For one top Sotheby’s executive, this year's auction season feels like destiny.

“This is the season I’ve waited for my whole life,” Lisa Dennison told NBC News, standing near the radiant Gustav Klimt canvases soon to be auctioned.

“To be in this building and to have the collections we have this season — it’s everything,” said Dennison, the auction house's executive vice president and chairman of the Americas.

At the center of it all is one of the most anticipated art sales in the last several years: the private art collection of Leonard Lauder, the philanthropist, cosmetics heir and legendary collector who helped shape American museums — much like his mother, Estée Lauder, shaped beauty culture as a giant of cosmetics.

The works will be auctioned off beginning on Tuesday.

Leonard Laud

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