Texas ranch heiress’ art collection going up for auction

DALLAS — An art collection worth an estimated $150 million that belonged to the late Texas oil and ranching heiress Anne Marion is going up for auction this spring in New York.

Sotheby’s said Wednesday that Marion’s private collection includes works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Franz Kline.

Marion, who founded the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, died last year at the age of 81. Marion and her husband, John Marion, a former Sotheby’s chairman and auctioneer, established the museum in 1997.

Sotheby’s said three masterworks at the heart of the collection are expected to each sell for over $20 million. They are: Warhol’s “Elvis 2 Times,” Richard Diebenkorn’s “Ocean Park No. 40,” and Clyfford Still’s “PH-125 (1948-No. 1).”

Marion, the great-granddaughter of Capt. Samuel Burk Burnett, was the heiress to the historic Four Sixes Ranch in King County in West Texas.

Sotheby’s said the masterworks that formed her art collection were featured in her Fort Worth home, which was designed by architect I.M. Pei.

Sotheby’s said that a number of other works from her collection will be gifted to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.