Property from the Collection of
Wilma (Billie) and Laurence Tisch
Carefully assembled decades ago and held closely ever since, the Collection of Wilma (Billie) and Laurence Tisch includes exceptional examples of twentieth century figuration across painting and sculpture. Billie and Laurence Tisch, best known for their business and philanthropic leadership, thoughtfully collected works which were seamlessly incorporated throughout their living spaces. Laurence Tisch bridged the worlds of Wall Street and American business as CEO of the Loews Corporation and CBS. Together with Billie, Mr. Tisch was active in community and philanthropic causes ranging from NYU and its medical and hospital system to the UJA Federation. The works in the collection narrate the various innovative approaches taken to the figurative subject by some of the century’s leading European artists, including Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Jean Dubuffet, and Barry Flanagan. Proceeds from the sale are going to the Tisch family foundations to continue the couple’s lifelong philanthropic mission.
Henry Moore, Seated Figure, conceived 1952-53. To be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale, Christie’s New York, 17 November 2026.
Henry Moore, Seated Figure, conceived 1952-53. To be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale, Christie’s New York, 17 November 2026.
The celebrated British artist Henry Moore stated how “hands, after the face, are the most obvious part of the human body for expressing emotion” (quoted in J. Hedgecoe, ed., Henry Moore, London, 1968, p. 232). These poignant, interconnected subjects have been the source of artistic inspiration for centuries, witnessed, for instance, in Michelangelo’s graphic studies, Leonardo da Vinci’s portraits, and Caravaggio’s genre scenes. James McNeill Whistler’s Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (1871; Musée d’Orsay, Paris) and Mary Cassatt’s In the Loge (1878; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) carry this art historical tradition forward, lingering on the interaction between a figure in profile juxtaposed against hands either clasped or in motion. The Collection of Wilma (Billie) and Laurence Tisch thoughtfully explores further representation of this subject over the course of the latter half of the twentieth century.
Hands, after the face, are the most obvious part of the human body for expressing emotion.
Left: Fernand Léger, Le jongleur chinois, 1945. To be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale, Christie’s New York, 17 November 2026. {{break}} Right: New Kingdom, Ramesside, restored by Norman de Garis Davies, Ipuy and Wife receive Offerings from Their Children, circa 1290-1224 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Left: Fernand Léger, Le jongleur chinois, 1945. To be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale, Christie’s New York, 17 November 2026. {{break}} Right: New Kingdom, Ramesside, restored by Norman de Garis Davies, Ipuy and Wife receive Offerings from Their Children, circa 1290-1224 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Fernand Léger’s Le jongleur chinois, painted at the close of World War II in 1945, is a mesmeric meditation on the interaction between visage and hands. Léger’s dynamic figure, a Chinese circus juggler, is rendered in stylized profile, recalling the composite perspective first developed in ancient Egyptian reliefs—the artist was influenced by the reopening of the Egyptian and Assyrian wings of the Musée du Louvre and embraced their classical stoicism. Léger here juxtaposes the rounded form of the figure and the circular juggling rings with the orthogonal thrust of the ladder and striped background to emphasize lively movement across his flat picture plane. The painting was included in the French artist’s first touring United States retrospective in 1953-54, showing at the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The work was acquired by Billie and Laurence Tisch a decade later, and has remained in their collection ever since.
Henry Moore conceived of his important sculpture Seated Figure just a couple years following the Léger painting. The British sculptor was similarly influenced by Egyptian precedents. The artist recounts how his discovery of the 18th Dynasty Egyptian Limestone statue of Horemheb and one of his Wives in the British Museum was one of his impetuses for embarking on his campaign to devise what would eventually be known as King and Queen (1952-3). “This has always been a great favorite of mine,” Moore recalls of the ancient sculpture. “It is such a pity the hands are damaged, for, after the face, I think hands are the most expressive part of the body” (H. Moore, Henry Moore at the British Museum, London, 1981, p. 38).
