Willem de Kooning - Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York Wednesday, May 15, 2024 | Phillips

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  • “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. 

    “A third painting, titled 'Still Life' and dated circa 1929, may well be the earliest de Kooning painting most of us have ever seen. Its crisp shapes and deep primary colors suggest the influence of Joseph Stella and look forward to David Hockney.”
    —Roberta Smith

    Created when the artist was just 25 years old, Willem de Kooning’s Still Life, circa 1929, presents a rare, figurative precursor to the heavily abstracted forms for which he is known.  Included in the artist’s 2012 retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the present work is an exceptional early example within the groundbreaking oeuvre of one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. A standout in Inger and Osborn Elliott’s collection, the present work is entirely fresh to market, having been in the same family collection for decades.

     

    Moving to New York from Rotterdam in 1927, de Kooning started working as a carpenter and house painter. In 1929, the year of the present work, de Kooning met artists John Graham, Stuart Davis and Arshile Gorky, who would become great influences on the young painter. Through Gorky, de Kooning’s artistic career would flourish. Gorky introduced him to artists such as Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso, as well as the Surrealists. The present work recalls the principles of such avant-garde painters. And yet, de Kooning’s still life scene eschews the academic tradition with  vibrant hues of ruby red, deep violets, blues, and greens, emphasizing geometric patterns in the floorboards and simplified forms in the plant’s leaves. 

     

    A detail of the present work.

    The composition is slightly tilted, with the horizon line of the floor brought almost mid-way through the room and the table slightly tilted downwards, as if its contents were about to spill out towards the viewer. This manipulation of space would foreshadow de Kooning’s entirely abstract compositions, using form and dimension in a way which would lead to his most important contributions to the Abstract Expressionist movement. Nearly 20 years before his legendary Woman paintings, Still Life is a rare look into de Kooning’s formative work, showcasing the range of the artist’s illustrious career.

    • Condition Report

    • Description

      View our Conditions of Sale.

    • Provenance

      Milton Robertson (gifted by the artist circa 1940)
      David and Lova Abrahamsen, New York (acquired from the above in 1959)
      Inger Elliott, New York (thence by descent from the above)
      Thence by descent to the present owner

    • Exhibited

      New York, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, Garden in Delft: Willem de Kooning Landscapes, 1928–88, May 3–June 26, 2004, pl. 1, pp. 22–23, 57 (illustrated, p. 23; erroneous dimensions 48 x 24 in. listed)
      New York, Museum of Modern Art, de Kooning: A Retrospective, September 18, 2011–January 9, 2012, no. 4, pp. 64–65 (illustrated, p. 64)

    • Literature

      Thomas B. Hess, Willem de Kooning, New York, 1959, no. 9, p. 39 (illustrated)
      Robert Rosenblum, Willem de Kooning, Paris, 1984, p. 172 (illustrated)
      Sally Yard, Willem de Kooning: The First Twenty-Six Years in New York, New York, 1986, no. 1, p. 260 (illustrated)
      Roberta Smith, “Art Guide,” The New York Times, June 4, 2004

Property from the Estate of Inger and Osborn Elliott

110

Still Life

signed and dated "de Kooning '29" lower right
oil on canvas
36 x 26 in. (91.4 x 66 cm)
Painted circa 1929.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$150,000 - 250,000 

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