During a career spanning half a century, Ileana Sonnabend helped shape the course of postwar art in Europe and America. Both a gallerist and a noted collector, Sonnabend promoted some of the most significant art movements of her time. Artists as varied as Vito Acconci, Mel Bochner, Gilbert & George, Jeff Koons, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Robert Morris, Claes Oldenburg, A. R. Penck, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol worked with Sonnabend, whose support for difficult avant-garde work was legendary. Published in conjunction with an exhibition that pays tribute to Sonnabend in honour of the Sonnabend family’s gift of Robert Rauschenberg’s well-known Combine Canyon (1959) to The Museum of Modern Art in 2012, Ileana Sonnabend: Ambassador for the New features approximately fifty works presented in Sonnabend’s eponymous galleries in Paris and New York from 1962 through the late 1980s. A biographical essay by Leslie Camhi, artists’ recollections of working with Sonnabend, and individual entries on the selected works provide further reflection on Sonnabend’s taste and lasting influence.

Ann Temkin is The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.