A $15M De Kooning Leads Lévy Gorvy Dayan’s New Auction-Style Sales Experiment
Lévy Gorvy Dayan is launching LGD Hammer, a live-bidding platform designed to blend private-sale exclusivity with auction-style competition, with its inaugural sale set for May 16, 2026. The first offering is a 1984 Willem de Kooning painting estimated at $10 million to $15 million, and co-founder Brett Gorvy said the gallery is leveraging its partners’ auction experience to benefit both buyers and sellers. Separately, newly filed insolvency documents related to the collapse of Stephen Friedman Gallery show artists Alexandre Diop, Deborah Roberts, and Kehinde Wiley are collectively owed more than £790,000 (about $1.1 million) as unsecured creditors, while total gallery debts are listed at £7.8 million (about $10.6 million). The roundup also notes several representation changes, including Zoe Leonard leaving Hauser & Wirth for Maxwell Graham and Gladstone taking on the estate of Czech painter Anna Zemánková.
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This story was covered in Market Experiments, Mega-Prices, and Color Alchemy