At Christie’s Submit Warfare to Current sale on Tuesday, the primary lot provided was for an enthralling and delicate image, Lois Dodd’s Reflection of the Barn (1971). The work, a frame-within-a-frame portray that depicts an virtually Magritte-esque picture of a fragmented barn seen although a closed window with sheer white curtains on the skin, carried a modest estimate of between $60,000 and $80,000. By the tip of a fierce tug-of-war between two bidders, the portray offered for $378,000, almost 5 instances its excessive estimate.
(All costs reported embrace charges and the customer’s premium.)
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It was a powerful consequence for the 97-year-old painter, one which Christie’s appeared to anticipate by placing the Dodd portray on the prime of the sale. It’s not the primary time they’ve finished so. Earlier this yr, throughout the home’s Submit Warfare to Current sale in March, one other Dodd work, Inexperienced Door and Mattress (1994), took the public sale’s premier slot and was additionally an excellent success, promoting for $239,400 on the identical estimate as Reflection of the Barn. These two works mark the 2 highest costs ever paid for a Dodd at public sale.
In reality, the previous few years have been superb for Dodd’s market, particularly on the subject of her bigger works, of which, based on her gallery, Alexandre, the artist makes solely a handful yearly. At Phillips Trendy & Modern Artwork Day Sale in Might, an image known as Wild Geraniums (1974) introduced in $228,600 on a $60,000 to $80,000 estimate. In 2021, at Hindman’s Submit Warfare & Modern Artwork sale, Window Reflections, Yellow Home (2001) earned $31,250 on estimate of $4,000 to $6,000.
Inexperienced Door and Mattress (1994)
“Lois has been very a lot underneath the radar for many of her profession,” Phil Alexandre, Dodd’s artwork vendor since 2003, instructed ARTnews. The gallery has finished a present of Dodd’s work about each two years, he stated, with a persistently sturdy response. Nonetheless, Dodd has been usually overshadowed by artists like Alex Katz and Jane Freilicher, her one-time compatriots at Fischbach Gallery, the place she they usually first got here to prominence. A part of that, based on Alexandre, is as a result of Dodd has little or no curiosity available in the market.
“These are all distinctive work,” Alexandre stated. “She doesn’t do a collection. She doesn’t let one work’s success affect one other work. Actually, she simply paints for herself. I feel she has actually benefited from the general reassessment of underappreciated or missed ladies artists. She is lastly getting the market recognition she deserves, regardless of her ambition.”
A part of that success may be resulting from current institutional assist. Final yr “Lois Dodd: Pure Order” opened on the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, which was launched by a prolonged New York Occasions profile.
“Dodds is a kind of artists that we’ve seen growing costs for up to now few years and we’ve got a variety of religion in her market,” Julian Ehrlich, head of Tuesday’s sale at Christie’s instructed ARTnews. “And with each nice worth we make available in the market, extra nice works come out of collections, so we’re excited to see what comes subsequent.”
In a 2003 essay for the catalog of Dodd’s first present at Alexandre, John Yau wrote, “It’s by no means outrageous to state the apparent: The seventy-five yr previous painter Lois Dodd has by no means acquired her due.”
It could be time for an up to date essay.