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Christie’s is honored to present The Collection of Max Palevsky, a superb group of over 250 works ranging from Antiquities to those by the most significant artists from the Impressionist and Modern and Post-War and Contemporary periods. The collection will be offered throughout multiple auctions starting in October 2010 at Christie’s New York.

Born in Chicago, Palevsky (1924-2010) was an innovator and forerunner in computers and systems technology. His work continues to influence computing technology today. After serving in World War II, he traveled to New York and became fascinated with an exhibition on modern architecture at the Museum of Modern Art.  It was then that he began to envision what a modern utopia could be. Palevsky was trained in mathematics and engineering and had a love for the literature of Balzac and Proust. In 1951 Palevsky leapt from a job as a philosophy professor at the University of California, Los Angeles to pursue computers technology, a fledgling field.

“We saw a class of problems that should be solved by computers, but for which no computers were being built.” — Max Palevsky, 1967

Palevsky worked early on at firms including Bendix Corporation and Packard Bell Computer Corporation. In the early 1960s he  was a  proponent of small and medium-size business computers — a market he intuited was neglected by IBM and other leading firms at the time — and co-founded Scientific Data Systems, which he eventually sold to Xerox in 1969 for  close to $1 billion. He helped found Intel Corp. and then exited the corporate world for other endeavors such as film production, then politics supporting Democrats George McGovern, Robert F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Gray Davis. He also invested in a passion of his, Rolling Stone magazine. Palevsky began collecting art later in life, which enriched his homes in Beverly Hills, Malibu and Palm Springs, California.

The Collection of Max Palevsky comprises Antiquities, Impressionist and Modern Art, Post-War and Contemporary Art, 20th Century Decorative Arts and Design, Prints and Multiples, Japanese Art, Latin American Art, American Sculpture and  Modern British Art.

Highlights from The Collection of Max Palevsky within Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, include five works by the French artist Fernand Léger (1881-1955). Most notable is Léger’s La Tasse de Thé 1921, a depiction of a voluptuous curvilinear woman against a geometric background of contrasting forms in primary colors. It belongs to Léger’s pivotal series of the early 1920s, which culminated in his seminal masterpiece Le Grand Déjeuner, on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Femme sur fond rouge, femme assise, painted in the 1920s shows Léger in his most daring and reductive style, placing a woman in tones of steely gray and black against a flat crimson background. 

Also a part of the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale is Giorgio Morandi’s poetic Natura Morta, a still life of a carafe and two canisters in muted tones and an Egon Schiele work from 1911, named Liegender Akt mit schwarzen Strumpfen, depicting a nude woman lounging.

Max Palevsky’s love of Balzac inspired him to collect a series of Auguste Rodin bronzes related to the sculptor's commission for a monument to the author. Balzac étude finale, depicting the imperious Balzac in costume, is the highlight of a group of works with Balzac as subject to be offered in the Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale.

For the Post-War and Contemporary Art  Evening Sale, highlights from the Collection include: Tableau Noire, a painted steel stabile sculpture completed by Alexander Calder in 1970, four works by Donald Judd including Untitled, 1980, a signature Judd stack comprised of 10 units of stainless steel and red anodized aluminum and Roy Lichtenstein’s Girl in Mirror, 1964, depicting a flaxen-haired woman smiling at her reflection in a hand mirror in porcelain enamel on steel. Frank Stella’s Telluride, 1960-1961 is a rare and important example from his copper painting series, the majority of which are in museums and institutions. The T-shaped painting with striations in copper oil paint is a testament to Palevsky’s fondness for symmetry. Four lots by Richard Lindner are also slated to be sold in the Evening Sale, most notably is West 48th Street, 1964, depicting a woman with breasts exposed wearing a fantastically-harsh metal corset juxtaposed with a ladylike handbag and opera-length gloves.

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