Little more than a year after the death of storied Swiss art dealer and collector Ernst Beyeler, the gallery he operated in Basel, the Galerie Beyeler, is now to close and auction its contents through Christie's. The move promises to bring to the block a trove of work amassed by the gallery, which Beyeler took over in 1945 and transformed into a salesroom for an astonishing number of masterpieces by artists from Picasso (whom he knew personally) to Cézanne and Mondrian — aided as the dealer was by his legendary eye and fierce acumen at the negotiating table. The auction will benefit the Fondation Beyeler, the museum that the gallerist founded with his wife, Hildy, in Basel, the city where he also co-founded the Art Basel fair.

According to the Radio Basel Web site, the closure of the gallery "follows the wishes expressed in the will of Ernst and Hildy Beyeler," with the holdings to be sold at Christie's London on June 21 and 22. Since the death of the Beyelers (Hildy passed away in 2008), the gallery has been staging such secondary-market shows as a thematic surveys of work — such as "Mountains," featuring work by Richard Serra, Leta Peer, and other artists — as well as solo shows of Picasso's ceramic works, Rodchenko's photography, and, currently, Daumier's caricatures.

A highly regarded institution, the Fondation Beyeler occupies a Renzo Piano-designed museum and presents shows of both historic and contemporary works (an upcoming show matches Serra with Brancusi, for instance) under the direction of Sam Keller, who formerly led Art Basel.

According to a Christie's statement on the sale, the auction will offer art by a staggering list of names, including "significant works by Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Alexej von Jawlensky, Oscar Kokoschka, Alberto Giacometti, Alexander Calder, Paul Klee,  Fernand Léger, Jean Arp, Jean Dubuffet, Mark Tobey, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Georg Baselitz, and Anselm Kiefer among others."

artinfo.com