Sotheby's to auction Maria Manetti Shrem collection in May

Sotheby's will auction 17 works from the collection of Florentine entrepreneur and philanthropist Maria Manetti Shrem and her husband Jan Shrem in New York this May. Proceeds will go to charity. Highlights include Pablo Picasso's 'Femme nue couchée jouant avec un chat' (estimate $18-25 million), Lucio Fontana's 'Concetto Spaziale, Attese' (estimate $1.8-2.5 million), Bruce Nauman's 'Study for Dream Passage' ($250,000-350,000), Odilon Redon's 'Pégase' ($30,000-50,000), and monumental sculptures by Marc Quinn, Richard Long, Mimmo Paladino, and Not Vital. Manetti Shrem, born in Florence, built a fashion distribution company Manetti Farrow in San Francisco, bringing Italian brands like Gucci and Fendi to the US. She and her husband have supported numerous cultural and medical institutions in Italy and the US, including the Metropolitan Opera, MoMA, SFMoMA, and the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis. Manetti Shrem has received honors from the Mayor of Florence (keys to the city) and San Francisco (Spirit of the Opera award, a day named after her). In 2023, she will receive the UC Davis Medal, the university's highest honor.