Left: Henry Moore, Seated Figure, conceived 1952-53 (alternative view). To be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale, Christie’s New York, 17 November 2026. {{break}} Right: New Kingdom, Seated Statue of Hatshepsut, circa 1473-1458 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Left: Henry Moore, Seated Figure, conceived 1952-53 (alternative view). To be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale, Christie’s New York, 17 November 2026. {{break}} Right: New Kingdom, Seated Statue of Hatshepsut, circa 1473-1458 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Seated Figure was an important development in the trajectory of Moore’s designs for King and Queen. It originated as a small-scale maquette version of the Queen which Moore had his then-studio assistant Anthony Caro enlarge in terracotta so that he could make subtle alterations to the proportion and composition of the figure. The sculpture is thus an original work in its own right. Moore here intensely focused on the compositional harmony of his female figure. Moore used his wife Irina as the main model for the sculpture, while also having his daughter Mary and secretary Tam Miller sit for him. Despite the work’s origins in Egyptian royal portraiture, Seated Figure conveys a deeply humanistic and familiar approach to the figure, revealing Moore at his most sensitive and perceptive. Billie and Laurence Tisch acquired Seated Figure in 1965, the first and only time a bronze from this edition has come to auction, and they lived with the sculpture thenceforth.
…after the face, I think hands are the most expressive part of the body
Left: Leonardo da Vinci, Portrait of Isabella d’Este, circa 1499-1500. Musée du Louvre, Paris.{{break}} Right: Pablo Picasso, Femme assise, 1958. To be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale, Christie’s New York, 17 November 2026.
Left: Leonardo da Vinci, Portrait of Isabella d’Este, circa 1499-1500. Musée du Louvre, Paris.{{break}} Right: Pablo Picasso, Femme assise, 1958. To be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale, Christie’s New York, 17 November 2026.
Billie and Laurence Tisch acquired Pablo Picasso’s grand Femme assise just three years following Seated Figure. The painting portrays the same subject—a seated woman—and likewise demonstrates the artist carefully considering questions of scale, composition, and perspective. Here, Picasso’s almost monochromatic palette reveals his exceptional technical talent, wielding subtle tones of brown and violet together to create a symphonic tableau. Picasso’s unique Cubist rendition of the figure simultaneously provides a profile and a frontal view, while his sitter’s right arm, resting atop the chair, is rendered with complete flatness. Acquired from Samuel M. Kootz Gallery in 1968, the painting has never before come to market.
Jean Dubuffet, Gens et lieux, 1976. To be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale, Christie’s New York, 17 November 2026.
Jean Dubuffet, Gens et lieux, 1976. To be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale, Christie’s New York, 17 November 2026.
Jean Dubuffet’s large, striking Gens et lieux reveals another insightful approach to figuration. This late work from the French postwar artist demonstrates Dubuffet at his most retrospective. Here, various subjects, styles, and motifs from earlier series reappear across the canvas like passages of recalled memories, detached from their original contexts in order to create a new composition. Dubuffet was inspired by studies of mnemonic systems from antiquity and the Renaissance, and particularly with Giulio Camillo’s Teatro della memoria, a sixteenth-century conceptualized space where knowledge is assigned specific spatial locations.
Barry Flanagan, R.A., Six Foot Leaping Hare on Steel Pyramid, 1990. Sold in the Modern British and Irish Art Evening Sale, Christie’s London, 21 October 2026.
Barry Flanagan, R.A., Six Foot Leaping Hare on Steel Pyramid, 1990. Sold in the Modern British and Irish Art Evening Sale, Christie’s London, 21 October 2026.
Paralleling Léger and Moore, Barry Flanagan finds inspiration in Egyptian antiquity in his Six Foot Leaping Hare on Steel Pyramid. The British sculptor here incorporates two Egyptian symbols—the pyramid and the hare—into a captivatingly modern work. Flanagan sought to recreate the iconic simplicity of prehistoric structures in his work, and leverages here the ancient Egyptian iconography of a hare as an emblem of life. The subject similarly held a personal association with the artist—he vividly recalls the memory of a hare running across Sussex Downs, and sought in his numerous works of the subject to capture this memory, recalling Dubuffet’s engagement with memory in Gens et lieux.
Spanning across movements, styles, and media, the works in the collection demonstrate the inexhaustible possibilities which artists have found representing the visible world. Brought together through decades of thoughtful collecting, they are enduring expressions of invention, observation, and compelling visions of the human figure.