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Finds and Interests
Anyone who knows me understands that I am happiest when I can engage with other collectors. I want to see their finds, talk about the industry, and share resources. Recently, a friend and colleague came to me with questions about an item his estate sale company had acquired. A client of theirs was selling off item sat an estate sale, and among them was a painting he believed was more significant than a typical Saturday sale piece.
He showed me a painting by Swiss-born Surrealist artist Kurt Seligmann (1900–1962). Seligmann’s work was heavily influenced by his interest in magic and the occult, and the painting in question was titled Iphigenia. It depicts a Greek myth in which the daughter of the powerful King Agamemnon and his wife, Clytemnestra, is sacrificed as an offering to the gods to secure fair winds for the fleet sailing to Troy.
Seligmann, who was Jewish, fled Europe as World War II was beginning and, with his wife, settled on a farm in Sugar Loaf, NY. They continued to assist other artists in escaping the war, and Seligmann continued to work in the arts, providing set designs for George Balanchine ballet productions and creating paintings in his unique surrealist style.
He painted Iphigenia in 1946, and initially, his friend Lincoln Kirstein, a co-founder of the Ballet Society, which later became the New York City Ballet, owned the painting. It’s unclear if he purchased it or if it was a gift from the artist. From Kirstein, the painting later entered a private collection, and there is no record of it being publicly exhibited or loaned to any public museum.
When Iphigenia resurfaced at an estate sale, the seller came to me for advice on putting it up for auction. I contacted some colleagues at Rago/Wright Auctions and connected the two parties, resulting in the painting being included in their Post-War Contemporary Art Auction on March 18, 2026.
Seligmann’s work, while not unknown, hasn’t received much attention lately—but that is sure to change with this sale. This painting has both mystery, having remained out of public view for decades, and historical importance, since it’s a work by an artist who was important in the surrealist movement. I will be keeping an eye on the sale and am eager to see if it sparks renewed interest in Seligmann’s other works.