by the tiitans of the American A s, ng p Abstract Expr ressionist movement - Jackson Pollock, Clyffor Still, Willem de Koonin Franz Kline, Arshile G rd ng, Gorky, Joan Mitchell, Hans Hofma and Adolph Gottlieb. Distinguishe by their p ann ed provenance an out of pub view for d nd blic decades, the eight wo are estima orks ated to sell fo $80/100 million. High or m hlights will be exhibited in Los Angeles, London and Doha, before returnin to New Yo where all of the works w be on view beginning 1 November. b ng ork, will w

To offer a group of true masterpiec that have remained to ces ogether in the same private collection for four e a rly o mmented Tobias Meyer, Sothebys W Worldwide decades is an event near unheard of on the art market, com Head of Con ntemporary Art. The Koh assembled their collectiion with great care and the help of the llate Jack A hls d t e Taylor, a gif fted curator of the American Abstract Expressionis movement. Taylor was adept at find o t st ding and suggesting works of outst w tanding qualit that were handled by ma of the art ty h any tists primary d dealers and h housed in the countrys most illustrious private co s ollections. The Kohls also acquired ma works dir o any rectly from th artists, he visiting with them in the 1970s, on the quest to bu their colle t eir uild ection of Ame erican Abstrac Expressioniist art. ct

c nor ebys to be en trusted with s such a semina group of wo that al orks Mr. Meyer continued, It is a great hon for Sothe offer a panoramic view of the 1st gener f ration Abstrac Expression ists. Individua and collec ct ally ctively, they represent e s generate trem mendous excit tement. a remarkable opportunity for collectors and the sale is certain to g

o s umber 4, 1951, an excee edingly rare d painting o canvas by Jackson drip on The group of eight works is led by Nu Pollock (est. $25/35 milli pictured above). Over the course o the last 20 years, only e ion, r of 0 eight drip pain ntings on he ecuted near th beginning of 1951, the work epitom g e mizes the canvas by th artist have appeared at auction. Exe he drama and dynamism of the 1950 ma d asterpieces th had just b hat been exhibited at Betty Parsons Gallery in New d y York from November to December many of which are no included in the natio r, w ow ons leading museum L en oil empered by t metallic aluminum the collections. Layers of brilliant red, blue, yellow, gree and ochre o color are te paint that seeps into the raw canvas an overlaid by frenzied flec of shiny black enamel. N r nd y cks Number 4, 1 951 has he ection for ove four decad prior to w er des, which its prov venance was highly prestig gious. Its resided in th Kohls colle first private owner was Dr Ruth Fox, the psychoana o r. alyst and expe on the tre ert eatment of alc coholism, who treated o Jack kson Pollock in 1951-2, near the time of the works k e exec cution. The s subsequent o owner, Stephen D. Paine, was an , emin nent collecto museum benefactor and trustee of the or, Mus seum of Fine Arts, Boston for over twe n enty years. U Unseen in publ for 40 y lic years, the wo was mos recently shown in ork st Nov vember 1972 at Robert Elkon Gallery in New York, where it was acquired by t Kohls. the Clyf fford Stills ma asterful 1948 defines t critical mo 8-H the oment in the artists care when his incompara eer able abstract dialect t y expression (e $15/20 million). est. achieved its fully resolved e 1948-H was executed in 1948, the year following the artists o n y one-man muse eum show at the Californiia Palace
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of the Legio of Honor, San Francisco and his firs show with Betty Parsons Gallery, Ne York. At t time, on o, st s ew this Still was wo orking and ex xhibiting in both California and New York, and 1 b 1948-H was presented at private t exhibitions in both locatio during 194 one for st n ons 48: tudents and fa faculty at the California Sch of Fine A San hool Arts, Francisco; an the other for artists and friends in his Cornelia S nd h Street studio, New York. T painting was also The showcased in the first maj museum re n jor etrospective of Stills work,, at the Albrig Art Galler Buffalo in 1 o ght ry, 1959. It was last exhibited in 1963 at the Unive 3 ersity of Penns sylvanias Inst titute of Cont temporary Ar rt.

