New Market for African-American Art

With most of the art world’s high rollers in London this week for predicted record sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, a small auction in New York is calling attention to a group of artists who, some argue, have been unfairly excluded from the market’s gains.

Tomorrow afternoon, Swann Auction Galleries is holding a sale of over 200 works by African-American artists, arranged historically from the late 19th century to the present. The sale, which has an estimated value of $2 million to $3 million, is in all likelihood the first auction at a major auction house entirely devoted to African-American fine art.

“A lot of these artists are sold in galleries or are in museum collections, but at auction, the results are few and spotty,” the director of African-American Fine Art, Nigel Freeman, said. “Some of that is due to a lack of scholarship or information about the works; some is just because they were not heavily exposed during their lifetime.”

Mr. Freeman believes there’s a new generation of collectors interested in this art. “There’s a generation that’s been waiting for the prices to reflect their value,” he said.

For years, Swann has held sales of African Americana, which have included historical manuscripts from the time of slavery through the Civil Rights era, as well as works by fine artists like Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence. In the last year and a half, several prints by Mr. Bearden sold for over $100,000, and Swann decided there was sufficient interest to do a sale entirely of African-American art.

The material Mr. Freeman has brought together “starts with very scarce, early works by artists at the beginning of the century, when the opportunities were very few, to artists who started to get exposure during the Harlem Renaissance and the WPA, to the modern artists” like Bearden, Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, and Charles White, Mr. Freeman said. In addition, there are works by about a dozen contemporary artists, including Kara Walker and David Driskell.

The goal is to bring attention to these artists’ accomplishments and show that they can bring good prices at auction, Mr. Freeman said. “It’s comparable to a large museum exhibition,” he said. “It’s a whole review of the 20th-century black artists.”

Understandably, segregating African-American artists into their own market category doesn’t sit well with everyone. “I’m really split,” a dealer who has long been involved in the African-American art arena, Frank Maresca, said. “You have to ask yourself: Why is it being set apart?” he said. “It’s like you’re saying that these artists need an extra push. And people have been doing that and making those excuses for a long time, and I think you reach a point where you have to stop. Ultimately, things have to stand on their own merit.”

Others argue that evaluations of merit can’t even occur if the work of African-American artists isn’t represented at the major events in the business. Josh Wainwright, the founder and producer of the National Black Fine Art Show, which was held this weekend for the 10th year at the Puck Building, said he started the show because he was bothered that few African-American artists were represented in places like the Art Show and the various other art and antique fairs in New York. “These artists were not being given a window to the world,” Mr. Wainwright said. “We’re trying to bring the art to people who can make those decisions [of merit] for themselves.”

Mr. Wainwright said that most work by African-American artists is still undervalued. “One of the benefits of this auction is that a mainstream auction house will be helping to set sales standards and values for this work,” he said. “We applaud the efforts of anyone who’s going to try to bring this work to a mainstream audience.”

On Saturday afternoon, after mingling with potential clients who came for the sale exhibition, Mr. Freeman said he had heard no negative comments on the exclusive nature of the sale. “I think the overwhelming feeling is that these artists have been neglected and overlooked,” he said. “Everyone’s saying how great this is and how historic this is.”

Mr. Freeman said that he didn’t know why other auction houses hadn’t ventured into this market. “I don’t know if they didn’t want to take the risk, or the audience they want is different,” he said, “but there’s a growing market, and that’s reflected in the growing prices. There’s going to be million-dollar works sold by African-American artists.”

Source: www.nysun.com