This article is part of a special Fine Arts & Exhibits section on how museums, galleries and auction houses are embracing new artists, new concepts and new traditions.
When two paintings sold at auction last spring for well above expectations, they were by an artist most people had never heard of. A sign has struck the art market. This artist, Lynn Her Drexler, may deserve more attention than she ever received. lifetime.
Both works are tessellated fields of bright colors. “Hundred Flowers” (1962) was estimated to sell for $40,000 to $60,000 at Christie’s New York. It sold for just under $1.2 million in March.
The iron was hot.A few months later, about 20 buyers were arguing “Herbert’s Garden” (1960) when auctioned for between $70,000 and $100,000. It sold for $1.5 million.
Ms. Drexler (1928-99) began a promising career in the New York art scene — one reviewer compared her work to that of Van Gogh — but she spent the last decades of her life Spent time as a self-proclaimed “hermit” on Monhegan Island. A remote area off the coast of Maine. At one point she was painting seascapes for tourists to earn a living.
Drexler’s estate owner, Michael Rancourt, said: “But I didn’t know how much it would be.”
“Lynn Drexler: The First Decade” is the first solo exhibition of Drexler’s work in New York in 38 years.
The show, which runs from October 27th to December 17th, is a mix of works for sale and rentals only. A portion of each category is from real estate. Mnuchin Galleryon the Upper East Side, concentrates on the period from 1959 to 1964, with works including “Rose Nocturne” (1962), dominated by shades of pink.
Berry CampbellRepresenting an Artist’s Fortune presents works produced between 1965 and 1969 at the Chelsea Galleries. Those works include Smoked Green (1967), which shows her abstract work moving toward more defined blocks of color and direction. It picked up speed over time.
Drexler’s work will also be auctioned this fall, with “Tropical Calm” (1963) going to Christie’s on November 18 for an estimated $60,000 to $80,000.
Mnuchin’s partner Sukanya Rajaratnam said of the artist’s renaissance, “It feels like a true rediscovery.” “Sometimes there are artists hiding in plain sight.” She said it’s relatively rare for a backward gaze to generate such interest today. They don’t deserve to be told their story,” she said.
“Now we’re seeing a resurgence of female artists,” says Christine Berry, co-founder of Berry Campbell. I pointed out that it is the focus.
Art/exhibition special corner
“We’re all interested in being more inclusive about who we add to the canon,” Berry added.
In Drexler’s case, the market’s reputational salvation is ironic. “She hated the art world,” said former curator Tralis Bracey. Monhegan Museum In 2008, we held a show of Drexler’s work in Maine.
The animosity stemmed from the demise of a promising career. Bracey, a former Monhegan resident who met Drexler in the last years of her life, said when a friend of hers met her around 1994, “You should meet this artist. She’ll be in the book someday.” I will.” ’” Ms. Bracey recalled.
She added that Drexler’s experience reflected in the painting and enriched it. “Her life’s work shows humanity,” Ms. Bracey said. “She’s a lyrical, fun, intense picture, and her life gets more complicated.”
Raised near Newport News, Virginia, Ms. Drexler earned a fine arts degree from the Richmond Professional Institute before moving to New York to study with two influential painters of her time, Hans Hoffmann and Robert Motherwell. . She was unknown at the time, but she was active among downtown artists.
“She mingled at the Cedar Tavern,” Rajaratnam said, referring to the watering holes of Jackson Pollock and other avant-garde artists.
After many paintings and networking, she had her first solo exhibition in 1961 at the renowned Tanager Gallery, a cooperative of members Willem de Kooning and Alex Katz. However, she did not sell any of her works. That year she met her fellow painter, John Hartberg (1925-2005) and married in the spring of 1962, beginning a tumultuous relationship with the celebrated artist.
When Mr. Furtberg’s dealer, Martha Jackson, helped him buy a house on Monhegan Island, 20 kilometers off the Maine coast, it was a break from the art world and the heavy drinking he was struggling with. It was for rest. a couple, and later their full-time home.
As the two traveled around the country teaching and exhibiting their work, Drexler had some sales and good reviews. They he settled in New York in 1967.
“Certainly, she was overshadowed by her male contemporaries. That’s the story,” said Christie’s post-war and contemporary art gallery, addressing the spring sale that fetched big prices for Drexler’s work. Vice-Chair Sarah Friedlander said. “But I want to complicate this idea that she was overlooked. She had some commercial success as an artist, but how many people can say that?”
Health problems, Mr. Hartberg’s alcoholism, and the changing art world soured the couple’s relationship, and in the early 1980s they moved full-time to Monhegan and soon separated.
“Life was falling apart,” Ms. Bracey said. “They could no longer afford the city. They were a little exhausted.”
But Drexler never stopped painting.
“She didn’t get a solid gallery representation, but she made art every day and worked hard,” Berry said.
When Drexler died in 1999, a large number of paintings were found in her home. Rancourt said the estate contained many paintings and works on paper from the 1950s to the 1990s. “She was an avid painter,” he said. “There’s enough work to keep her busy for the rest of her career.”
Early abstract works seem to be getting more interest in the market, he added.
In the 1990s, when Drexler was living alone as a full-time resident of Monhegan, her work followed a course that had begun in the previous decade, with highly stylized real-world objects such as landscapes and tabletop items. depicted more clearly in a streamlined way. How.
Art historian Gail Levin writes in the catalog of Lynn Drexler: The First Decade, “She produced a late group of upbeat figurative paintings with a warm palette that transcended the usual subject matter. , changed it into a very attractive composition.”
Bracey said she thought she knew how Drexler would feel about her new appreciation.