American West art masterpieces from a billionaire Koch brother head to auction

Some of the most recognizable artwork depicting the American West is heading to auction at Christie’s, where dozens of pieces from billionaire Bill Koch’s collection are expected to fetch at least $50 million.

The in-person “Visions of the West” sale will take place in New York over two sessions beginning Jan. 20, with the final lots offered — appropriately — at high noon the following day. Koch’s holdings include major works by Frederic Remington, Charles Marion Russell and Albert Bierstadt, artists whose images of cowboys, Native Americans and sweeping landscapes helped define how generations came to picture the American frontier.

Tylee Abbott, head of Christie’s American Art Department, said interest in Western subjects has remained strong as new audiences discover the culture and mythology of the region.

“What is out West? What is over the horizon?” he mused. “It goes on to embody the American spirit.”

Bill Koch’s brothers David and Charles Koch were major donors to conservative causes. Although he has pursued different ventures since a 1980s business dispute with his brothers, Bill Koch traces his longtime love of Western art to their childhood.

“I was born and raised in Kansas and spent childhood summers working on my father’s ranches in Montana and Texas,” Koch said in a statement to The Associated Press. He described himself as “a child of the American Plains,” shaped by the Western art that hung in his home and the stories of the region’s past.

The auction will include 16 sculptures by Remington, along with his painting “Coming to the Call,” which is expected to sell for $6 million to $8 million, according to Christie’s. There will also be both a small and large version of Remington’s “Bronco Buster” bronze sculpture. Russell’s “The Sun Worshippers” is projected to sell for $4 million to $6 million. Bierstadt’s bright vistas of mountains and plains are also among the featured works.

Michael Clawson, executive editor of Western Art Collector magazine, said the esthetics of the region continue to surprise people who see them for the first time.

“When you come here, there is something about the light, the atmosphere, the colors,” said Clawson, who grew up in Phoenix. He said the Western art genre has existed since the early 1800s and remains vibrant today, as younger collectors discover the genre and new artists keep it alive.

And in the current century, population and wealth have surged across several Western states, with Arizona, Utah and Nevada each gaining well over a million residents since 2000. In the last decade, the median household income in the West rose from $58,000 in 2014 to almost $93,000 in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

The sale at Christie’s could attract collectors from across the nation, and the scale of the auction likely makes it one of the most significant Western art offerings in years. Christie’s has not said why Koch is selling, with the billionaire telling the AP simply, “It is time to pass along these pieces.”

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Associated Press writer Mike Schneider in Orlando, Florida, contributed to this story.