The Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, a private museum created on the outskirts of Tokyo in 1990, is cashing in on its collection of canonical Western Modernism. The museum, which was owned by the chemicals giant DIC Corporation and ceased operations at the end of March, has consigned its treasures to Christie’s. They are collectively expected to bring in at least $60m across several sales this autumn in New York. Eight of the works will be included in Christie’s evening auction of 20th-century art, led by a 1907 Claude Monet Nypmhéas painting that is estimated to bring at least $40m.
Cyanne Chutkow, Christie’s deputy chairman of Impressionist and Modern art, described the Monet in a statement as a demonstration of the artist’s “unmatched ability to capture the essence of nature’s atmospheric beauty” and “a superb example from the Impressionist master’s most prized series”.
Monet’s Nymphéas series, in which he depicted the water lilies in the garden of his home in Giverny in diaphanous compositions of blues, greens and purples, is his second-most successful series at auction after his famed haystack paintings. The highest price paid for one of the Nymphéas compositions is $84.6m (including fees) for Nymphéas en fleur (1914-17), which Christie’s sold as part of its blockbuster auction of works from the collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller in 2018. (Only one Monet, the sunlit Meules from 1890, has brought more at auction, selling for $110.7m at Sotheby’s in 2019.)
In addition to the stand-out Nymphéas, the group of Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum works that will be offered in Christie’s marquee evening sale of Modern art include a Pierre-Auguste Renoir Baigneuse from 1891 and a pair of Marc Chagall paintings.
The bigger of the two Chagall works, measuring nine feet wide and nearly seven feet tall, is Le songe du Roi David (1966), a colourful dreamscape that includes several scenes, among them the titular figure of King Davd as well as the skyline of Paris. The other Chagall, Le soleil rouge ou Le soleil des amoureux (1949), features a group of allegorical images around a central couple.
Marc Chagall, Le songe du Roi David, 1966 Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd
“The breadth and scope of masterpieces featured in this collection is unparalleled, spanning the most important movements of art history throughout the 20th century, including best-in-class examples of portraiture, landscape, abstraction and the avant-garde,” Sara Friedlander, Christie’s deputy chairman of post-war and contemporary art, said in a statement. Additional works from the museum’s collection will be offered during Christie’s day sales in New York this November.
The museum’s 384-piece collection, which also include Japanese art, are considered to be one of the best groupings of Western art in Japan. Among its treasures are works by Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Cy Twombly, Frank Stella, Joseph Cornell, Kurt Schwitters and Rembrandt. Its key works also include seven of Mark Rothko’s Seagram Murals, which were housed in a dedicated Rothko Room—one of only four such spaces in the world.
Last September, the board of directors of DIC Global announced what was initially framed as a temporary closure of the museum in January 2025, which was followed by a permanent closure on 31 March 2025. At the time of its closure the museum said it would reopen in some form at the International House of Japan, a members’ club in central Tokyo, in 2030.
What exactly will be shown there is unclear. A statement released by DIC Global on 19 September explains that it had decided to “reduce the number of works it owns to around 100—about one quarter of its current holdings—focusing on retaining those that particularly embody DIC’s identity”, and that it had been ”exploring concrete strategies for divesting the remaining approximately 280 works”. This has led to the 80 works being consigned to Christie’s—and the statement explains that the remaining works “will be sold gradually, using channels other than through auction, with the intention of completing all sales by December 2026”. The statement notes that the company hopes to generate at least ¥10bn (around $67.7m) from sales of its collection before the end of fiscal year 2025.
Critics attributed the decision to shutter the museum, which had seen a surge in visitors following the lifting of Japan’s Covid-era travel restrictions in October 2022, to the profit-driven priorities of the Hong Kong-based Oasis Management, which owns a majority stake in DIC Global. At the time the entire collection was valued at around $76m. In 2013, the museum quietly sold its monumental Barnett Newman, Anna’s Light (1968), for $105.7m.
In addition to the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art works, Christie’s upcoming New York auctions will include a group of works from the collection of the late casino mogul and philanthropist Elaine Wynn (expected to bring $75m) and a trove of works from the estate of collectors Robert F. Weis and Patricia G. Ross, which is expected to sell for upwards of $180m.
The rival auction house Sotheby’s, for its part, will offer 37 works from the collection of Jay and Cindy Pritzker that are expected to bring in around $120m, and 55 works from the collection of the late cosmetics billionaire Leonard Lauder, which are collectively expected to fetch around $400m.
