Famed Collection of J. Irwin & Xenia S. Miller to be Offered at Christie's in London

Written by Kevin Steffen Thursday, 09 December 2010 22:48

LONDON - Christie’s announces the consignment from the Collection of J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller to its 2008 season of sales at Christie’s in London and New York. Leading the collection are seventeen works which will be offered at the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale in London on June 24, and represent the most important and valuable collection of Impressionist and Modern art ever offered by Christie's in Europe. The seventeen Impressionist and Modern works together are expected to realize in excess of £40 million / $80 million.

Their collection is led by Claude Monet’s Le bassin aux nymphéas, an expansive and important late water-lily painting, one of an extremely rare series of large-scale four paintings signed and dated by the artist in 1919 (estimate on request). Unlike most of the late work which remained unfinished in the studio at the artist’s death, these four works were released by the artist during his lifetime. One of the series is in the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, another was cut down and the third is in a private collection, having been sold at Christie’s New York in November 1992 for the then very significant price of $12,100,000.

Other major Impressionist and Modern works include an important Fauve portrait by Henri Matisse (estimate: £3,000,000-4,000,000); Pierre Bonnard’s luminous Vue du Cannet of 1927 (estimate: £3,000,000-4,000,000); a Marc Chagall still life (estimate: £1,500,000-2,500,000); Compotier et guitare, a major Pablo Picasso still life of 1924 (estimate: £3,000,000-4,000,000); an exquisite 1911 cubist oil on canvas, also by Picasso (estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000); superb watercolors by Wassily Kandinsky and Camille Pissarro’s vibrant street scene Cours du Havre, Gare Saint Lazare of 1893 (estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000).

Elsewhere, six other works will be offered in Post-War and Contemporary Art sales in London, and at New York sales of American Paintings and Folk Art auctions in 2008. These six lots include significant pictures by Mark Rothko and a superb Edwards Hicks example from his much sought-after series The Peaceable Kingdom (estimate: $4,000,000-6,000,000). In its entirety, the Collection is valued in excess of £45 million / $90 million. 

Jussi Pylkkänen, President of Christie's Europe, says: “It is a great honor for Christie's to be asked to handle the Collection of J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller. The collection represents one of the most significant groups of Impressionist and Modern masterpieces ever offered for sale in Europe and these fine works will serve as the foundation of what promises to be a spectacular exhibition and sale here in London in June."

J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller
As philanthropists, they helped to transform their ordinary small Midwestern town of Columbus, Indiana, into a unique city where art and architecture have elevated the quality of life for all its citizens. In their private lives, they also built a mid-century modern home for their family that is recognized today as a National Historic Landmark and filled it with furnishings, paintings, drawings and sculptures by late 19th and 20th century masters.

Through his company’s philanthropic arm, the Cummins Engine Foundation, Irwin Miller created the Architecture Program in 1952, under which the foundation offered to pay the architects’ fees for a public building if the local governing body would select an architect from a list provided by the Foundation. These efforts inspired others to raise their sights as well.

Today, there are more than 60 structures of note in Columbus designed by architects such as Eliel and Eero Saarinen, I. M. Pei, Kevin Roche, and Richard Meier. Half of them received a subsidy from the Cummins Foundation. The significance of the modern architecture in Columbus led the community as a whole and four specific buildings within it (including the Millers’ home) to be designated National Historic Landmarks in 2000.

The Millers’ shared faith in art as an essential element of a good life went beyond civic improvement. The Millers persuaded their friend Eero Saarinen (who was rarely interested in residential architecture) to design a house for their family in Columbus, finished in 1957. It was for this wonderful structure and for the glorious gardens, that the Millers, over an eighteen year period in the 1960s and 70s, carefully selected paintings, drawings and sculptures by late 19th and 20th century masters.

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