Parke-Bernet Galleries was an American

auction house An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...

, active from 1937 to 1964, when

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

purchased it. The company was founded by a group of employees of the

American Art Association The American Art Association was an art gallery and auction house with sales galleries, established in 1883. It was first located at 6 East 23rd Street (South Madison Square) in Manhattan, New York City and moved to Madison Ave and 56th St. in ...

, including Otto Bernet, Hiram H. Parke, Leslie A. Hyam, Lewis Marion and Mary Vandergrift. By 1964, the company was the largest auction house in America, with 115 employees and total sales of $11 million ($ million in ). That year, Sotheby's purchased a controlling interest of 75% in the gallery for $1.5 million ($ million in ).

History

The company was founded in 1937, by a group of forty former employees of the

, including Otto Bernet, Hiram H. Parke, Leslie A. Hyam, Lewis Marion and Mary Vandergrift. In January 1938, the first auction was held in a gallery at 742

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

. The next year, the company took over the

American Art Association-Anderson Galleries The American Art Association was an art gallery and auction house with sales galleries, established in 1883. It was first located at 6 East 23rd Street (South Madison Square) in Manhattan, New York City and moved to Madison Ave and 56th St. in ...

, consisting of the American Art Association and the

Anderson Auction Company The American Art Association was an art gallery and auction house with sales galleries, established in 1883. It was first located at 6 East 23rd Street (South Madison Square) in Manhattan, New York City and moved to Madison Ave and 56th St. in ...

. Parke-Bernet oversaw the sale of the estate of , a prominent art collector, whose estate included works by

Raoul Dufy Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French Fauvism, Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramic art, ceramics and textile as well as decorative schemes for public bu ...

Alfred Sisley Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedicatio ...

and

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "R ...

. The collection sold for over 2 million pounds in 1957, a record. Other customers of the company included

Rockefellers The Rockefeller family () is an American industrial, political, and banking family that owns one of the world's largest fortunes. The fortune was made in the American petroleum industry during the late 19th and early 20th centuries by brothe ...

Vanderbilts The Vanderbilt family is an American family who gained prominence during the Gilded Age. Their success began with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the family expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthr ...

Paul Mellon Paul Mellon (June 11, 1907 – February 1, 1999) was an American philanthropist and an owner/breeder of thoroughbred racehorses. He is one of only five people ever designated an "Exemplar of Racing" by the National Museum of Racing and Hall ...

and

Henry Ford II Henry Ford II (September 4, 1917 – September 29, 1987), sometimes known as "Hank the Deuce", was an American businessman in the automotive industry. He was the oldest son of Edsel Ford I and oldest grandson of Henry Ford I. He was president ...

. Ford's purchase of ''La Serre'' by Renoir through Parke-Bernet was a world record. Parke-Bernet also oversaw the sale of the estate of

Hagop Kevorkian Hagop Kevorkian ( hy, Յակոբ Գեւորգեան; 1872 – 1962) was an Armenian-American archeologist, connoisseur of art, and collector. Originally from Kayseri, and a graduate of the American Robert College in Istanbul, he settled in New Yo ...

, the Armenian archaeologist, antiquities dealer, and philanthropist whose foundation gave major contributions to support the study of the Near East and Middle East at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Building

The

Parke-Bernet Galleries building 980 Madison Avenue (also known as the Parke-Bernet Galleries building) is a building located at Madison Avenue and East 76th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It served as the headquarters of Parke-Bernet Galleries from ...

is a building in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

at 980

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stre ...

that served as the headquarters of

Parke-Bernet Galleries Parke-Bernet Galleries was an American auction house, active from 1937 to 1964, when Sotheby's purchased it. The company was founded by a group of employees of the American Art Association, including Otto Bernet, Hiram H. Parke, Leslie A. Hyam, L ...

from its opening on November 10, 1949, to its sale in 1987.

Sources

{{Authority control American auction houses Sotheby's American companies established in 1937 Retail companies established in 1937 1937 establishments in New York (state)