13 Auction Records in Spring 2021 Sale of African American Art Auction Brings $3.9 Million – Second-Highest Grossing Sale in Department Thirteen-Year History Our spring offering of African American Art on April 22, 2021 was the second highest-grossing sale in the thirteen-year history of the department, with its highest number of participants to date. “I am thrilled to see the continued growth in our African American art auctions with a tremendous sale. 398 registered bidders (not counting those on other platforms) competed for 8 hours to bid on 220 lots. We set 13 artist records and saw high prices all around for many artists,” noted department director, Nigel Freeman. Browse Complete Results Assemblage Artists Howardena Pindell, Oval Memory Series: (Rhinoceros) Heaven, tempera, gouache, postcards, punched paper, nails, fluorescent paint, glitter and thread on board, 1980–81. Sold for $100,000, a record for the artist. A strong showing of assemblage artists resonated with collectors with records being established for a number of artists working in the medium. Records included Howardena Pindell’s Oval Memory Series: (Rhinoceros) Heaven, a mixed-media piece in tempera, gouache, punched paper, nails, glitter and thread from 1980–81, at $100,000. The work was the first from the Oval Memory Series to come to auction, which Pindell created after a serious car accident that left her with acute memory loss in an effort to reconstruct her memories. Betye Saar’s Sojourn, 1995, earned a record for the artist at $87,500—the shadowbox employs the artist’s use of found objects and collage steeped in symbolic meaning. Bisa Butler, Nandi and Natalie (Friends), quilted and appliquéd dyed cotton fabrics, 2007. Sold for $75,000, an auction debut for Butler. Artists working in assemblage in the twenty-first century included Vanessa German with You Bring Out the Savage in Me #1, a 2013 mixed-media sculpture that stands at about 4 feet, brought $18,750, a record for the artist; and with her market debut, Bisa Butler’s 2007 quilted and appliquéd Nandi and Natalie (Friends) earned $75,000. Related Reading: Artists Working in Mixed-Media & Assemblage Modern Artists Auction mainstays included Modernist painters such as Charles Alston, Beauford Delaney, Norman Lewis and Hale Woodruff. Woodruff led the sale with Primordial Landscape, a 1967 oil-on-canvas example of the artist’s post-war painting in which he describes landscape and natural phenomena within the idiom of Abstract Expressionism. Hale Woodruff, Primordial Landscape, oil on canvas, 1967. Sold for $245,000. The work sold for $245,000. Alston’s 1956–60 urban abstraction City at Night, reached $185,000; works by Delaney included Untitled (African Figure), a 1968 oil-on-canvas which achieved $125,000, and Untitled (Tent Interior), a 1951 color pastel from the Ness Oleson Trust, which sold for $137,000; from Lewis’s final body of work in abstract was Untitled (Abstraction in Red and Blue), a circa-1973 oil-on-paper work that realized $81,250. Related Reading: Bohemian Brothers: Beauford and Joseph DelaneyArtist Profile: Norman Lewis Color Field Artists Alma W. Thomas, Untitled (Garden Composition), watercolor, 1967. Sold for $81,250. Color field artists included Alma W. Thomas with two small-scale watercolors that drew significant interest from collectors: Untitled (Garden Composition), 1967, earned $81,259, and My Fall Garden, circa 1969, sold for $75,000. Sam Gilliam was available with Richer Scene, acrylic and polypropylene on canvas, 1998, at $185,000, and Toyopet I, an acrylic-on-canvas from Gilliam’s first period of experimentation in color field painting—completed in 1966 and then revisited in 1997—at $37,000. Related Reading: From Abstract Expressionists to Color Field Painters—African-American Fine Art Additional Highlights & Records Winfred Rembert, Inside Jeff’s Cafe, dyes on tooled and carved leather, circa 1997. Sold for $50,000, a record for the artist. Further records included Joseph Delaney with Artist’s Studio Party, oil on canvas, 1940, at $81,250; and Winfred Rembert with Inside Jeff’s Café, dyes on tooled and carved leather, circa 1997, at $50,000. Additional highlights of note included works by Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Ed Clark and Kerry James Marshall. Related Reading: The Elegant Sculptures of Richmond Barthé Consign with Swann. Share Facebook Twitter April 26, 2021Author: Kelsie JankowskiCategory: African American Art Tags: African American Art African-American Fine Art Alma Thomas Assemblage Artists Beauford Delaney Betye Saar Bisa Butler Charles Alston color field painting Ed Clark Hale Woodruff Howardena Pindell Joseph Delaney Kerry James Marshall Norman Lewis Records & Results Richmond Barthé Romare Bearden Sam Gilliam Vanessa German Winfred Rembert Previous Selections from Letterform Archive Next Modern & Post-War Art: May 2021 Auction Highlights Recommended Posts Artist Profile: Faith Ringgold African American Art September 14, 2020 Abstract Art: 1940s Through Now Contemporary Art June 24, 2020 Records for Charles Alston, Wadsworth Jarrell, Augusta Savage and More in December 2020 Sale of African American Art African American Art December 18, 2020