Barbara Gladstone Living Room

richard prince car hood is primer grey with a hood scoop filled with bondo, and some roughly sanded and filled spots, and a sloppy seam along the bottom where a piece of plywood has been tacked on, all hanging on a wall at sotheby's just like it did at barbara gladstone's house
Medusa, 2003, Barbara Gladstone’s own Richard Prince car hood, 62 x 45 x 5 1/2 in., selling at Sotheby’s

I’m scrolling through the Sotheby’s sale of furniture from Barbara Gladstone’s well-appointed home and wondering why there’s so much art mixed in. Was there concern that some art might attract less attention in a design auction? Or was it the other way around? Were there so many artist-designed furniture objects, that they made sure to add some art art objects so art art collectors didn’t miss the sale?

franz west's 1991 cross shaped sculpture is titled inri, but there is no plaque inscribed with those letters like on more classical depictions of jesus's cross. no, this spindly uneven cross is made from two thin branches or dowels, ten feet tall and five or six feet wide, seemingly held together by a skin of plaster-soaked gauze which gives the whole thing a cy twombly goes to the vatican vibe. selling from the estate of barbara gladstone at sothebys
Franz West, INRI, 1991, wood, gauze & plaster, 101 3/4 x 64 1/4 x 9 1/2 in., from Barbara Gladstone’s own sanctuary, being rendered unto Caesar at Sotheby’s

Whatever it is, it includes Franz West’s table & chairs, perhaps the most collectible thing from his Hamsterwheel installation at the 2007 Venice Biennale. [Also this buck wild, 10-foot tall cross, for the Franz West true believer.]

christopher wool's silk carpet has a cream base and an incredibly intricately done black and grey blotch that fills most of the 12 x 9 foot thing, with some splatters around the edges. just a messy masterpiece from bravinlee, which was walked on by barbara gladstone until she left this world rip
Christopher Wool, New Linen, 2012, hand-dyed silk carpet, 119 by 97.5 in., ed 3/15, walked on by the conservation-minded Barbara Gladstone, now selling at Sotheby’s

But the one thought that kept coming to me was: the Christopher Wool silk rug would get absolutely crushed by the Scott Burton granite side table, so maybe put the table directly on the floor.

i cannot imagine how a scott burton side table could look more 1987 corporate lobby than this red granite triangle nested downward into a totally black granite block with a notch out of the top. barbara gladstone bought one of the edition of 10 in 2011, and now her ghost is selling it at sothebys
Scott Burton, Cafe Table II, 1987, violetta calcutta, absolute black granite, 28 ⅝ by 29 ⅝ by 15 ⅞ in., ed 4/10, from under the cocktail glass of Barbara Gladstone, selling at Sotheby’s

Actually, that was like the second thought I had. The first thought was that Barbara bought this 1987 Burton table from Andrew Kreps in 2011? MoMA could really do a lot worse than having a dealer like Kreps take over the Scott Burton estate.

9 June 2026: Art & Design from the Collection of Barbara Gladstone [sothebys]
Previously, related: Scott Burton Estate Planning