A
Art Mann
Guest
No, not me. I'm not for sale. But Mrs. Harrison Williams is, if you're interested:
She lived in spectacular townhouses on Fifth Avenue in New York and the bank of the Seine in Paris; an estate on Long Island; a beach house in Palm Beach and not forgetting the villa in Capri built on the ruins of a palace belonging to the emperor Tiberius. She was regularly named one of the most beautifully dressed women in the world, feted by Balenciaga, Mainbocher and Givenchy, and was rarely off the pages of Vogue.
So why was Mona Williams, wife of a man once considered the richest in America, depicted in art in grim black rags?
The answer comes in the name of the artist – Salvador Dalí. "He was having fun, I think," said Samuel Valette, a surrealist art expert at Sotheby's, which is to sell an important 1943 portrait coming to the market for the first time.
Williams, widow of the multimillionaire Harrison Williams, went on to marry the grandson of the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The painting is being sold to raise money for the Mona Bismarck American Centre she created in Paris to help strengthen Franco-US relations through art and culture.
The foundation's executive director, Eddie McDonnell, hopes its sale will "do wonders for the expansion of our programming".
READ FULL STORY HERE
She lived in spectacular townhouses on Fifth Avenue in New York and the bank of the Seine in Paris; an estate on Long Island; a beach house in Palm Beach and not forgetting the villa in Capri built on the ruins of a palace belonging to the emperor Tiberius. She was regularly named one of the most beautifully dressed women in the world, feted by Balenciaga, Mainbocher and Givenchy, and was rarely off the pages of Vogue.
So why was Mona Williams, wife of a man once considered the richest in America, depicted in art in grim black rags?
The answer comes in the name of the artist – Salvador Dalí. "He was having fun, I think," said Samuel Valette, a surrealist art expert at Sotheby's, which is to sell an important 1943 portrait coming to the market for the first time.
Williams, widow of the multimillionaire Harrison Williams, went on to marry the grandson of the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The painting is being sold to raise money for the Mona Bismarck American Centre she created in Paris to help strengthen Franco-US relations through art and culture.
The foundation's executive director, Eddie McDonnell, hopes its sale will "do wonders for the expansion of our programming".
READ FULL STORY HERE
