Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

Waiting for Wesselmann: The Market Makes Another Run at Reviving His Reputation

August 22, 2016 by Marion Maneker

Kevin Conley has a nice pocket profile of Tom Wesselman’s career and market in September’s T magazine. With recent shows by the Wesselmann Foundation at Mitchell-Innes and Nash as well as one coming up at Almine Rech in Paris this October, Conley claims the artist has become newly relevant to today’s figurative painters:

the rise of a new generation of figurative artists inspired by his work — including Erik Parker, Matthew Palladino and particularly Mickalene Thomas, who feels that she is continuing his “psychologically and sensually charged” conversation.

Wesselmann’s market has spent decades on the verge of breaking out after the rise in the values of his contemporaries; however, Wesselmann’s position in the Pop pantheon was foreshadowed at the time:

Then, all of a sudden, it was like he was the fifth Beatle — a moment in history. Although collectors continued to buy his work throughout his life, the spotlight had shifted and early supporters began abandoning him. The curator Henry Geldzahler, one of his earliest champions, left him out of his landmark show, “New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940-1970,” the Metropolitan Museum’s maiden foray into contemporary art. Lawrence Alloway, the British critic widely credited with coining the term Pop Art, afforded Wesselmann only a token presence in his 1974 Whitney Museum survey of Pop. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, a few feminist critics made Wesselmann the whipping boy for the male gaze, but more damaging was the unwillingness of American museums to show the nudes. In the wake of the obscenity trial that haunted the Robert Mapplethorpe show in the ’90s, curators treated his brand of wholesome eroticism as if it was an advertisement for unprotected sex.

The Most Famous Pop Artist You Don’t Know  (The New York Times)

More from Art Market Monitor

  • HappeningsHappenings
  • Guarantees Dampen Excitement at Sotheby’s
  • Sotheby’s Unveils Munch’s $50m Girls on the Bridge for November SaleSotheby’s Unveils Munch’s $50m Girls on the Bridge for November Sale
  • Sotheby's Doha Sale Seen From Abu DhabiSotheby's Doha Sale Seen From Abu Dhabi
  • Christie’s 2014 Results InfographicChristie’s 2014 Results Infographic
  • Murdoch Stands Up Against Bullying at TateMurdoch Stands Up Against Bullying at Tate

Filed Under: General

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • Gorky, Kandinsky Works to Make First Public Appearance Since 1970s at Sotheby's
  • Soulages First Owned by Senegalese Poet-Politician Léopold Sédar Senghor Sells in France
  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • For 2020, Phillips Brought in Total of $760.4 million, Down 16 Percent from 2019; Asia Sales Up 24 Percent
  • After Pandemic’s Rapid Change, Sotheby’s Has 8 Predictions for 2021
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • A Season of Resilience: Fall 2020 Hong Kong Auction Analysis
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • Calder, Miró, Léger and More Expected to Fetch $22 M. in Christie's London 20th Century Art Sales
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor