Christie’s Will Sell Architect IM Pei’s $25 Million Art Collection, Including Works by Some of His Famous Friends

When Pritzker Prize-winning
architect IM Pei died this
spring, he left behind a
world-class art collection that he and his wife Eileen had amassed
over the course of their 72-year marriage. This fall, the majority
of that collection—including works by Barnett Newman, Jean
Dubuffet, and Zao Wou-Ki—will hit the auction block at
Christie’s. 

Following a global tour, the
collection of 59 works will sold during several sales
in New York and Hong Kong in
November, and in Paris in December. Christie’s estimates the full slate
of works to be worth more than $25 million.

“The Pei name is one that
resonates around the world, integrated into the landscape of the
dozens of cities that feature a Pei-designed art museum, concert
hall, university, hospital, office tower or civic building,” Marc
Porter, Christie’s chairman of the Americas, said in a statement.
IM Pei designed numerous museums, including the glass pyramid at
the Louvre and the Museum of Islamic Art. Porter adds that the
collection “speaks to the wonderful relationship Eileen and IM Pei
shared as equal partners in marriage, scholarship, design, and art
collecting.” 

Among the highlights are two Color Field canvases by Newman, a
close acquaintance of the Peis. Titled Untitled 4 and
Untitled 5, the oblong paintings were both executed in 1950
and feature the artist’s signatures zips of banded color.
(Christie’s expects Untitled 4 to fetch around $8
million—the high estimate for the collection—while Untitled
5 is estimated at $5 million.) Both works were a gift to the
couple from Newman’s widow in the mid-1970s.

Another pair of paintings, by
Chinese-French artist Zao Wou-Ki, are among the standouts in
Christie’s 20th-century Asian art sales on November 23 in Hong Kong.
The auction house has estimated them at between 38,000,000 –
48,000,000 Hong Kong dollars ($4.8 million- $6.1 million). Several works by
Dubuffet, another longtime friend of the couple, are led by the
artist’s 1964 painting La Brouette (The
Wheelbarrow). The large
oil-on-canvas painting, which was created as part of Dubuffet’s
famous “Hourloupe”
cycle, is
estimated at €350,000 –
550,000 ($388,000–$610,00). 

Other notable names in the
collection include Isamu Noguchi, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning,
and Henry Moore.

Liane Pei, the daughter of
Eileen and IM Pei, said in a statemetn: “My parents’ collection is
a personal reflection of how they lived. They shared a deep
curiosity about the world and I have wonderful memories of
traveling with them. No matter the country, they always seemed to
have friends, many of whom were artists, architects, gallerists,
and museum directors, ready to welcome them.”

A selection of the Pei’s
collection will go on view at Christie’s Paris from September
13-17, before traveling to Hong Kong and LA in October. The full
collection will be exhibited in New York in November, prior to the
sales. 

The post Christie’s Will Sell Architect IM Pei’s $25 Million
Art Collection, Including Works by Some of His Famous Friends
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