Christie's 20th Century Evening Sale is a richly textured compilation of the most highly prized masterpieces from masters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Across the 62-lot sale are best-in-class objects by canonical legends including David Hockney, Claude Monet, Fernand Léger, Richard Diebenkorn, Lucian Freud, Alexander Calder, Joan Mitchell, J.M.W. Turner, Marc Chagall, John Singer Sargent, and many more. Exceptional offerings hail from the most esteemed private and institutional collections from around the world. including: Elaine: The Collection of Elaine Wynn, Birth of the Modern: The Arnold and Joan Saltzman Collection, Property from the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, Collector/Connoisseur: The Max N. Berry Collections, In Pursuit of Light: The Collection of Carol and Terry Wall, and Property from the Bill and Dorothy Fisher Collection Sold to Benefit The Community of Marshalltown, Iowa.
Christie's New York presents Property from the Bill and Dorothy Fisher Collection
Christie's is pleased to announce Property from the Bill and Dorothy Fisher Collection, a dedicated group of Impressionist works that will be showcased during the Fall Marquee Week of sales in New York, featuring outstanding examples by iconic artists including Paul Signac, Camille Pissarro, Eugene Boudin, Pierre Bonnard, Alfred Sisley, Henri Matisse and others.
David Kleiweg de Zwaan, Christie's Senior Specialist, Impressionist and Modern Art, remarks, “We are delighted to present this exquisite collection of art from the late 19th and early 20th centuries in our 20th Century Evening Sale and Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sales. Acquired by esteemed collectors and generous patrons Bill and Dorothy Fisher more than half a century ago, this best-in-class grouping underscores the strong significance of American patronage in the history of Impressionism. We are deeply thankful to the Fisher family for entrusting our team to steward these works and look forward to fielding the market's response.”
Imogen Kerr, Christie's Co-Head of the 20th Century Evening Sale, remarks, “We are deeply honored to pay tribute to the Fisher family as we showcase cherished works from their exemplary collection in our Marquee Week Sales—with Paul Signac's L'Odet à Quimper standing paramount among them. The canvas is a triumphant demonstration, impressively scaled with rich color and detail, of the artist's unmatched coloristic abilities, employing rich hues of emerald and sapphire interspersed with warm jewel-tones capturing the magnificent light. We are truly thrilled to present it to the market this fall, particularly for such a benevolent and worthy cause.”
PAUL SIGNAC (1863-1935) L'Odet à Quimper, oil on canvas, 27 1/2 x 35 in. (69.9 x 88.9 cm.), Painted in 1922-1923, Estimate: $6,000,000-9,000,000
The top lot of the group is a masterpiece by Paul Signac, L'Odet à Quimper (estimate: $6 million – 9 million), a radiant canvas rooted in one of the artist's greatest passions. Signac was famously an enthusiastic amateur sailor; deeply fascinated by the water, he traveled extensively by boat, visiting many of France's, and Europe's, greatest ports. The work was painted in Quimper, the ancient medieval town on the river Odet in Brittany, in 1922-23 and is an exceptional example of the iconic Pointillist's mature painterly style. The painting has been in the collection of Bill and Dorothy Fisher for more than sixty years.
