Art Market Updates

Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), Fall Evening, Greenland, 1931-33. Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 29 x 44 in., signed and dated lower left: ‘Rockwell Kent 1931-3’; titled: ‘Fall Evening, Greenland, no. 7’ and priced $1500 on a label on the reverse.

Thomas Colville sells important Kent painting
A phenomenal Rockwell Kent painting, Fall Evening, Greenland (1931-33), has recently been sold by Thomas Colville Fine Art to the Colby College Museum of Art, The Lunder Collection. “Rockwell Kent’s paintings of land and sea have enthralled audiences for more than a century,” writes Jake Milgram Wien, independent curator and author of Rockwell Kent: The Mythic and the Modern. “At mid-career, Kent traveled to Greenland three times between 1929 and 1935 where he forged a spare yet elegant style that advanced the modernism of his earlier works…These Greenland paintings are an intrinsic part of the narrative history of American modernism and reside in major museum collections throughout America and abroad…Kent spent two winters in Greenland above the Arctic Circle and embarked on the most ambitious artistic project of his career. With the help of Greenlanders he befriended, he built a small house in the remote fishing settlement of Illorsuit. Gazing east across Illorsuit Sound toward the snow-capped mountains and flowing glaciers of the Greenland icecap, Kent imbued with timeless beauty such monumental works as Fall Evening, Greenland.” Wien continues, “The hushed silence of Fall Evening, Greenland exemplifies the spirit of transcendence Kent sought out in remote wilderness.” The site was evacuated in 2017 because of a tsunami caused by a caving glacier due to climate change and the warming arctic.

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000), Confrontation at the Bridge, 1975. Gouache on paper, 22½ x 301⁄8 in. Bequest of James R. and Barbara R. Palmer, 2019.77 © 2021The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

The Palmer at Fifty
Three exhibitions on view this fall and winter at the Palmer Museum of Art commemorate the Pennsylvania museum’s 50 years by exhibiting key works from the collection and renderings of its new building, set to open at the Penn State Arboretum in early 2024. Among these is Looking at Who We Are: The Palmer at Fifty, on view through December 18. The exhibition features 74 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and sculptures from the permanent collection and explores how history, place and community shape our conception of museums and ourselves. A 30-foot-long timeline details the most notable events in the Palmer Museum’s five decades, including significant additions to the collection and groundbreaking exhibitions.

Thornton Dial Senior (1928-2016), Painting, 1993. Watercolor.

I Made This
“I Made This...”: Works by Black Artists and Artisans, on display at the Museums of Colonial Williamsburg through 2025, elebrates the lives of 18th- to 20th-century Black artisans and artists through the material culture they created. The title comes from a quote by 19th-century enslaved potter David Drake, among one of the many artists in the exhibition, who inscribed the words on one of his pots despite laws prohibiting literacy for enslaved people. Objects from both decorative arts and folk art collections will be displayed in the same gallery, contrasting the aesthetics and designs of men and women from different times, places and backgrounds. These pieces represent the inspirations, resilience and legacies of these talented artists.

Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011), Stella Polaris, 1990. Acrylic on canvas, 96 x 108 in. Collection of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, New York. © 2022 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Helen Frankenthaler: Late Works
Helen Frankenthaler: Late Works, 1990-2003 is the first museum exhibition dedicated to the last phase of the painter’s prolific career, and features 20 paintings on paper and 10 paintings on canvas. These works demonstrate the artist’s long-standing interest in the relationship between landscape and abstraction and reveal her continued sensitivity to the emotional effects of color. The exhibition is on view at the Baker Museum in Naples, Florida, through November 27.

People & Places

The Brandywine River Museum of Art has appointed William L. Coleman as the Wyeth Foundation Curator of the Andrew and Betsy Wyeth Collection and Director of the Andrew and Betsy Wyeth Study Center. Coleman, an experienced curator, art historian and teacher, will assume this newly created senior position at the Brandywine on October 17. Funded by the Wyeth Foundation for American Art, this role emerged from an innovative collections-sharing partnership between the Brandywine, the Farnsworth Art Museum and the Wyeth Foundation, which was announced earlier this spring.

Ashley Grove Mars is the new director of communications at the Chrysler Museum of Art. Mars will lead the museum’s marketing and communications efforts, working with staff to increase visibility of the museum initiatives and exhibitions.

Bonhams recently named Marcel Brouwer international specialist of modern decorative art and design in Europe with immediate effect. Marcel will play a key role in the major auction house’s International Design department, helping the Paris team to build design sales, and also supporting the teams in London, New York and Brussels.

Sylvia Wolf, John S. Behnke Director of the Henry Art Gallery, recently announced that she will retire in spring 2023. The Henry Art Gallery, located at the University of Washington, has a collection of both historical and contemporary artworks, amassed since the museum’s inception in 1926. Wolf leaves the Henry after 15 years of service.