NEW YORK, N.Y.- Christie’s announce it has been entrusted with the sale of selected works from one of the most important corporate collections of American paintings ever to appear at auction. On May 18, as part of its sale of Important American Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture, Christie’s will offer 29 paintings from the private collection of The Westervelt Company, formerly Gulf States Paper Corporation, based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Amassed over four decades by Jonathan (Jack) Westervelt Warner, the former chief executive of Gulf States Paper Corporation, the selection includes masterworks by the leading American artists of 19th and 20th centuries, including Albert Bierstadt, William Trost Richards, Childe Hassam, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Marsden Hartley, Thomas Hart Benton, Charles Ephraim Burchfield, and Andrew Wyeth, among others. The complete group is estimated to achieve in excess of US$ 10 million. Eric W