CHRISTIE’S & THE PAUL G. ALLEN VISIONARY COLLECTION AN UNPRECEDENTED $1 BILLION PHILANTHROPIC SALE OF MASTERPIECES
SPANNING 500 YEARS OF ART HISTORY
SOLD ACROSS TWO LIVE AUCTIONS IN NEW YORK CITY
PART I: 9 NOVEMBER | 7PM
PART II: 10 NOVEMBER | 10AM
WORLDWIDE TOUR BEGINS 5 OCTOBER – SEE LOCATIONS AND DATES BELOW:
NEW YORK – Christie’s and the estate of the philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft, Paul G. Allen, are honored to unveil highlights from Visionary: The Paul G. Allen Collection, featuring 500 years of groundbreaking art. The highlights will be part of an unprecedented $1 billion sale across two live auctions at Christie’s Rockefeller Center beginning November 9th. The auctions will offer a comprehensive study of the art historical canon in more than 150 masterworks. All of the estate’s proceeds from this historic sale will be dedicated to philanthropy, pursuant to Mr. Allen’s wishes.
A visionary and innovator, Paul G. Allen collected art of the finest caliber, acquiring superb pieces by the world’s most iconic artists. The sale will include examples, often among the finest in private hands, by Jan Brueghel the Younger, J.M.W. Turner, Edouard Manet, Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and many others. The collection reflects the pioneering work of artistic visionaries through their expression of paint, light, portraiture, and place.
Max Carter, Vice Chairman, 20th and 21st Century Art, Americas, remarked: “The Paul G. Allen Collection, like Cézanne’s breathtaking view of Mont Sainte-Victoire, is the summit of the mountain. From Brueghel’s Five Senses and the Venetian imaginings of Turner and Manet, to late 19th-centurymasterpieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin and Monet, Klimt’s Birch Forest and Freud’s Large Interior, W11 (after Watteau), arguably the greatest set piece of the last fifty years, the Collection is bounded only by vision and quality. And then there is Seurat’s Les Poseuses. Formerly in the collections of Alphonse Kann, John Quinn and Henry McIlhenny and featured in the 1913 Armory Show, when it appeared at auction for the one and only time in 1970, the art historian John Russell suggested that it was one of the three or four most beautiful works of art to be sold since the war. It remains so today.”
Exhibition and Tour Dates:
• Hong Kong | 5 – 7 October
• Los Angeles | 11 – 15 October
• Taipei | 13 – 15 October
• Shanghai | 14 – 15 October
• London | 14 – 17 October
• Paris | 20 – 22 October
• New York | Beginning 29 October
Live Auctions at Christie’s New York:
• PART I – 9 November at 7PM
• PART II – 10 November at 10AM
For Full Tour Information visit:
https://www.christies.com/events/visionary-the-paul-g-allen-collection/overview
Image: PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
La montagne Sainte-Victoire
oil on canvas
25 5/8 x 31 7/8 in.(65.1 x 81 cm.)
Painted in 1888-1890
Estimate on request; in excess of $120,000,000.