GRAPHĒ: Florence Knoll’s Personal Art Collection Heads to Auction This Fall

The collection includes works by world-renowned artists including Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Louise Nevelson, and Josef Albers.

It’s hard to talk about the history of design without mentioning Florence Knoll, who passed earlier this year at the age of 101. She trained with the greats—Saarinen, Mies van der Rohe, and Noguchi, to name a few—and her enduring work transformed the postwar American office and interiors everywhere.

Florence Knoll poses with a model during a meeting of the Knoll Planning Unit.

Courtesy of Phillips

In the office of Harry Hood Bassett at the First National Bank in Miami, Homage to the Square Silent Gray by Josef Albers hangs behind a rich display of Knoll's designs. — In the office of Harry Hood Bassett at the First National Bank in Miami, *Homage to the Square Silent Gray* by Josef Albers hangs behind a rich display of Knoll’s designs.

Courtesy of Phillips

The approach she developed naturally matched her steadfast and grounded daily routines. A 1964 article from the Times reports that her lunches were kept to 30 minutes each day, where she read only histories or biographies. "I'm interested only in things that are real," she told them.

But her expansive art collection—to be sold on October 25 and November 14 by the international auction company Phillips—shows an appreciation of both tangible and abstract ideas alike. A funky, hand-painted vase by Picasso wears an affable, goofy smile, and Louise Nevelson’s Six Pointed Star juts and triangulates haphazardly.