Once, when asked about discrimination against female artists, the Abstract Expressionist Lee Krasner said the bias was as old as Judeo-Christian history. Brushing aside the weight of that realization, she added, “There’s nothing I can do about those 5,000 years.” She painted anyway, as have women throughout the ages who have continued to create despite official disdain.
Centuries and decades later, it seems their persistence may be finally paying off. Galleries are adding more women to their rosters, museums like the Uffizi in Florence are combing their storage facilities in search of treasures that deserve airing, and numerous institutions have been mounting exhibitions of art by women. On the eve of this fall’s auction season, the art market appears to be experiencing a long overdue correction.
While the highest price ever paid for an artwork by a woman continues to be a small fraction of that of men, last spring in New York, auction sales records were shattered for the works of 15 female artists, including Krasner’s fellow Abstract Expressionists Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler and Grace Hartigan. With additional important paintings by women on offer this season — among them Frankenthaler’s rare 1959 work, “Red Square” — there is every reason to expect that more records will tumble.
Anyone looking to invest in art should take heed.
The changed climate can be attributed to a host of causes: the increased focus on women’s rights across society, decades of activism by feminist artists and a simple matter of economics. But a much more gratifying reason is the belated recognition that work by women deserves support and attention because it is worthy.
“From the market perspective, when you have 15 mediocre [Willem] de Koonings come to market in a season and one amazing Joan Mitchell painting come to market in a season, the market is going to gravitate toward quality,” said Sara Friedlander, international director and head of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s New York. “When the quality is really there, the market just explodes.”
During the first art market gold rush in the United States, in the mid-1950s, Fortune magazine advised its readers on investing in art. It identified three categories: Old Masters (a description that denotes the longstanding gender bias), “blue chip” works, and the “speculative” or “growth” arena. The latter group included paintings by newly discovered artists, which, though a risky investment, showed enormous potential. The unknown artists Fortune included in that category are largely household names today: de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and Larry Rivers. Notably absent from the list were any of their female colleagues.