Women Artists Redirect Our Gaze At Auctions

Gazing intently at the grappling of abstraction and figuration in Cecily Brown’s monumental Untitled (2007), I imagine how the chromatic and atonal nature of Franz Liszt’s Dante Symphony builds clamor and exhilaration. 

Brown said, “I have always wanted to make paintings that are impossible to walk past, paintings that grab and hold your attention. The more you look at them, the more satisfying they become for the viewer. The more time you give to the painting, the more you get back.”

She masterfully succeeds, evoking tension with gestural brushstrokes that borrow from vast art historical periods spanning the Renaissance through Abstract Expressionism. Bold hues marry with pale flesh tones, commanding our attention and guiding our discovery of layered references. 

The captivating oil on canvas is expected to fetch between $3.5 million and $4.5 million when it goes on sale this evening at Phillips in New York.

“We find our collectors more and more (who) are buying de Kooning are buying Cecily Brown,” Robert Manley, Deputy Chairman and Worldwide Co-Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, said on a walkthrough of the galleries a week ago. Brown’s myriad inspirations include her appreciation for Willem de Kooning’s robust brushstrokes and insistence that “flesh was the reason oil paint was invented.”

Women artists have been flagrantly undermined in the fine art world, their mastery eroded by a cannon that elevates and honors men. That perception shifts inchmeal in a marketplace where value and gender are intrinsically amalgamated. Our role as viewers is to look beyond social norms that dictate power.

The fierce inclusion of women artists on view at Phillips’ sprawling new Manhattan galleries presents a cogent dialogue to move us closer toward equity. The range and potency of these works forces us to reconsider how women are positioned in the auction world, selling against men who have long fetched far higher prices for works of comparable or lesser quality.

Another large-scale highlight of the 20th Century & Contemporary Art evening sale is Joan Mitchell’s Untitled (1992), a visceral masterpiece painted in the last months of her tumultuous life. The exuberant celebration of color executed through an array of brushstrokes is estimated to sell for $4 million to $6 million.

“One of the reasons why I think she’s such a great artist is that she’s always true to her own vision, but she’s always reinventing what she does every few years,” said Manley. “All of her work more or less is inspired by and derived from nature and natural forces without being exact representations of it.” 

Pushing boundaries in a different direction, Georgia O’Keeffe’s Crab’s Claw Ginger Hawaii (1939) is a bountiful visual feast delivered on a smaller scale. The most coveted of 22 paintings, including 14 in museum collections, created during her nine-week commission to the only U.S. state in the tropics is also expected to sell for between $4 million and $6 million.

“It’s incredibly unusual to see them come to market and particularly a picture of this quality,”  said Elizabeth Goldberg, Senior International Specialist of American Art and Deputy Chairwoman, Americas. “One of the things that’s so striking about this picture is it has a surrealist quality, which you see in the sky. This ginger claw is somewhat more bold and a little bit edgier than what you usually see in O’Keeffe if you think about those sort of soft white flowers. This is something quite different. It strikes me as very contemporary, and in this context you see just how contemporary this picture feels.”

Best known for her portrait of the nation’s first Black First Lady, Amy Sherald’s earlier depictions of  everyday people speak loudly to her oeuvre. All eyes turn to Welfare Queen (2012), on the block with an estimate of $1.2 million to $1.8 million. 

“I think what’s really unique about the work that she made in that series in 2012, is these backgrounds. These are backgrounds that you don’t see in her work anymore.The reason for that is that they are just as time consuming to do as the figures themselves, and around 2012 she had a major health scare, which prompted her to have open heart surgery, and it took her a long time to get back to full capacity,” said Amanda Lo Iacono, New York Head of Department and Head of Evening Sale, 20th Century & Contemporary Art. “One of the things that kind of went by the wayside were these backgrounds (which) really show a lot of the disparate influences that Amy’s bringing into her practice.”

Explore a timely, empowered narrative of race, gender, 19th century French painting, and Blaxpoitation films through Brooklyn-based Mickalene Thomas’ Portrait of Qusuquzah #5 (2011). The close-up depiction of transgender model Qusuquzah compels a careful examination of rhinestones and emotions. It is expected to fetch between $400,000 and $600,000.

Two days of auctions feature exceptional works by Carmen Herrera’s Amarillo y Negro (estimate $500,000—$700,000), Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Six PM, Malaga ($500,000—$700,000), Emily Mae Smith’s Feast and Famine ($200,000—$300,000), ​​Julie Mehretu’s Untitled ($200,000—$300,000), Rebecca Ness’ I See You ($40,000—$60,000), Portia Zvavahera’s Ndiregererewo Murume Wangu ($50,000—$70,000), Shara Hughes’ Making Connections ($150,000—$200,000), Emily Mae Smith’s Hand to Mouth ($40,000—$60,000), and Allison Zuckerman’s On Second Thought ($30,000—$40,000).

We’re at a watershed moment in the art market. Frida Kahlo’s eldritch self-portrait Diego y yo (Diego and I) sold for $34.9 million last night at Sotheby’s Modern Evening Sale in New York. That more than quadrupled her auction record of $8 million set in 2016, also at Sotheby’s, for Two Nudes in the Forest (1939). Moreover, last night’s victory for women artists eclipsed Diego Rivera’s record for a Latin American artist, tentatively set when The Rivals sold for $9.8 million at Christie’s in 2018.