New York, 23 August 2012, Art Media Agency (AMA).
The Fifth Avenue apartment of former Surrealist painter Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012) was sold to New School professor and Democratic donor Philip Munger for $5.5 million.
Dying this past winter at age 101, Tanning studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to New York in 1942 where she met her future husband Max Ernst. After her marriage to the Surrealist painter, she continued to paint, create fabric sculptures, ballet costumes for George Balanchine and to write poetry.
Sold by Mary Elizabeth Johnson, executrix of Tanning’s estate, the six-floor two-bedroom Greenwich Village apartment where Tanning settled after Ernst’s death contains a wood burning fireplace, a 23-foot entrance gallery, an eat-in kitchen, high ceilings and herringbone floors. However, the most interesting features of the estate, the Surrealist paintings, were not included in the sale.