The Phillips Family Collection Will Highlight Christie’s Marquee Week | New York

NEW YORK – Christie’s is pleased to announce the Phillips Family Collection which will highlight the Fall Marquee Week of Sales in New York City this November. The collection of more than 20 artworks will be sold across the 20^th Century Evening Sale and the Impressionist and Modern Art Day and Works on Paper Sales, with a low estimate in excess of $25 million. Headlined by Paul Signac’s exquisite canvas Tertre Denis, Portrieux, Opus 189 to be presented in the 20^th Century Evening Sale, this group represents exceptional examples  by Impressionist and post-Impressionist masters such as Matisse, Pissarro, Bonnard, Seurat and Sisley and others.

Adrien Meyer, Christie’s Global Head-Private Sales & Co-Chairman-Impressionist & Modern Art, remarks, “The Phillips Family Collection was built with a discerning eye over 50 years ago by two brothers, Ivan and Neil Phillips. Together, the pair of connoisseurs assembled a masterful group of Impressionist and Old Master paintings admired over decades by the finest museum curators. It is an honor to offer the Highlights from the Phillips Family Collection this November at Christie’s New York.”

Collecting for the Phillips was a true family affair. The Honorable Lazarus Phillips Q.C.O.B.E and Rosalie Phillips began acquiring French Impressionist and early 20^th century French art, amassing a superb collection that would come to be maintained by their sons Ivan and Neil Phillips. In the early 1950s, the brothers’ deep interest in art and art history further blossomed, and they became heavily involved in the evolution, development, and maintenance of the Phillips Family Collection. Expertly assembled with passion and care, the collection is a survey of many of the greatest names across both the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist categories.

The top lot of the group to be sold this November is Paul Signac’s Tertre Denis, Portrieux, Opus 189, painted in the summer of 1888 in the fishing village of Portrieux. During this all-important summer, Signac created a highly celebrated series of nine oil paintings and six studies focused on port scenes and seascapes, each of which uniquely captures the dramatic colors and scintillating light of Portrieux’s rich landscape. This group stands among the most consistently pointilliste of Signac’s divisionist canvases, reflecting the growing sophistication of his technique during this time,  as his creative collaboration with friend and mentor Georges Seurat reached new heights.