The sale of the Hans Hartung collection, organised on June 30th 1999 by Christie's in London, totalled £ 9,2 million (US $ 14,6 million) but caused some anger in France. The collection consisted of 105 lots, including some major iron sculpture works by Spanish artist Julio Gonzales, Hartung's father in law, should not have been dispersed in such a way by the Hartung Foundation.
It is true that the Foundation, based in Nice, Southern-France, was heavily indebted as it owed some US $ 9 million in death duties after the precursor of abstract lyrical painting had died in 1989.
It had approached the French state in 1994 to negotiate the bulk of the collection but receiving no response, it then entrusted Christie's in 1998 to auction it and such move finally prompted museum officials to react in refusing to allow three Gonzales sculpture works to leave the country.
François Hers, the head of the Hartung Foundation, said the receipts of the Christie's sale were needed to meet running costs totalling almost US $ 1 million every year.
The Foundation has however been the target of harsh criticisms, notably from French artist Pierre Soulages, of whom three works included in the Hartung collection were sold in London.
«The Foundation had no right to sell this collection, which took a lifetime to assemble. This was Hartung's work, his museum, his life. The first thing he showed me when I met him in 1947 was a sculpture by Gonzales. Selling what he cared the most instead of his building properties, shares or some of his own works has been like stabbing his memory», Soulages said.
In his will written in July 1986 Hartung indicated that the sale of some of his belongings might prove necessary for running the Foundation but never referred to his personal collection in such document.
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