Arts and Design

Christie's to sell Texan oil tycoon Edward L. Cox's collection of Impressionist art




Gustave Caillebotte’s Jeune homme à sa fenêtre
Courtesy, Christie’s

While the 2021 auction season has been dominated by contemporary art sales—$12m for a Banksy, $15m for a Colescott, $50m for a Basquiat—the market for Impressionist works has softened, with many of the works that have been up on the block selling for at or around the low estimate. That may no longer be the case this November. As the leaves begin to turn in New York, Christie’s will auction what they’ve deemed “one of the greatest American collections to ever appear on the market.”

The Cox Collection: The Story of Impressionism features 25 Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works from the collection of Edwin Lochridge Cox and is expected to fetch upwards of $200m. Cox, a well-respected oil man and philanthropist in Dallas, Texas, began his collection fifty years ago, and according to the art advisor Stephanie Connery, many of the works haven’t been seen in public since before the Second World War.

Highlights of the collection include one of Gustave Cailleboite’s most important works, Jeune homme à sa fenêtre, which was featured in the first exhibition of Impressionist works in America in 1886. The picture, which shows Cailleboite’s brother Rene gazing out onto a Paris street from the window of a posh apartment, is an elegant mixture of academic technique and the artist’s grasp of realism. The work is expected to fetch over $50m.

Also included in the sale is Cezanne’s L’Estaque aux toits rouges, a brilliantly coloured picture from which it’s easy to see the seeds of cubism taking root, and Vincent van Gogh’s

Cabanes de bois parmi les oliviers et cyprès, which features the artists hallmark impasto circular strokes in the olive trees that dominate the frame.

“With its vibrant array of American and European 19th & 20th Century Art, the collection reflects Mr. and Mrs. Cox’s extraordinary level of connoisseurship, but also the joy of truly living with art—an inspiring model for new and established collectors alike. This collection truly marries intellectualism with passion,” says Bonnie Brennan, Christie’s President of Americas.





READ NEWS SOURCE

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.