University gifts of art rarely stay intact these days. Private holdings often hit the block instead.
Seattle developer Richard Hedreen is taking a different path. He is consigning about 50 works expected to total at least $90 million at Sotheby's this fall and winter. The move advances his landmark pledge to Seattle University rather than undoing it.
Hedreen and his late wife Elizabeth "Betty" Hedreen built the collection over decades. Betty, a Seattle University alumna who died in 2022, shared the passion. In 2024, he promised the full holdings, then valued at around $300 million for more than 200 pieces, plus $25 million in seed money.
The gift ranks among the largest art gifts ever to a U.S. university. It honors her and the Jesuit focus on the arts. The holdings have since grown past 400 works from the 15th century to today.
Roughly 350 pieces stay for the new Seattle University Museum of Art. They include paintings by Willem de Kooning, Rashid Johnson, Amy Sherald, and Jonas Wood. Old Masters by Bronzino, Jacopo Pontormo, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, and Thomas Gainsborough remain too.
Hedreen and family members reviewed the works piece by piece with a university art historian. The process ensured the museum keeps landmark pieces, historical range, and varied voices.
Sotheby's will offer the selected group in New York sales in November and February. Leading the contemporary lots is Roy Lichtenstein's Reflections on “Painter and Model” from 1990. It carries an estimate of $20 million to $30 million. The Hedreens owned it for over three decades. It plays on Picasso's 1928 painting of the same theme at the Museum of Modern Art. The timing aligns with a major Lichtenstein retrospective now at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Cecily Brown's large Untitled (Shipwreck) from 2017 follows closely. The 12-foot-wide canvas is estimated at $7 million to $10 million. It draws from Romantic shipwreck scenes by Delacroix and Géricault.
Old Master highlights appear in the February sale. Georg Pencz's 16th-century Portrait of Sigismund Baldinger estimates at $8 million to $12 million. It carries a complex provenance including wartime looting and restitution. Titian's The Mater Dolorosa from around 1550-55 carries a $4 million to $6 million estimate. Other works by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi and Gaetano Gandolfi join them.
The Hedreen family framed the sales clearly.
“Seattle University has long held a special place in our lives, and our commitment to it remains as strong as ever,” they said. “In order to translate our pledge into a gift realizable in the near term, we are now parting with a number of works.” The chosen pieces leave the remaining collection with the depth first envisioned. Seattle University responded with gratitude.
“We are deeply grateful to Richard Hedreen for the extraordinary gift of art pledged in honor of his wife, Betty Hedreen, a proud Seattle University alumna,” the school stated. Officials noted ongoing talks and promised further updates.
Hedreen made his name with R.C. Hedreen Co., the firm behind major Seattle hotels including the Hilton and Hyatt Regency. He and Betty began collecting seriously in the 1960s and 1970s. They mixed contemporary works with later Old Masters.
Earlier gifts went to the Seattle Art Museum and other institutions. They also backed the university's Chapel of St. Ignatius and Lee Center for the Arts. Hedreen has said he wanted the works kept together as a statement about the collectors themselves. He disliked the idea of pieces sitting in storage.
The museum project continues under Olson Kundig, led by Tom Kundig. The firm is designing a teaching museum on the site of the Lee Center at 12th Avenue and East Marion Street. Flexible galleries will allow performance, music, and theater alongside displays.
Sellen Construction is the builder.
Earlier plans called for a roughly $60 million structure with groundbreaking targeted for 2026 and opening by fall 2028. Construction has not yet begun. University spokespeople have declined to share fresh timeline details while planning advances. The building will open to students and the public as a bridge between campus and city.
This partial sale tests how collectors convert large pledges into lasting institutions. Lichtenstein's market has shown renewed strength amid the Whitney show and other offerings. Strong results here could bolster confidence in both Pop and Old Master segments.
For Seattle University, the works that remain form a core teaching resource. They span sacred themes suited to its Jesuit roots and contemporary voices that speak to current students.
The full collection, once valued near $300 million, now supports a public museum rather than private walls. That shift keeps a major Pacific Northwest holding accessible for generations.
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