LONDON.- Christie’s have opened the doors to their brand new exhibition space at the company’s King Street headquarters in London. To celebrate the occasion, a public exhibition worth more than $300 million and including works by Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso as well as Andy Warhol’s iconic Liz (Colored Liz) (estimate: in excess of $25 million) will be on view until 4.30pm on Saturday 13 October. All works from the exhibition will be offered at Christie’s auctions of Impressionist and Modern Art and Post-War and Contemporary Art in New York in November 2007.

The exhibition runs alongside and compliments a series of public views and auctions of Post-War and Contemporary art that are taking place at Christie’s salerooms at King Street and South Kensington between 10 and 16 October 2007, valued at over £70 million. These events take place during a week when the international art world gathers in London for a showcase of contemporary art including The Frieze Art Fair.

Jussi Pylkkänen, President of Christie’s Europe: “As Christie’s leads the international art market, we continue to invest to ensure that we provide the very best environment and service to our clients. This week we open our doors to a redesigned reception area at 8 King Street and a state-of-the-art exhibition space on Duke Street, St. James’s, which offer us the ideal location to present breathtaking works of art to international collectors and members of the public. In the next few days, the international art world gathers here in London for a series of events, exhibitions and auctions, and Christie’s are proud to present to the public the most valuable selection of art ever exhibited at our newly-designed salerooms at King Street and South Kensington.”

Highlights of the exhibition include:

- Ib and Her Husband, 1992, by Lucian Freud (b. 1922), a deadly honest and deeply intriguing portrait of Freud’s daughter Isobel and her partner which is expected to break the record price for a work by the artist at auction (estimate: in excess of $15 million).

- Liz (Colored Liz), 1963 by Andy Warhol (1928-1987), one of the series of portraits Warhol executed in the 1960s when his near-obsession with three legendary muses in his life – Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy – drove him to create some of the most iconic portraits of the 20th century (estimate: in excess of $25 million).

- Les Jas de Bouffan, 1890/94, by Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), which is the very last view the artist executed of his family’s home near Aix and which occupies a very critical place in his oeuvre (estimate: $12 – 16 million).

- Portrait du sculpteur Oscar Miestchaninoff, 1916, by Amadeo Modigliani (1884-1920), an exceptional portrait which is expected to realise $18 – 25 million.

- Femme accroupie au costume turc (Jacqueline), 1955, by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) the crowning, definitive painting in a group of ten portraits of his companion Jacqueline Roque which the artist painted toward the end of 1955.

- L’Odalisque, harmonie bleue, 1937, by Henri Matisse (1869-1954), which portrays Lydia Delectorskaya, a blond Russian émigrée who served as a model for several of his paintings (estimate: $15 – 20 million).