An American Place
Christie’s auctions off the unrivaled collection of Barney A. Ebsworth
Christie’s auctions off the unrivaled collection of Barney A. Ebsworth
November 13-14
Christie’s 20 Rockefeller Plaza New York, NY 10020 t: (212) 636-2000 www.christies.com
On November 13 and 14, one of the most important private collections of 20th-century American art will go on sale in An American Place:the Barney A. Ebsworth Collection. Ebsworth, who died in April 2018, was the founder of Clipper Cruise Line and was an angel investor in Builda-bear Workshop. His interest in art was ignited while he was stationed in France in 1956. He wrote in his autobiography, “I was not an art connoisseur. I visited [the Louvre] because it was such an integral part of Paris, and what I found there changed me.”
Leading the sale is Edward Hopper’s Chop Suey, with an estimate in the region of $70 million.the 1929 painting depicts two people at an eatery, a representation of the cultural fusion happening in the city at the time.with its modern usage of light and color, Chop Suey is considered the most important work by the artist left in private hands, and along with other selections from the collection, it will tour to Paris, New York, Hong Kong, London, San Francisco and Los Angeles before the November auction. Christie’s chairman
Marc Porter comments, “christie’s is honored to have been entrusted with this great collection, which brings Hopper’s great masterpiece back to Paris five years after his retrospective at the Grand Palais.”
Executed at the height of Willem de Kooning’s career, Woman as Landscape is expected to sell in the region of $60 million .a large scale canvas at over 5½ feet tall, the work econmpasses de Kooning’s bravado. A Jackson Pollock, Composition with Red Strokes, holds an estimate in the region of $50 million.the work was completed in 1950, a prolific period for the artist, and Christie’s notes, “it was these startling, original and accomplished paintings that, in Willem de Kooning’s phrase, finally ‘broke the ice’ for American painting, completely revolutionizing it and in the process reshaping the entire history of 20th-century art.”
Major works by William Glackens, Elie Nadelman, Franz Kline, Stuart Davis, Charles Sheeler, Georgia O’keeffe and Patrick Henry Bruce will also cross the block as part of the collection.