NEW YORK, NY.- Phillips has been entrusted with the sale of selected artworks by Le Corbusier from the Heidi Weber Museum Collection. The most comprehensive selection of his artworks to be presented at auction, it is offered from the collection of one of his most prominent patrons, Heidi Weber, who housed many of the works in the Heidi Weber Museum / Centre Le Corbusier, her private museum in Zurich designed by the artist and dedicated to showing his artistic works. Consisting of over 50 works and including paintings, sculptures, enamels, tapestries and works on paper, the collection will be offered at various-owner auctions in London and New York over the next three years and is conservatively expected to realise in excess of $30 million.

The first work to be offered from the collection is Femme Rouge et Pelote Verte, a Modernist masterpiece painted in 1932, which will be offered at the 20th Century and Contemporary Art Evening Auction in New York on Sunday, 8 November. It is expected to realise $4 million to $6 million and establish a record price for the artist at auction. Details of further works will be announced at later dates.

Matt Carey-Williams, Deputy Chairman of Phillips, says: “It is an honour for Phillips to be offering such a significant collection of works by Le Corbusier from such an important and prestigious source as the Heidi Weber Museum Collection. Le Corbusier’s impact as an artist is set to complement his fame as one of the most influential architects of the 20th century, so it is particularly exciting to be given the opportunity to present his work to the market in a way that can correctly position his artistic talents and legacy.”

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris (1887-1965) was a Swiss-French architect, artist, designer and writer, commonly regarded as one of the most influential modernist thinkers of the 20th century. Born in Switzerland, he moved to Paris in 1917 and opened an architecture practice, also assuming the pseudonym ‘Le Corbusier’. He went on to make a profound effect on the 20th century as a leading proponent of Modernism and through his visionary theories of urbanism, architecture, art and design. His widespread influence continues to be seen today; from David Hockney’s Le Corbusier’s Chair and Rug, to the paintings of Peter Doig, whose series of ‘Concrete Cabins’ (1991 to 1998) depict the Unité d’Habitation at Briey-en-Forêt in northern France, to Kanye West who credited a Corbusier lamp as the muse for his 2013 album Yeezus. A portrait of Le Corbusier adorns the Swiss 10 Franc note.

Heidi Weber is a famous interior designer based in Zurich who was Le Corbusier’s greatest patron in terms of his significant artistic and design work. In 1960 she commissioned him to design a building that was to be a “Gesamtkunstwerk”, a synthesis of his art: a private museum for the Le Corbusier artworks that she had collected over many years. It was the last building designed by Le Corbusier and has operated as a private museum for over 50 years, unifying and presenting in one place his architecture, sculpture, painting, design and writings. The building has now been transferred by Heidi Weber to the city of Zürich for it to manage in the public interest and in line with the objectives of promoting the complete vision of Le Corbusier.