10/20/2025 General, Modern & Contemporary Art
Doyle is honored to present The Evelyn D. Farland Collection, an important group of Modern and Contemporary artworks assembled by a discerning collector, publisher and arts advocate whose influence helped reshape the role of the art poster in America. As a founder of Poster Originals, Ltd., she expanded public access to visual culture while cultivating lasting relationships with major artists, influential galleries and distinguished institutions. Her collection, built over several decades, is a testament to her sophisticated connoisseurship and deep engagement with the New York art world.
Background
Born in Paris on December 25, 1930, Evelyn Davidoff was the daughter of Renée Martell Benassit, a member of the famed Martell cognac family, and Salomon Michel Davidoff, a notable art collector. The family apartment on fashionable Avenue Hoche and country house in Le Vésinet, an affluent suburb of Paris, were filled with precious antiques and fine art. Much of the collection was appropriated by the Nazis when the family left France in 1940, emigrating to the United States under safe passage guarantees arranged by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau.
Arriving in the States, Evelyn was educated at Rogers Hall School, a private boarding school for girls in Lowell, Massachusetts. She married Henry Mooberry, the brother of her school roommate, and settled in New Haven, Connecticut, where the couple welcomed a daughter. When the marriage ended, Evelyn returned with her daughter to New York, eventually settling on East 79th Street on the Upper East Side.
At an art opening at MoMA, Evelyn met Leo Farland, her neighbor across East 79th Street. An investment banker at Louis Dreyfus, Leo had lived in Paris, where his local bar was frequented by a community of artists, including Man Ray, who became a lifelong friend. The Surrealist often stayed in Leo’s apartment during visits to New York.
Leo and Evelyn married soon after meeting, and she moved across 79th Street into his apartment. Early in their marriage, they purchased a country house—a colonial era home in Water Mill, Long Island—where they became part of the vibrant East End arts community. They also traveled regularly, frequently returning to their beloved Paris.
Combining the collections of two passionate collectors presented a challenge, and an exciting opportunity. “I had been an avid poster collector for many years,” she told The New York Times. “When it came time to clean up all the posters and think of getting some framed as a collection, it dawned upon us that this country had no posters as an art form." Unlike in Paris, where fine art posters had a long and celebrated tradition, in America they remained largely confined to private collectors.
Poster Originals, Ltd.
Evelyn and Leo Farland set out to redefine the art poster’s role in American culture. With the rights to just twenty posters, they established Poster Originals, Ltd. in 1965. "We set forth in my apartment literally living with posters," she recalled to the Times. "Weeks later we had 20 posters to our name in editions of thousands, original limited editions of thousands, and before we knew it we were up to our neck in printing bills and only a few orders to fill."
From such humble beginnings, the business thrived. Poster Originals operated galleries in SoHo and the upper east side, first on East 78th Street, followed by a larger gallery on Madison Avenue—both designed by the Farland’s friend, acclaimed architect Charles Gwathmey. They also opened a location on Main Street in East Hampton. The launch of a framing division, Mark LV Frames Ltd, located in SoHo, provided custom framing, shipping and installation services.
Poster Originals’ catalogue grew to include 1,500 American and European art posters, illustrating works by numerous Modern and Contemporary artists represented in The Evelyn D. Farland Collection. Among these are Alexander Calder, Sonia Delaunay, Jim Dine, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Alex Katz, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselman.
The firm became a frequent collaborator with distinguished museums, cultural institutions and leading art galleries, creating posters for exhibitions, performances and special events. These included such major museums as the MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum in New York, and the Smithsonian, the National Gallery of Art and the Hirshhorn in DC; as well as LACMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, and even the Louvre.
Cultural institutions across disciplines also turned to Poster Originals, among them Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, American Ballet Theatre, the San Francisco Symphony and the Santa Fe Opera. From Long Island’s East End were the Hampton Classic and Guild Hall of East Hampton. The firm’s work even extended to Olympic commissions with posters for the 1972 Munich and 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
Poster Originals provided exhibition posters for some of the most influential art galleries of the era. These included Leo Castelli, Robert Miller, Acquavella, Marlborough, Kennedy Galleries, Hirshl & Adler, André Emmerich and Sidney Janis. For smaller or emerging galleries, the Farlands occasionally accepted artwork in exchange for the cost of production, helping those spaces afford exhibition posters while acquiring works for their own collection.
The firm developed large commercial and institutional buyers for their posters, including ABC, Citicorp, IBM, Xerox and the network of V.A. hospitals nationwide. These contracts helped bring visual art to audiences across the nation through the accessible medium of the poster.
Evelyn continued to build her collection, frequently acquiring works by artists she knew personally. The apartment on 79th Street—decorated with classic French furnishings and a growing collection of Modern and Contemporary art—resembled a Paris apartment transported to New York’s Upper East Side. They entertained regularly, hosting lively evenings often attended by gallerists, artists and guests whose names, as one friend recalled, one would see in The New York Times. Leo died in 1979, but Poster Originals and Evelyn’s collecting continued into the 1990s.
Legacy
Through Poster Originals, Evelyn D. Farland helped bring Modern and Contemporary art to broader audiences, collaborating with major museums, galleries and cultural institutions to expand the reach of visual culture beyond traditional circles. Her deep relationships with artists and gallerists—rooted in both business and friendship—shaped a collection that reflects the vibrancy of the New York art world. A participant in that creative community, Evelyn championed art not just as a collector, but as an advocate for its place in everyday life.
Auction Wednesday, November 19, 2025 at 11am
Exhibition November 15 - 17