Arshile Gorky - Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York Wednesday, May 15, 2024 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • “My interest has always been people.”
    —Inger Elliott

    Treasures from the Estate of Inger and Osborn Elliott

     

    Inger and Osborn Elliott cultivated an art collection worthy of praise. Their home served as a jewel box of taste, with brightly colored walls adorned with paintings, photographs, and drawings, all delicately and masterfully curated.  The couple's diverse collection reflects their devotion to New York City's cultural, intellectual, and civic spheres, while also spanning a global reach of artistic styles and techniques. Inger, originally from Norway, had a passion for photojournalism that brought her to Southeast Asia, where she documented the Vietnam War from a helicopter. She would later go on to found China Seas, a design firm specializing in batik textiles. Osborn, a revolutionary Newsweek editor and social advocate, went on to become the Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Trailblazers in their own regard, the Elliotts amassed a collection including rare, early works by Willem de Kooning, Wassily Kandinsky, and Milton Avery, among those by many other innovative modern and post-war painters, photographers, and printmakers.
     

    Inger and Osborn Elliott.

    Inger and Oz's eye for style, together with a casual, chic approach to curation, set them apart from other collectors. It is their charisma that lives on through these artworks, proving that a distinct approach to collecting yields the finest quality. These artworks not only have excellent provenance, but also exhibit a unique rarity and quality,  remarkably contemporary despite their age. 

    • Condition Report

    • Description

      View our Conditions of Sale.

    • Provenance

      Nicholas Vasilieff (acquired directly from the artist circa 1946–1947)
      John Heller Gallery, Inc., New York (1958)
      Benefit Art Sale for the New York Psychoanalytic Association, New York, November 1959
      David and Lova Abrahamsen, New York (acquired at the above sale)
      Inger Elliott, New York (thence by descent from the above)
      Thence by descent to the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, Continuity and Change: 45 American Abstract Painters and Sculptors, April 12–May 27, 1962, no. 30, p. 14 (titled Artist’s Wife)
      New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Arshile Gorky: Paintings, Drawings, Studies, December 19, 1962–February 12, 1963, no. 95, p. 55
      New York, Gagosian Gallery, Arshile Gorky: Portraits, March 20–April 27, 2002, pp. 60–61 (illustrated, p. 61; dated circa 1942)
      New York, Armand Bartos Fine Art, Collect with Us, November 4–14, 2008
      New York, Armand Bartos Fine Art, Collect With Us, May 3–28, 2010
      Purchase, Neuberger Museum of Art; Fort Worth, Amon Carter Museum of American Art; Andover, Massachusetts, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning, and Their Circle, 1927–1942, September 21–December 31, 2012, no. 76, pp. 163, 168 (illustrated)

    • Literature

      Julien Levy, Arshile Gorky, New York, 1966, no. 34, n.p. (illustrated)
      Barbara Rose, “Arshile Gorky and John Graham: Eastern Exiles in a Western World,” Arts Magazine, New York, March 1976, vol. 50, no. 7
      Jim M. Jordan and Robert Goldwater, The Paintings of Arshile Gorky: A Critical Catalogue, New York, 1982, no. 197, pp. 345–346 (illustrated, p. 346)
      Daniel Kunitz, “Gallery Chronicle,” The New Criterion, New York, vol. 20, no. 9, May 2002, p. 50 (dated circa 1942)
      Ben Eastham, ed., The Worlds of Stephen Spender, Zurich, 2018, pp. 118–120, 151 (illustrated, p. 119)

Property from the Estate of Inger and Osborn Elliott

114

Portrait of the Artist's Wife

signed "A Gorky" upper right
oil on canvas mounted to Masonite
30 3/4 x 22 1/2 in. (78.1 x 57.2 cm)
Painted circa 1946–1947.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$25,000 - 35,000 

Place Advance Bid
Contact Specialist

Annie Dolan
NY Head of Auctions and Specialist, Head of Sale, Morning Session
212 940 1288
adolan@phillips.com

Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session

New York Auction 15 May 2024