NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s announced The Rockefeller Mitchells: Science for the Benefit of Humanity, two masterpieces by Joan Mitchell: City Landscape (estimate: $15-20 million) and Untitled (estimate: $9-12 million). The paintings, leading highlights of Fall Marquee Week, come to Christie’s from the collection of The Rockefeller University, the world-renowned New York-based biomedical research and graduate institution. Both works will be sold in the 20th Century Evening Sale taking place, fittingly, in Christie’s Rockefeller Center saleroom on Tuesday, November 19th. Proceeds from their sale will support innovative biomedical research that will lead to new treatments and cures for disease.
The Rockefeller University is among the most highly regarded scientific institutions globally, recognized for groundbreaking discoveries that have benefited health and humanity since the university’s founding in 1901. Rockefeller University scientists have received countless top-tier awards and honors, including 26 Nobel Prizes.
The University has an established art collection and has previously used the proceeds from the sale of artwork to benefit future research. In 1977, the University sold a Jacques-Louis David portrait of Antoine Laurent and Marie Anne Lavoisier, which was later donated to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Proceeds from the sale were used to endow two professorships and four graduate fellowships.
The University’s art collection features a substantial number of women artists, which mirrors the University’s strong commitment to women scientists. Through its pioneering Women & Science Initiative, Rockefeller University has dramatically increased the representation of women scientists at the University and inspired numerous similar efforts worldwide. In 2004, the late Nobel laureate Paul Greengard and his wife, sculptor Ursula von Rydingsvard, established the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize at Rockefeller. Named for Greengard’s mother, the prize recognizes outstanding women in the life sciences.
Max Carter, Christie’s Vice Chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art, remarks: “Since its founding in 1901, The Rockefeller University has received more Nobel Prizes in medicine and chemistry than all but three countries, trained generations of the world’s leading scientists, and bettered mankind in countless ways. Its commitment to transformational science and hiring the best minds regardless of field have few parallels. The University is exceptional, too, in its belief that there can be no science without culture, and that art kindles the imagination. In 1958, animated by these ideals, David Rockefeller, the architect Wallace Harrison, and MoMA’s Dorothy Miller selected two masterpieces by Joan Mitchell to inspire the University’s scientists. Acquired from Eleanor Ward and viewed only by the University community for nearly seven decades, the Rockefeller Mitchells are major rediscoveries from those watershed years. This fall at Christie’s, to buy the best is to benefit humanity.”
Richard P. Lifton, President of The Rockefeller University, remarks: “The two Mitchell paintings in our collection have appreciated in value to the point that their sale will have an enormous impact on Rockefeller’s mission of science for the benefit of humanity. It is heartening to know that proceeds from the sale of the art that David Rockefeller so wisely helped the University acquire nearly seventy years ago will now fuel bold, risk-taking science—the surest route to medical breakthroughs in this golden age of biomedical discovery.”
Marc Porter, Chairman, Christie’s Americas, remarks, “We are thrilled to announce this New York sale for the benefit of The Rockefeller University, the historic and groundbreaking research institute founded by the legendary John D. Rockefeller. For more than a century, the pioneering minds of Rockefeller University have challenged conventions, achieving breakthroughs in science and medicine that have undoubtedly changed lives for the better. We are deeply honored to be entrusted with the sale of these works by the inimitable Joan Mitchell, a groundbreaker in her own right. Their acquisition by the University was made possible through the influential example of another groundbreaker, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, who set the course for the Museum of Modern Art and her children’s collecting interests. It has been a true privilege to partner with the University team, and we are humbled to continue our work on behalf of the Rockefeller family’s profound philanthropic legacies.”
Untitled and City Landscape were both painted in 1955, a year which Mitchell recognized then and later as a watershed in her career. They display the intense and vigorous working of the canvas, together with the emotive use of color, that distinguishes her work from the period. They are among the largest paintings she completed in this pivotal year, and by successfully combining nature, emotion, color and materiality, Mitchell was able to stand alongside her male counterparts as a central figure in the development of Abstract Expressionism.
In November 2023, Christie’s New York established a new auction record for Joan Mitchell, selling a 1959 canvas for $29.2 million – the highest price ever for a female Abstract Expressionist.
