Provenance matters: from one artist to another

Artists can play a powerful role in shaping one another’s creative lives and legacies. This direct connection can be reflected, in part, through the works that pass between them. To encounter artwork in a studio, or for a fellow artist to receive work from a peer, is to engage in a dialogue that extends beyond the object. These exchanges — whether gifts, trades or acts of mutual admiration — signal a shared creative respect, which in turn, deepens the gravitas of a work.

When a painting or sculpture comes directly from the artist’s studio or passes from one creator to another, it carries with it a closeness to its moment of genesis that cannot be overstated. Such lineages and gestures reveal not only where a work has travelled or hung, but how it has been seen and understood by those who make or value art themselves.

Gustave Caillebotte’s treasured painting by Claude Monet

The first owner of Pommiers, Vétheuil (1878) was the Impressionist artist and key supporter of Claude Monet, Gustave Caillebotte. Caillebotte acquired the work after the infamous Fourth Impressionist exhibition of 1879, which was the largest and most successful of the series. The painting remained in Caillebotte’s collection until his death in 1894, after which he bequeathed it, along with many Impressionist masterpieces, to the French state.

While the government had initially agreed to the bequest, they declined to accept the collection in its entirety. As the executor of Caillebotte’s will, Pierre-Auguste Renoir agreed to the government’s conditions to avoid complete rejection. In the end, only eight works by Monet entered the national collection. Pommiers, Vétheuil was instead treasured by Caillebotte’s family, passing from his brother by descent until acquired by the family of the present owners almost 60 years ago.

A personal gift from Piet Mondrian

Piet Mondrian’s bold approach to abstraction was first championed by the Parisian art dealer Léonce Rosenberg. In October 1921, Rosenberg included nine works of Mondrian’s in the exhibition Quelques aspects nouveaux de la tradition at the Galerie de L’Effort Moderne. Although unable to sell any of the works, Rosenberg remained encouraging, and Mondrian gifted Composition with Large Red Plane, Blue, Gray, Black and Yellow (1921) to him in appreciation.

The painting remained with Rosenberg until circa 1934, when it was acquired by the art historian James Johnson Sweeney. Sweeney, a champion of abstract painting, was soon hired by Alfred H. Barr as a curator at The Museum of Modern Art and later became Director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture. In this role, Sweeney helped organize many forward-looking shows, several of which featured Composition with Large Red Plane, Blue, Gray, Black and Yellow. It remained a central object within Sweeney’s personal collection for over 50 years, before it was acquired by Si Newhouse in 2000.

Si Newhouse’s Joan Miró, once owned by Max Ernst

Joan Miró’s Portrait de Madame K. (1924) was first owned by the artist Max Ernst, a reflection of the camaraderie that defines this period of the artist’s career. After moving to Paris from Barcelona in 1921, Miró was living and working in Rue Blomet, the now-legendary centre of Surrealist thought and activity. He took a studio next to André Masson, was neighbors with Ernst and mingled with many of the leading Surrealists over the following years.

Ernst later sold Portrait de Madame K. to the perfume magnate and pioneering Belgian collector René Gaffé. Gaffé’s kaleidoscopic collection included works by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Giorgio de Chircio as well as Miró, of whom he was an early champion. The painting was later acquired by Si Newhouse.

A monumental Mark Rothko straight from his studio

No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe) (1964) was one of the first masterpieces to enter Agnes Gund’s celebrated collection when she acquired it directly from Mark Rothko just three years after he painted the work.

In 1967, Gund joined the Museum of Modern Art’s International Council, where she befriended significant collectors and patrons such as Emily Tremaine. The Tremaines were some of Rothko’s earliest supporters and acquired Number 8, 1952 from Betty Parsons Gallery in 1953. Gund spotted the work while visiting the couple’s home and immediately fell in love with the artist. Emily suggested a visit to his studio, where Rothko recommended No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe). Gund lived with the painting for decades, treasuring the way it transformed in changing light and even corresponding with Rothko about the experience. She allowed the painting to leave her apartment on only one occasion, for an exhibition at her beloved Cleveland Museum of Art.

The Jackson Pollock masterpiece acquired by Herbert Matter

Number 7A, 1948 was acquired directly from Jackson Pollock by the artist’s friend Herbert Matter. A Swiss photographer and graphic designer, Matter did much to shape the visual vocabulary of the twentieth century. He was also an early supporter of Pollock, and his innovative action photography has even been credited with helping Pollock conceptualize his unique drip paintings.

Following Matter, Number 7A, 1948 entered the collection of Kimiko and John Powers, a couple who built one of the era’s most significant collections of postwar art. It was later acquired by Si Newhouse and has remained in his personal collection for the past 25 years.

Gustave Caillebotte’s intimate domestic scene from the artist’s family collection

Painted in 1876, Le Déjeuner is a deeply personal portrayal of bourgeois family life in Paris that has remained in the Caillebotte family for over 130 years. Set in the dining room of the family home, the scene depicts the artist’s widowed mother, Céleste, his brother René and the family steward Jean Daurelle during a quiet afternoon meal.

One of three intimate family portraits painted between 1875 and 1876, the work was exhibited in the Second Impressionist Exhibition of 1876, his first foray into the activities of the revolutionary group. The painting then passed from the artist’s estate to his younger brother Martial and thence by descent to the present owner. Through the past century, the family have been generous custodians of the work, loaning it to a number of important exhibitions at institutions around the globe.

From Jasper Johns to his partner Robert Rauschenberg

Alley Oop (1958) was gifted by Jasper Johns to his romantic partner Robert Rauschenberg the year it was painted. These two artists paved the way for American Pop Art and the movements beyond and shared an intense creative connection. While here Johns applies his layers of paint to a page taken from an Alley Oop comic book, Rauschenberg would also use pages from an Alley Oop comic in two of his iconic combines, Collection and Charlene. Apart from Rauschenberg, Johns’s Alley Oop has had only one other owner, Si Newhouse, who acquired the painting in 1988.

Noah Davis’s painting for his family and the community

Blue House (2008) was gifted from Noah Davis to his family soon after its creation and has remained in their collection ever since. Painted during a pivotal time in the artist’s life Blue House first hung in the Underground Museum, a unique space to see world-class art that Davis founded with his brother Kahlil Joseph and wife Karon in the historically Black and Latinx neighborhood of Arlington Heights in Los Angeles. Blue House was one of the first works to be hung in the museum, for the benefit of the local community.

Reflecting on living with his brother’s work for so many years, Joseph told Christie’s, ‘There's so many layers. It changes over time...He loved that alchemy between individuals in their personal lives and the works being these silent observers of life for generations and generations...With him not being here, his works are a kind of proxy for his presence.’

Roy Lichtenstein’s personal gift to his mother

Voodoo Lily (1961) is a rare and early Pop painting that lays the groundwork for several of Roy Lichtenstein’s later series. Painted in 1961, it was gifted by the artist to his mother, Beatrice Bernardi, who was a stalwart supporter of his career. The painting, which features an early appearance of his iconic Ben-Day dots, is one of only two black-and-white floral still lifes made by the artist and one of only three flower paintings he produced in the 1960s.

A token of gratitude from Georges Seurat’s family to Paul Signac

Femme s'éloignant (circa 1881) was gifted by Georges Seurat’s family to his friend and fellow artist Paul Signac after he helped inventory Seurat’s studio. This drawing remained in Signac’s personal collection for over 30 years until acquired by Lucie Druet, the wife of photographer and art dealer Eugène Druet. It was subsequently owned by Jacques Rodrigues-Henriqués, an art dealer and the son-in-law of the painter Félix Vallotton.