NEW YORK, NY.- Christie's announced The Collection of Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis, a survey of the world's most iconic artists—including Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Max Ernst, Piet Mondrian, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, and more—that will be showcased as a centerpiece of Fall Marquee Week in November in New York. With leading examples of Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, the collection outlines the trajectory of modernist movements throughout the art world's nexuses during pivotal 20th Century periods.

The collection comes to Christie's primarily from the Pennsylvania home, as well as the New York City apartment, of Patricia and Robert Weis. Passionate collectors, generous philanthropists, and loving parents, the couple thoughtfully assembled the collection over the course of seventy years. A personal endeavor built out of a passion for art and meticulous love of collecting, the collection is a trove of treasures rarely seen by the public, bridging continents and eras. The collection is estimated in excess of $180 million in total, with 18 lots offered as a dedicated single-owner sale ahead of the 20th Century Evening Sale, and subsequent works in both the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale and Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale.

Colleen, Jennifer and Jonathan Weis, the couple's three children, remark: “Growing up with our parents' art collection has brought us great joy and created a lifelong interest and passion for art in the three of us. It has defined our family experience, and we have been lucky to live among these beautiful things. Our stewardship of them will pass to others who we hope will be equally inspired by the beauty and depth of feeling that the collection evokes.”

Bonnie Brennan, Christie's CEO, remarks: “The collection of Patricia G. Ross Weis and Robert F. Weis is both deeply personal and instilled with historical significance, tracing the evolution of modernism through best-in-class examples by twentieth century icons. Patiently assembled over more than seventy years, the collection captures a rare sense of discovery—demonstrating refined connoisseurship, intellectual rigor, and the couple's richly varied tastes. We are humbled and honored to present the collection of Patricia and Robert Weis during Christie's Fall Marquee Week and celebrate their visionary legacy.”

Max Carter, Christie's Vice Chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art, remarks: “The critic David Sylvester distinguished between works of art you merely stood in front of and those which you journeyed through. To experience the Weis home was to follow the best of modernism from Paris to New York in the first half of the 20th Century and to join Mr. and Mrs. Weis on their family's 70-year journey of curiosity and discovery. A rare Fauve Braque overlooking the dining table led in the series of rooms beyond to the interwar masterpieces of Léger, Miró, Matisse and Picasso and from there to Mondrian, Ernst, Gorky, Rothko and Kline in America. In few collections of its time or since will you find such thoughtfulness, interconnection and superlative quality.”

Sara Friedlander, Christie's Deputy Chairman of Post-War & Contemporary Art, remarks: “Mark Rothko's No. 31 (Yellow Stripe) is a jewel within Mr. and Mrs. Weis' extraordinary collection, and a seminal canvas within the iconic artist's oeuvre. The work was conceived by Rothko in 1958, the year he was commissioned to paint his iconic Seagram Murals, and widely regarded as the most significant moment of his career. Yet of the works he created during this period, this stands paramount among them. In contrast to the darker, more somber, palette characteristic of the time, No. 31 (Yellow Stripe) employs vivacious and bold hues, producing rapturous, joyful color fields radiating with power.”

Comprising more than 80 lots, including paintings, sculptures, works on paper and ceramics, the collection encompasses an array of exceptional highlights cadenced throughout time and place. Standing among the earliest is a groundbreaking Fauvist landscape painted by Braque in the early 1900s. A throughline of masterpiece paintings is exemplified by a singular Picasso, La lecture (Marie-Thérèse) (estimate on request, in the region of $40 million). Executed in Boisgeloup in August of 1932, this portrait is a superlative example of what is widely regarded as Picasso's most important body of work since Cubism. Henri Matisse's Figure et bouquet (Tête ocre) dates to 1937 and is a prime example from his time living in Nice, during which he produced a number of his most prized works (estimate: $15 – 25 million).

The collection also includes Mondrian's Composition with Red and Blue, an example of the Dutch artist's celebrated transatlantic paintings, executed in 1939-1941—a critical moment in both the artist's practice and the world at-large (estimate: $20 – 30 million). With conflict in Europe at the time, Mondrian —like many of his contemporaries—fled the continent for New York in 1940, completing the composition the following year in his new home city, where he would come to fully refine his Neoplastic style. Executed in the same city more than a decade later was the collection's top lot: Rothko's No. 31 (Yellow Stripe) (estimate on request, in the region of $50 million). Painted in 1958, the most significant year of the artist's career, the epic canvas is a triumph of American abstraction, showcasing Rothko's unmatched ability to produce sumptuous fields of color, vibrating with atmospheric depth.

The layers of history running through the collection speak to the vision and connoisseurship of Patricia and Robert Weis. Proponents of lifelong learning, the couple held a particular affinity for creativity and the arts. They took an academic approach in their collecting, committed to discovering and extensively researching great artists. They sought out wisdom from gallerists and dealers to strengthen their scope of knowledge and acquired patiently and only after much consideration to ensure that each piece in their collection represented the artists' very finest.

The former chairman of family-operated food company Weis Markets, Robert Weis stood among the nation's premier food retailing executives during his life. A pillar of his community in Pennsylvania, Weis meticulously researched the art world, reading auction catalogs, talking to a select few trusted advisors, and visiting galleries in New York City on weekends and in the UK and France on vacations to determine—in an age of no social media or internet support—what he and his wife wanted to collect and live with in their home.

His wife of 57 years, Patricia Ross Weis, was a New York City native who developed an eye for art and design at a young age, partially influenced perhaps by an uncle who produced men's clothing. Her interests led to a lifelong passion in architecture and design and a deep appreciation in particular for Lucie Rie and Hans Coper ceramics. Those ceramics will be on view at Christie's during November Marquee Week and offered in a dedicated Design sale on December 11.

The couple—equal partners in the collecting process—were generous philanthropists, supporting an array of educational, cultural, and medical organizations. With an unwavering dedication to art that continues to inspire, the Patricia G. Ross Weis and Robert F. Weis legacy lives on through their selfless contributions to the community and the love of their devoted family.