DOYLE NEW YORK AUCTIONED THE KULCHUR QUEEN COLLECTION OF CONTEMPORARY ART ON NOVEMBER 12, 2008

Collection of Works Assembled by Doyenne of New York Progressive Culture Lita Hornick

Featuring Works by Alexander Liberman and Neil Welliver

On November 12, 2008, Doyle New York auctioned works from the Kulchur Queen Collection. Assembled by Lita Hornick, a doyenne of progressive culture in New York, the Kulchur Queen Collection reflects Hornick's close relationships with many of the most important American artists to emerge after 1960.

Hornick is affectionately known as the Kulchur Queen due to her role as editor of the influential art and poetry journal Kulchur, published from 1965 to 1970. After 1970, Kulchur magazine transformed into the Kulchur Foundation, a platform which Hornick used to publish and promote the work of poets and artists she admired and befriended. The archives of Kulchur are now housed at the library of Hornick's alma mater, Columbia University.

An avid art collector, Hornick acquired work both directly from her artist friends and from such notable New York gallerists as Paula Cooper, Andre Emmerich, Tibor de Nagy, and Brooke Alexander. The Kulchur Queen Collection covers a broad range, from pop artists like Andy Warhol and Alex Katz to the minimalist sculptors Richard Serra and Alexander Liberman.

In an essay entitled "Thoughts of a Collector," Hornick offers some insight into her collecting credo: "Throughout the 1960s, I collected hard-edge abstraction and a certain amount of pop art, also flat and hard edge. This was the beginning of my commitment to what Yeats, in 'Sailing to Byzantium,' called the 'artifice of eternity,' art that is in contrast to the realist and humanist tradition." Her watchwords as a collector, she says, were "artificial, beautiful, spiritual, transcendent and pure" - all qualities which are on view in the Kulchur Queen Collection.

Although she was the subject of many well-known portraits, perhaps the most recognizable image of Hornick is Andy Warhol's 1968 painting Lita Curtain Star, which can now be seen overlooking the exhibition floor of The Museum of Modern Art on 53rd Street. This is a fitting home for the portrait of a woman whose relationship with MoMA ranged from philanthropic activity to hosting and curating a long-running series of poetry readings. The American poets who participated in these readings - including John Ashbery, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman and Ted Berrigan - were not only contributors to Kulchur, they were Hornick's close personal friends.

NEXT AUCTION OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART
May 2009

CONSIGNMENTS ARE CURRENTLY BEING ACCEPTED
To have your property evaluated for possible consignment in the next Modern and Contemporary Art auction, please contact:
Harold E. Porcher, 212-427-4141, ext. 249, paintings@DoyleNewYork.com

CATALOGUE
Subscriptions Department, 212-427-4141, ext. 257, subscriptions@DoyleNewYork.com
View the November 12, 2008 catalogue

MEDIA CONTACT
Louis LeB. Webre, Vice President, Marketing and Media, 212-427-4141, ext 232, louis@DoyleNewYork.com
Images and interviews are available upon request.