Reminder:
Please join us for Heritage's spring 2007 Important Fine Art auction, this Thursday and Friday, May 24 and 25. For information, visit HA.com/FineArt or call 1-800-872-6467 ext 444. Preview the lots this Tuesday and Wednesday, May 22 and 23, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM CT at Heritage's headquarters at 3500 Maple Avenue, 10th floor gallery, Dallas, Texas 75219.

Over 200 paintings from an important third generation Russian Family Art Collection will be sold through Heritage Auction Galleries' two-day May Fine Arts Auction on May 24 and 25, 2007 in Dallas, Texas.

For nearly a century, this family of inspired collectors, dealers and connoisseurs amassed a wide-ranging collection of Old Master, nineteenth-century European, and 20th-century American and European Modernist painting and sculpture. Native to the Ukraine, the family began collecting Russian icons during the late 19th and early 20th century. Between the two World Wars, they immigrated to Paris where they expanded their collecting interests into Renaissance art, became acquainted with the various European Modernist movements, and opened a gallery which reflected their growing, encyclopedic tastes.

During their years in France, the family became involved with the Ballet Russe and formed a friendship with the expatriate Belarusian artist, Marc Chagall, whose work they both represented and personally collected. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the family who was of Jewish descent, returned to Russia where they remained until 1945, when they moved permanently to the United States. Settling in New York, the family continued their interest and support of the dance and musical communities (which included many Russian expatriates like themselves), and opened an important, well-respected Madison Avenue gallery. There, for nearly 40 years, they represented the art of Modern European and American figures, such as Ashcan School painters, as well the work of nineteenth-century academic and Old Master painters they had handled previously in Paris.

During their many years in New York, the family regularly loaned works from their personal collection to exhibitions mounted by the Smithsonian. They were also important supporters of the New York Public Library.

The present owner, Nina Narodowski, is the last remaining descendant of this illustrious European family of fine art connoisseurs, collectors and dealers. Over the next two years, their substantial, sophisticated collection will be sold exclusively through Heritage Auction Galleries.

Featured in the forthcoming May auction is one of the most significant nineteenth-century American works from the family's collection-the monumental masterpiece, The Hour of Prayer at the Pearl Mosque, Agra of 1885 by Edwin Lord Weeks, the most celebrated American Orientalist painter. This immense example of Weeks at his best was loaned by the family to an exhibition devoted to Western images of the Taj Mahal organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1990, but has otherwise seldom been exhibited. In its original condition and frame, the painting appears today exactly as it did one hundred and seven years ago, when it was first exhibited in Paris.

Other important, fresh to the market paintings to be offered from this collection in the forthcoming sale include: Antonio Jacobsen, Stephen Morgan Etnier, Jane Peterson, Georges Jules Victor Clairin, Marie-Philippe Coupin de la Couperie, Alfred de Dreux, Franz Knébel the Younger, Albert Andre, Otakar Coubine, Sir David Young Cameron, Nikolai Ivanovitch Vasil'ev, and Konstantin Alexeievitch Korovin.

Heritage's Fine Art auction will be held live in Dallas, Texas, on Thursday and Friday, May 24 & 25, 2007. For more information, please visit www.HA.com/FineArt.

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T "There's so much more in this auction," Jaster said, "from such world-renowned artists as James Montgomery Flagg, Virgil Finlay, Charles Addams, Al Hirschfeld, Charles Dana Gibson, Kay Nielsen, Howard Pyle, Boris Vallejo, Michael Whelan, Rowena Morrill and Frank R. Paul, to name just a few. I'd invite anyone interested in this fascinating artform to visit www.HA.com/FineArt, where they can view enlargeable, full-color images of each lot, read our complete and informative catalog descriptions, and even place their bids online from the comfort and convenience of their home or office."

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