De Kooning Fund Plans Gallery Art Sale to Boost Endowment

The Willem de Kooning Foundation will sell 10 works by the late modernist master via a New York exhibition in a bid to raise more than $30-million for its endowment to support scholarly and educational efforts, writes The New York Times.

The mid-1980s works will be shown, and offered, for much of November and December at the Gagosian Gallery. By choosing to sell the works through an exhibition rather than an auction means the prices can be kept private, avoiding adverse publicity if a painting does not sell.

Proceeds will go toward financing publication of a catalogue raisonné of Mr. de Kooning’s work and building an endowment for education, including programs the foundation supports at the Long Island Children’s Museum in Garden City, N.Y.