Christie’s auction house said it will offer three original drawings by the legendary Broadway portraitist Al Hirschfeld that were owned by Terry Allen Kramer, the prolific Broadway producer and Palm Beach doyenne who died in May at 85.
One of the pen-and-ink drawings depicts Barry Bostwick, Joanna Gleason and Christine Baranski in the 1991 flop Nick & Nora. There are five Ninas hidden in the picture — the name of the revered caricaturist’s daughter and often the first thing readers of the Sunday New York Times Arts & Leisure section looked for. With a pre-sale estimate of $3,000 to $5,000, it could run $1,000 per Nina.
The other two works are of the 1979 hit revue Sugar Babies, which starred Ann Miller and Mickey Rooney. They’re also estimated at $3,000 to $5,000 each. (The minimum price accepted at auction is always equal to or below the low estimate, in this case $3,000.) The Rockefeller Center auction will be on Oct. 16.
In addition to Nick & Nora and Sugar Babies, Kramer had 50 Broadway credits over 44 years, including as a co-producer of the musical Kinky Boots. “She was very enthusiastic about theater and loved talking about it,” Daryl Roth, lead producer of Kinky Boots, said in an interview. “She was very feisty and a lot of fun.”
The daughter of Charles Allen Jr., who founded the investment bank Allen & Company, Kramer was known for her acumen, philanthropy, the Palm Beach soirees she threw for fellow socialites and an ever-present tan. Her extensive art collection included works by Picasso and Camille Pissarro that will be offered at Christie’s for seven figures.
Hirschfeld died in 2003; a Broadway theater, the Martin Beck, was renamed in his honor.
Kramer’s two-story Upper East Side penthouse is apparently still up for grabs, listed in May for $45 million. Her Palm Beach estate, La Follia, with a 37,500-square-foot Italianate home, sold in July for $105 million, according to the Palm Beach Post.
