Lynne Drexler

On view in the Titelman Gallery, Vero Beach Museum of Art:

Lynne Drexler, Untitled, ca. 1967. Crayon on paper, 13 ¾ x 7 in. and Lynne Drexler, A Blossom, 1967. Oil on linen, 68 x 49 ¾ in. Private Collection, USA. 

There's no perfect way to assess sales performance at an art fair. Galleries are under no obligation to report sales, and they're incentivised to report strong interest, making their artworks seem more covetable. The success of sales also depends on context. In a down market—which auction sales suggest is already here—average sales look good.

At this year's Armory Show (7–10 September), sales got off to 'a bustling start' according to The Art Newspaper, though they also said some smaller galleries reported 'a slow start'.

New York gallery Berry Campbell had a standout booth, a curated presentation of 12 postwar women artists. The gallery has a distinct focus on re-examining underrepresented women artists of the 20th-century. Gallery owner Christine Berry called it “an incredible day,” noting high demand for artists including Alice Baber, Bernice Bing, and Lynne Drexler.

Works by Drexler sold for $885,000 and $200,000; the artist, who has been drawing intense interest, will likely be the subject of a traveling institutional retrospective at some point in the near future. A work by Baber went for $200,000—Berry Campbell hopes to mount a solo show of the artist next year.

Later on in the day, the gallery let Artnet News know that a painting by Ethel Schwabacher had been sold for $195,000.  

Proving that no force is stronger than girl power, Frampton Co and Berry Campbell present Women Choose Women at Exhibition The Barn.

Lynne Drexler Saw the World Through Kaleidoscope Eyes

The art establishment ignored Lynne Drexler in life and, for more than two decades, also in death. But suddenly, the brilliantly colored canvases she kept piled in her ramshackle Monhegan home are fetching millions. Who was the enigmatic painter, and why is her immense talent only beginning to get its due?

Will Grunewald for Down East, February 2023

These last years have been crucial for readdressing the gender imbalance in art history, unveiling powerful and inspiring stories of female artists. Today’s edition of Artland’s Lost (and Found) Artist series, which unveils the stories of artists who were once omitted from the mainstream art canon or who were largely unseen for most of their careers, explores the renaissance of Abstract Expressionist painter Lynne Mapp Drexler (1928-1999). Probably overshadowed by her husband (also a painter) and her male contemporaries, she experienced the vibrant and tumultuous New York art scene of the mid-20^th century but overwhelmed by it, and struggling with her career, left for the peaceful Monhegan Island, off the coast of Maine. As is often the case, after her death in 1999 and especially in recent years, Drexler is eventually gaining the attention she would have merited, and (as some had anticipated) her paintings are now being sold for millions.