THE VICTOR IN A FIERCE BIDDING WAR, art collector Bill Perkins paid a record-shattering $15.3 million for “The Sugar Shack” (1976) by Ernie Barnes (1938-2009) at Christie’s New York on May 12. The iconic painting was estimated to sell for about $200,000, so the staggering price made international news and brought long overdue, widespread...
PHILLIPS LATEST 20th Century & Contemporary Evening Sale featured 36 lots and totaled $225 million. The result, Phillips said, made it the most successful auction in the company’s history. A huge share of the auction value on May 18 in New York came from a 1982 painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988). The top lot...
INTRODUCED AS A COMPLEMENT to Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction, the New Now Evening Auction is distinguished by its currency. The auction “focuses on the art of our time, offering the most exciting, cutting-edge works on the market.” The second edition of the sale was an attention getter with works by women representing more than...
ON THURSDAY NIGHT, Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale in New York featured 42 lots, premium works of art by a variety of famed artists such as Ruth Asawa, Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Jackson Pollock, William De Kooning, Joan Mitchell, and Andy Warhol. The selections included two paintings by African American artists. Both set new...
NEXT WEEK, Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction will feature 28 premium art works, including three body prints by David Hammons. For about a decade, from the late 1960s to late 70s, Hammons used grease, pigment, and his own body to create the unique, signature works. All three of the untitled monoprints up for auction were...
A MONUMENTAL WORK by Howardena Pindell is coming to auction at Christie’s New York this week. “Untitled #24” (1978-79) is a grid-based work composed of several hundred squares painted, sewn together, and embellished with glitter, sequins, and Pindell’s signature hole-punched paper dots. “Untitled #24” is the largest painting by Pindell to come to auction....
UPDATE (05/12/22): “The Sugar Shack” by Ernie Barnes hammered at $13 million, selling for a final price of $15,275,000 fees included, exponentially smashing the artist’s previous auction record, which was $550,000. The staggering result marks the first time a work by Barnes has sold for more than $1 million at auction. AN ODE...
Christie’s Hong Kong, Dec. 1, 2021 A STRIKING PORTRAIT by Amoako Boafo, “Hands Up” (2018) features a stylish young woman wearing yellow sunglasses against a yellow background. The painting sold for more than $3 million, nearly 10 times the estimate and an astounding new record at auction for the fast-rising artist. The record-setting result...
TWO PAINTINGS WITH HISTORIC EXHIBITION HISTORIES recently sold at Bonhams auction house. “White Boy” (1989)” and “Hunchback of Notre Dame (Hommage to Victor Hugo)” (1991) by Robert Colescott (1925-2009) are important works in artist’s oeuvre. In 1997, Colescott was the first Black artist to represent the United States in a single-artist exhibition at the...
IN NEW YORK, MAJOR AUCTION HOUSES lined up a variety of significant works by critically recognized Black artists for their modern and contemporary art Evening Auctions, with estimates ranging from the high six figures to multiple millions. Several lots carried estimates that if reached would result in new artist records at auction. The premium...
AN AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES PROFESSOR, Imani Perry is selling a portrait by Amy Sherald, that depicts a Black woman looking regal, poised, and dignified. The subject is wearing a jeweled crown, pearl necklace, and an elegant, navy blue gown with white opera-length gloves and a violet sash á la a beauty queen. Her red...
THREE YOUNG BLACK ARTISTS set new auction records at the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale at Phillips London. Rocketing far beyond their estimates, paintings by Jadé Fadojutimi, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, and Serge Attukwei Clottey, sold for about 10 times expectations set by the auction house. Marking his auction debut, a figurative painting by...
A LARGE-SCALE SWIMMING POOL PAINTING by Hurvin Anderson set a new artist record in London. “Audition” (1998) sold for more than $10 million ($10,138,261 / 7,369,000 British Pounds) at Christie’s 20th / 21st Century Evening Sale on Oct. 15. Bidding soared far beyond expectations, reaching nearly five times the high estimate ($1,375,798-$2,063,698 / 1,000,000-1,500,000...
ABSTRACT, INVENTIVE, AND IMPROVISATIONAL, quilts by Rosie Lee Tompkins (1936-2006) are extraordinary works of contemporary art. Tompkins was invested in color, shape, and form; worked with velvet, faux fur, and shimmery fabrics; and despite her singular aesthetic, frequently incorporated traditional quilt patterns into her work, adapting them to her own creative and irregular interpretations....
THREE 1970s PAINTINGS by Ernie Barnes (1938-2009) sold for more than $100,000 each on Oct. 1, marking the first time a work by Barnes sold for more than six figures at auction. Two of the paintings sold for nearly $300,000 each. The results were more than three times the artist’s previous record and set...
UPDATE (10/29/21): This auction has been postponed. Culture Type received the following statement from Heritage Auctions: “Concerns involving the provenance of a handful of lots in ‘The Soul of a Nation: Black Art from a Distinguished Collector’ were recently presented to Heritage Auctions. Out of an abundance of caution, the sale scheduled for Nov....
THE FORTHCOMING AFRICAN AMERICAN ART sale at Swann Auction Galleries in New York features a selection of rare prints and a few paintings benefitting the Brandywine Workshop and Archives (BWA), the printmaking institution in Philadelphia. A handful of works were consigned directly by the artists. Most are sourced from the collection of BWA and...
PAINTED RED and constructed of wood and foam core “Miss Lovie’s Shack” (1989) by Beverly Buchanan (1940–2015) set a new auction record for the artist reaching $20,000, including fees. The result far-exceeded the estimate, which was $3,000-$5,000. The sculpture sold at Rago auction house in Lambertville, N.J., where it was featured in the Post-War...
“Juba” (1965) by Charles White THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS selected Isabel Wilkerson’s “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Greatest Migration” for its campus book project during the 2012-13 academic year. In conjunction with the campus-wide reading, Nelson Gallery at UC Davis presented “Migration: Jacob Lawrence and Elizabeth Catlett,” further...
OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS, paintings by emerging Black contemporary artists have been popular and garnered record-setting prices at major auction houses in New York and London. Increasingly, their work is also attracting high bids in Asian markets, both from Asian collectors and international buyers looking to purchase at auctions held whereever works that...