Under the Hammer

1.

Grace Hartigan

Grace Hartigan was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1922. As a child, her family encouraged creativity and as a teenager, she aspired to be an actress. Years later, a friend introduced her to the works of Henri Matisse — she was hooked and began taking art classes. Hartigan went on to develop into a forceful Abstract Expressionist and an important member of the New York School. Hartigan’s introduction of representation into her abstract works was uniquely particular to the artist and marked a significant departure from the styles perpetuated by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.

Hartigan was the first of her generation of artists to receive critical and institutional acclaim. When legendary curator Alfred Barr acquired Hartigan’s The Persian Jacket (1952) for the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1953, it marked the first acquisition by the important institution by an artist of any gender from her generation, and marked a significant turn in the reception of Hartigan and her contemporaries. After inclusion in the seminal 12 Americans exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Hartigan’s career gained traction and she was considered “the most celebrated of the young American women painters.”

The present work, Bony Labyrinth, (1967), is a stunning example of the artist’s blending of the abstract and representational. Rendered in rich organic green and contrasting pink tones, the canvas envelopes the viewer in a swirl of color and scale. The work has a highly personal touch – Hartigan’s husband was a doctor and medical scientist, and the title refers to the bone structure within a human ear. The work comes to auction from a prominent private collection and is fresh to market, having last appeared over a quarter of a century ago.

2.

Max Cole

Born in Kansas in 1937, Max Cole studied at Kansas State and received an MFA at the University of Arizona. Often considered one of the leading Minimalists working today, Cole is best known for her non-objective abstract work rendered in a monochrome palette, often compared to the infinite geometric grids of Agnes Martin and the Suprematist works of Kazimir Malevich. Cole’s earlier work, however, evokes a more earthy presence, as seen in the present painting. Nerisa (1968), meaning “from the sea” in Greek, Cole blends effervescent blue pigments to suggest a wave cresting upon a terrestrial strata.

Cole had her first solo show at Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, in 1977. She received an Artist’s Grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 1986 and was a 2005 Artist in Residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. Now eighty-three years old and still active, the artist’s work can be found in major museums and public institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo, New York. Her work has since been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions in both the United States and internationally.

3.

Louise Fishman

Born in Philadelphia in 1939, Louise Fishman’s body of work belongs within the long lineage of feminist Abstract Expressionism, stretching back to forbearer's such as Joan Mitchell and Elaine de Kooning. Fishman was active in the feminist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s while simultaneously campaigning for LGBTQ rights. After focusing on sculpture, she returned to painting and wholeheartedly embraced gestural abstraction and Abstract Expressionism, a movement traditionally viewed as male-dominated. By confronting the typical art history discourse in this way, Fishman repositioned Abstract Expressionism and its legacy for a new era and gender.

With a major focus on process, Fishman’s work is heavily layered and textured, forming loose grids that the artist scrapes away with a trowel, and subsequently repaints. Aesthetically engaging and emotionally charged, Fishman’s The Mob Within The Heart (1993) dates to the artist’s most sought after period.

Fishman recently passed away in August 2021 after a long and successful career. Her works can be found in countless museums and institutions including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Jewish Museum, New York.

4.

Emily Mason

Art certainly ran in the family for Emily Mason, daughter of the celebrated and pioneering artist, Alice Trumbull Mason, who was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists in New York. Born in 1932 in New York, Mason's art education began at home and she went on to study at Bennington College, Vermont and the Cooper Union, New York. In 1956, a two-year Fulbright grant took her to Venice, Italy, where she married fellow artist, Wolf Kahn. Working from her Manhattan studio, Mason exhibited steadily throughout her lifetime until her death in 2019. Her work can be found in institutions across the country including the Bennington Museum, Vermont, the National Academy Museum, New York and the University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque.

The present work from 1972 is an example of a mature artist at the height of her practice. Rendered in Mason’s typically luminous color palette, Past The Morning Star (1972) is a richly saturated exploration of color and form. The harmonious waves of gentle color crate a sense of persistent rhythms, though the open planes of lyrical space belie the intensity within the composition. Robert Berlind said of her in Art in America, “Mason works within the improvisational model of Abstract Expressionism, though notably without angst or bravado.”

5.

Katherine Bernhardt

Katherine Bernhardt is easily one of the most sought-after painters working today. Her unique and singular visual vernacular that explores art history through a Pop and Street Art lens, has propelled her into the Contemporary Art stratosphere. Her vivid fluorescent paintings draw motifs from Pop Culture and the everyday—including the Pink Panther, cigarettes, sneakers, Garfield and tropical fruit—exploring the mundane and modern consumerism.

Born and raised in St. Louis, Bernhardt first received acclaim in the early 2000s for her series of portraits of supermodels. Kate Moss (Roberto Cavalli), (2006) is a portrait of one of the most beautiful women on earth, but she is rendered garishly in thick strokes of paint: a grotesque caricature of sexuality, wealth and beauty. Larger than life, the figure flaunts the usual trappings of status and luxury, but Bernhardt’s surreal depiction of such an iconic figure, force the viewer to reevaluate these tropes.

Bernhardt has had institutional solo shows at Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas in 2017 and the Museo Mario Testino (MATE) in Lima, Peru, in 2018. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Portland Museum of Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., among many others.

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