A seminal collection of post-war American art, carefully curated within Paul Rudolph’s architectural masterpiece in Fort Worth, will be highlighted in Christie’s spring marquee sales. Nine works from Anne and Sid Bass’s legendary residence—including a transcendent Rothko colour field painting estimated at $35 million—offer a rare glimpse into one of modern collecting’s most visionary partnerships.
The Bass House is a monument to Rudolph’s brutalist genius and the couple’s discerning eye. Commissioned in the early 1970s after Sid was infatuated with Rudolph’s Yale Art & Architecture Building, the residence became a carefully calibrated environment where cantilevered concrete planes created ideal sightlines for their growing collection.
Morris Louis, Gamma Upsilon (1960) Photo: Martien Mulder, courtesy Christie’s.
The living room’s dramatic installation paired Frank Stella’s vibrant Firuzabad III (1970) with Morris Louis’s lyrical Gamma Upsilon (1960), creating a dynamic dialogue between hard-edge and colour-field abstraction. Nearby, Ellsworth Kelly’s 15-foot Blue Black Red (1964) demonstrated the couple’s prescient support of emerging minimalism.
The piano room housed perhaps the collection’s most poetic juxtaposition: Agnes Martin’s paired 1975 Untitled works facing Stella’s assertive Itata (1964). This thoughtful installation revealed the Basses’ understanding of the conceptual throughlines of postwar art.
The crown jewel, Rothko’s No. 4 (Two Dominants) (1950-51), exemplifies the artist’s breakthrough into mature abstraction. Its pulsating plum and black forms demonstrate why the Basses considered visual art a near-spiritual experience. Top Photo
Frank Stella, Firuzabad III (1970) The Bass House. Photo: Martien Mulder, courtesy Christie’s.
As these works prepare for their first public showing in decades, their significance extends beyond market value. The Bass collection represents a vanished era of patronage—when collectors lived intimately with avant-garde art.
Top Photo: Mark Rothko, No. 4 (Two Dominants) (Orange Plum Black) (1950-51) The Bass House. Photo: Martien Mulder, courtesy Christie’s.
Viewing dates: May 12-16 at Christie’s Rockefeller Centre. Sale: May 17, 2025, as part of the 20th Century Evening Sale