A group of works assembled by the late collector and philanthropist Agnes Gund will come to auction at Christie's in New York this November, with the proceeds directed to the Gund Art Foundation. The offerings are spread across the house's evening sale on November 19, a day sale the following day, and several online auctions, giving the collection a broad presence across the week's programming.

The leading lot is Vija Celmins's Untitled (Ocean), a photorealistic painting from 1990 that carries an estimate of $6 million to $8 million. It will be presented in the November 19 evening sale devoted to 21st-century art. Further highlights include Alexander Calder's 1963 mobile The Eye in the Black, estimated at $3 million to $5 million, and an untitled bronze sculpture by Cy Twombly from 1997, estimated at $2 million to $3 million.

Other estimates underline the depth of the group. A painting by Robert Ryman from 1961 is valued at $1.5 million to $2 million, while Robert Rauschenberg's Untitled (Gold Painting) of 1953 is estimated at $1 million to $1.5 million. Works by Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Cindy Sherman, Cecily Brown, Glenn Ligon and Sarah Sze also feature, reflecting a collection built over decades at the centre of American post-war art.

Gund was one of the most consequential patrons of her generation. She led the Museum of Modern Art as its president from 1991 to 2002 and gave the museum more than 800 works, while founding the arts-education organisation Studio in a School in 1977. In 2017 she sold Roy Lichtenstein's Masterpiece to Steve Cohen for $165 million and used $100 million of that sum to create the Art for Justice Fund, which supports criminal justice reform. The November sales now extend that philanthropic legacy, turning a private collection into funding for the foundation that bears her name.