Mary Abbott, Ariel Wind, (circa 1951)
Like so many other skilled women abstract painters of her generation, Mary Abbott is overdue for some market recognition. For years, auction prices for her work have lagged behind primary market prices. Is the secondary market starting to catch up?
At the ADAA Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory in New York last week, Berry Campbell sold Abbott’s Ariel Wind (ca. 1951) for $185,000 on the opening day of the fair. That figure is nearly 20 percent more than the artist’s auction record of $156,000, which was just set on October 2, when an untitled 1957 work sold at Sotheby’s New York in an online auction. The final sale price was a whopping 680 percent higher than the $15,000–$20,000 estimate, according to Artnet’s Price Database.
— Eileen Kinsella
November 5, 2024
