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"Point of Departure,” the fall’s major exhibition at Sheldon Museum of Art, takes its name from a 1964 album by jazz pianist Andrew Hill, a recording that reaches back toward Bach, but nearly 60 years after it was recorded, continues to point to the future.

In similar fashion, the paintings that fill Sheldon’s north galleries reach back to a point just after abstraction’s mid-20th century peak and take non-objective painting forward for six decades, pointing toward what is yet to come.

Impressively, the visually striking, intellectually and historically rich exhibition is primarily drawn from Sheldon’s collection of 20th and 21st century art that is unmatched by any other university museum in the country.

“We have so much abstraction and we’re well known for abstraction, starting in 1910,” said Wally Mason, Sheldon’s director and chief curator. “We shifted from abstract painting to abstract sculpture during George's (Neubert) tenure. But we always acquired some. In my time, this is something we’re continuing to do.”

In using 1958 as its starting date, Mason, who curated the exhibition, ensured that “Point of Departure” would include little work from the “first generation” of abstract expressionists, excluding oft-seen Sheldon gems by Mark Rothko, Willem deKooning, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still and Robert Motherwell. Read More

The absence of most in-person art fairs in the past year and a half appears to be making the white-hot art market even hotter. That’s the takeaway from the opening day of the pop-up Intersect Aspen art fair, which takes place in a city overrun with billionaires. The fair, which features 30 galleries from 26 cities and was described by one fairgoer as “tiny but exquisite,” attracted a bevy of collectors, including Andrea and John Stark, Janna Bullock, and heiress Elizabeth Esteve.

Sales were fast and furious, organizers said. Galerie Gmurzynska, whose director Isabelle Bscher made a concerted effort not to presell works (as galleries often do at major fairs), sold a Joan Miró painting, Tête (1979), for $2 million in the first hour of the opening day. Two days later, Gmurzynska reported selling another work, a small Picasso titled Compotier avec raisin (Pigeons) (1927) for over $1.5 million.

“Where better to be than Aspen?” asked Christine Berry of New York’s Berry Campbell Gallery. “We have a renewed appreciation for being at an art fair in person.”

Seattle dealer Greg Kucera reported selling work by Chris Engman for $5,000 and by Humaira Abid for $8,000. The gallery is also showing two new works by Deborah Butterfield that were made specifically for Intersect Aspen, and are on view for the first time.

“The fair opened on Sunday morning at 10 with a bang,” New York dealer Nancy Hoffman said. “Starting with energy is key to the success of the event, and this is a success. This is our first in-person fair since the pandemic, and it has been great so far, positive on all levels. The right size, the right place, the right audience, the right fair director and organization.”

Hoffman said responses have been strong to the gallery’s booth theme of wild flowers, which is inspired by Aspen’s floral landscape. With prices for works ranging from $1,800 to $75,000, she said the gallery sold works priced from $5,000 to $30,000.

Half Gallery sold out a booth of works by Hiejin Yoo (prices ranged from $12,000 to $20,000), Young Lim Lee (priced around $8,000), and Umar Rashid (priced around $25,000). Director Erin Goldberger said she was using the opportunity to meet new clients, see old clients, and talk about the artists on view with visitors.

Goldberger said many of the collectors at the fair have not been back to New York since the start of COVID, so this is the first time many are seeing artworks from galleries they work with in person. Emmanuel Perrotin sold works by Daniel Arsham from two different series, including one featured prominently in the booth, Quartz Eroded Basketball Hoop (2021), which sold for a price in the range of $60,000 to $90,000.

Edward Cella Art and Architecture gallery sold a painting by Wosene Worke Kosrof, House Full of Words (2014), for $46,000, with strong interest from buyers in additional works. “I’m pleasantly surprised by the quality and intelligence of the collectors, who are geographically dispersed throughout the country,” said gallery owner Edward Cella.

Frank Wimberley
Tourquoise, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
62 x 48 inches

View works by Frank Wimberley

Last Wednesday, a mixed-media collage by the late Abstract Expressionist artist Grace Hartigan sold for $75,000 at a Christie’s online auction, achieving five times its high estimate and breaking the auction record for works on paper by the artist. Hartigan, who was lauded as “the most celebrated of the young American women painters” by Life magazine in 1958, has seen a steady surge in demand for her trailblazing work in recent years. This is partly due to a growing wave of market interest in female Abstract Expressionists from collectors looking to correct their omission from art history.

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Featured Work: Sundancer, 1988

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The annual contemporary art fair in the Aspen Ice Garden is back for an in-person experience Aug. 1-5. With a new owner and new producer, it’ll look different than it did pre-pandemic, when it was known as ArtAspen, but the new Intersect Aspen is still offering a curated selection of international galleries showing and selling postwar art and blue-chip artists.

The new Intersect Aspen is hosting 30 exhibitors from 26 cities, filling the ice rink with a sampling of works from some of the leading contemporary art galleries and also a glimpse of the insane heights of the pandemic’s commercial art market. Intersect Art and Design acquired ArtAspen in April 2020 and hosted a virtual version of the fair last summer.

The new version of the fair hits as the international art world descends on the resort for the Aspen Art Museum’s annual ArtCrush gala, which has its main events running Aug. 4-6, and as a bumper crop of leading multi-national galleries have opened seasonal pop-ups in Aspen.

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