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Lot Essay
Property from a Distinguished California Collection
Christie's is pleased to offer a selection of property from a Distinguished California Collection in our upcoming sales of Post-War and Contemporary Art, American Art, Twentieth Century Design, Prints and Antiquities. The collection illustrates a key distillation of a 30-year love affair with art and exemplifies the honed and insightful eye of true connoisseurs. From the bold Pop imagery of Ed Ruscha to the emotionally-charged abstractions of Joan Mitchell, we see iconic examples of many of the preeminent artists of the 20th Century.
Rich in both color and form, the aesthetic of these California collectors reflects a total embrace of the major art movements since the 1950s. A collection that encompasses art spanning from Milton Avery's modernist Hint of Autumn (1954) to Hans Hofmann's abstract expressionist Untitled (1943) to contemporary figurative works such as Eric Fischl's Lorinda and Annie (1995) and David Salle's Lara with Glass (1997), attests to this fact. Their wide-ranging aesthetic is informed by both close friendships with luminaries such as Frank Lloyd Wright and their own innate sense for talent and quality irrespective of period or genre. It is with great pleasure that we are able to offer property from this superb collection, which demonstrates a unique passion for collecting art of the 20th century.
"I guess I'm a child of communications, and I have always felt attracted to anything that had to do with that phenomenon of people speaking to each other. Maybe that itself becomes synonymous with popular culture in that newspapers, magazines-printing, specifically-have had the most dramatic effect on me. Printing was it, to me. When I first became attracted to the idea of being an artist, painting was the last method; it was almost an obsolete, archaic form of communicationSo I suppose it developed itself from that-into the idea of questioning the printed word. Then in questioning, I began to see the printed word, and it took off from there."
(Ed Ruscha quoted in: E. Ruscha, Leave any Information At the Signal: Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages, Boston, 2002, "Interview with Ruscha in His Hollywood Studio," pp. 150-151).
Christie's is pleased to offer a selection of property from a Distinguished California Collection in our upcoming sales of Post-War and Contemporary Art, American Art, Twentieth Century Design, Prints and Antiquities. The collection illustrates a key distillation of a 30-year love affair with art and exemplifies the honed and insightful eye of true connoisseurs. From the bold Pop imagery of Ed Ruscha to the emotionally-charged abstractions of Joan Mitchell, we see iconic examples of many of the preeminent artists of the 20th Century.
Rich in both color and form, the aesthetic of these California collectors reflects a total embrace of the major art movements since the 1950s. A collection that encompasses art spanning from Milton Avery's modernist Hint of Autumn (1954) to Hans Hofmann's abstract expressionist Untitled (1943) to contemporary figurative works such as Eric Fischl's Lorinda and Annie (1995) and David Salle's Lara with Glass (1997), attests to this fact. Their wide-ranging aesthetic is informed by both close friendships with luminaries such as Frank Lloyd Wright and their own innate sense for talent and quality irrespective of period or genre. It is with great pleasure that we are able to offer property from this superb collection, which demonstrates a unique passion for collecting art of the 20th century.
"I guess I'm a child of communications, and I have always felt attracted to anything that had to do with that phenomenon of people speaking to each other. Maybe that itself becomes synonymous with popular culture in that newspapers, magazines-printing, specifically-have had the most dramatic effect on me. Printing was it, to me. When I first became attracted to the idea of being an artist, painting was the last method; it was almost an obsolete, archaic form of communicationSo I suppose it developed itself from that-into the idea of questioning the printed word. Then in questioning, I began to see the printed word, and it took off from there."
(Ed Ruscha quoted in: E. Ruscha, Leave any Information At the Signal: Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages, Boston, 2002, "Interview with Ruscha in His Hollywood Studio," pp. 150-151).