ublime Abstraction was Willem de Koonings su rca oon e executed cir 1949, so after the artists first solo show at the Charle Egan Gallery in New a es York in 1948 (est. $15/20 million). Crystallizing a 8 C critical jun ncture in de Kooning g's career,

Abstraction combines the finest of his urban o b f landscapes with the biomorphic figures that h t omen series heralded his return to the Wo immediately thereafter. This stunning painting was T M son n handled by Martha Jacks and Allan Stone, who were among the key deale in de Koon ers nings career, before enteriing the Kohls collection in 1973. s n

s ng enandoah of 1956 is arch hetypal of his urgent and p powerful yet complex Franz Kline's commandin canvas She and sophisticate brand of action paintiing (est. d ed $6. 5/8.5 millio on). This monolithic painting

mprises a visce onslaugh of broad sw eral ht wathes of com hea impasto, principally in the signatu black avy n ure d hnique, thou ugh also and white oils of his tech foun suffused with layers of golden ndationally s och that mark a key depa hres arture from his purely k mon nochromatic canvases of the earlier 1950s. f She enandoah wa formerly in the collection of as Robert and Ethel Scull, re E enowned as premier patron of America Art in New York. The w was also included ns an w work in the now legendary 19 965 Sothebys auction of thirteen key works from the Sculls c y collection, wh hich also e e featured other masterworks of the period, such as Police Gazette by Willem de Kooning.

Executed in 1945, Ars n shile Gorky's lyrical Impatience s marks the crescendo of the 1943-4 period wh the c 45 hen artist create an elite cycle of abstract canvases now ed c housed in in nstitutions inc cluding the Museum of Modern M M Art, New York, the Hirshhorn Museum, Seat Y H ttle Art Museum, The Menil Collection, Peggy Gugg T C P genheim Collection, Museo Thyss M sen-Bornemisza, and the Centre Georges Po ompidou (est $6/8 million). Impatie t. ence is distinguished by an exten d nsive exhibitio history be on eginning with the 195 show at the Whitney Mu 51 e useum of Am merican Art, an including t retrospec nd the ctives mounte by the ed Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1962/63 an The Solom R. Gugge nd mon enheim Muse in 1981/8 The eum 82. markable, hav ving been pa of the priv collection of the art vate ns ownership history of the present work equally is rem oted Surrealist artist, Yves Tanguy, as w as the dis well stinguished A American no co ollector, Israel Rosen. The painting was acquired by Mr. and Mrs Kohl in e s s. 19 and has not been exhib 973 n bited since th early 1980 he 0s.

xecuted three years before the artist's d e e death, Nirvan by Hans H na Hofmann Ex is a simultaneous culminatio and rebirth of his prodiigious life's w on h work (est. 5/7 ng on n $5 million). Despite bein a generatio older than many of his peers, Ho ofmann bridg the School of Paris an Abstract E ged nd Expressionism schools m with energetic innovation, es i specially durin the last de ng ecade of his lif during fe s rvana definitiv embodie this critical link between tradition vely es his eighties. Nir an the avant-g nd garde and is a masterful exa m ample of the tional 'push-p synthesis of formal co pull' s ompositional artists sensat structure and vitally energ d getic expressio onist mark-ma aking.

ell's lled Joan Mitche Untitled of 1957 presents the distil essence and perfect fulfillment of her late 1950 Abstract Expressionist f 0s E vernacular (est. $6/8 million). Com ( m mposed within a square canvas, the dense matrix of rich impast seems to writhe within d to w its rectilinea confines. The frenzie application of paint ar ed converges to owards the ce enter of the ca anvas to crea a centripet compressiion, which evo ate tal okes both the chaotic e
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vitality of Jackson Pollock's drip paintings and the powerful atm o P mospheric compartm mentalization of Mark Roth o hko's dense, h hovering spatiial forms. Executed in 1958, Adolph Gottlieb Transfigu b's uration ranks in the very to tier of op r tings, and st tands as a p paradigm the artist's instantly recognizable 'Burst' paint ct $3/5 million) Transfigu ration was a ). acquired of Abstrac Expressionism (est. $ directly fr rom the artis by noted collector and Governor of New Yor State, st rk d Nelson A. Rockefeller and it was exhibited ex A r, xtensively with highlights from his collection in the 1960s It has not b s. been shown p publicly since 1 1969.