Talk Art

We meet Alex Rotter, Chairman of Christie’s 20/21 Art Departments, to discuss Christie’s New York forthcoming auction 'Visionary: The Paul G. Allen Collection' which runs from 9–10 November 2022 at Rockefeller Center. The collection of philanthropist Paul G. Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, includes more than 150 masterpieces spanning 500 years of art history. Reflecting the depth and breadth of Paul G. Allen’s collection, the auctions connect this visionary innovator to a range of ground-breaking artists, joining Paul Cezanne with David Hockney, Alberto Giacometti with Louise Bourgeois, Georges Seurat with Jasper Johns and Agnes Martin with Yayoi Kusama. Valued in excess of $1 billion, The Paul G. Allen Collection is poised to be the largest and most exceptional art auction in history. Pursuant to his wishes, the estate will dedicate all the proceeds to philanthropy.

From 29 October – 8 November 2022, view The Paul G. Allen Collection in-person at Christie's Rockefeller Center galleries in New York. Follow @ChristiesInc and visit their official website: https://www.christies.com/en/events/visionary-the-paul-g-allen-collection/overview

From Canaletto’s famed vistas of Venice and Paul Cezanne’s magisterial vision of the Mont Sainte-Victoire to Gustav Klimt’s Birch Forest, Georgia O'Keeffe's 'Red Hills with Pedernal, White Clouds', and latterly, David Hockney’s joyful depictions of his native Yorkshire, the collection highlights landmark moments in the development of landscape painting through centuries. Botticelli’s Madonna of the Magnificat, Georges Seurat’s pointillist masterwork Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version) and Lucian Freud’s Large Interior, W11 (after Watteau) demonstrate the enduring power of the human figure in art, while the polyvalent practice of artists such as Max Ernst and Jasper Johns show how artists can subvert tradition to move art forward. We explore some of our own personal favourite works by Georgia O'Keeffe, Agnes Martin, David Hockney, Louise Bourgeois, Bridget Riley and Barbara Hepworth.

Alex Rotter grew up in a family of art dealers in his native Austria, and studied at the University of Vienna. He currently lives in New York and is responsible for overseeing a global team of specialists spanning the full scope of 20th and 21st Century art. Rotter’s progressive approach to presenting extraordinary works of art to the market has yielded many of the most groundbreaking moments in auction history. Career highlights include the 2017 sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi , which sold for $450 million, becoming the most expensive object ever sold at auction, and Jeff Koons’ Rabbit from the Collection of SI Newhouse, which sold for $91.1 million and set a world auction record for a living artist.