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Years can pass without the singular modernist Florine Stettheimer (1871-1944) appearing on the art market. His domain went mainly to museums and universities. Which made 2020 a banner year, with five pieces appearing in auction houses and galleries across the United States.
Only two were found to have been created by Stettheimer. Among the other works, two were withdrawn from the market and the attribution was changed on the third.
Stettheimer is appreciated for her ultra-feminine faux-naive style, expressed in richly detailed paintings that often represented her circle of friends, including artist Marcel Duchamp, writer Carl Van Vechten, and sculptor Elie Nadelman. But along with the issues of authenticity, current sales have raised another question: How do you value a legendary artist whose work is rarely available?
Late last year, Boston-based auction house Skinner announced it would include a painting by Stettheimer, “Dancer Sitting in a Halo of Electric Light,” of a young woman with a large bulb behind it, in its art sale on Jan. 22, and estimated the work to be between $ 70,000 and $ 90,000.
For at least one Stettheimer expert, another type of bulb has gone out.
“He’s not a Stettheimer,” said art historian Barbara Bloemink, who curated “Manhattan Fantastica,” the 1995 Whitney Museum of American Art’s historic Stettheimer exhibit with Elisabeth Sussman, and writes a biography of Stettheimer which it expands considerably. It is also developing a catalog raisonné. “It’s a crappy kitsch thing, probably painted in the 50s or 60s,” Bloemink said of Skinner’s painting. “She would never have painted those weird fluorescent colors.”
Bloemink said she called Skinner to tell them the painting was misidentified. (Skinner holds the Stettheimer auction record, $ 375,000, in 2016 for a floral still life.)
Robin Starr, Skinner’s director of American and European art, said the auction house had authenticated “Seated Dancer” with “some of Stettheimer’s obvious experts,” but declined to name them. In December, Skinner shot “Seated Dancer“ of its auction, calling it the result of a “difference of scholarly opinion.”
According to Starr, “Seated Dancer” was brought home as an authentic Stettheimer by a collector in San Francisco who recently purchased the painting through an intermediary and declined to comment.
This reporter was able to trace “Seated Dancer” to Shapiro Auctions in Mamaroneck, NY, where it sold last July for $ 375, including fees, as “Ballerina”. Dasha Badikova, specialist at Shapiro, said the work was simply “attributed” to Florine Stettheimer because there was limited provenance to authenticate it. “There was no catalog raisonné” to check, she said.
This fall, another so-called Stettheimer work appeared on the lists of Rago Arts and Auction in New Jersey, part of an art treasury of the Spanierman Gallery, an American art specialist that closed its doors in 2014. The small ink on the paperwork shows a half-dressed female figure, with extra arms and legs, lying on a couch. Stettheimer’s name is on the bottom edge of the design, but the corner next to it appears to have been torn off. Alerted to the sale, Bloemink provided Rago with proof that the drawing was not a Stettheimer – but, in an interesting twist, it had once belonged to the painter.
A photo taken in the bathroom of Stettheimer’s downtown studio in the 1940s shows the design sitting on the edge of a dressing table. Next to Stettheimer’s name, in the corner that is now missing, is the signature “Paul Thévenaz 1916”.
A dancer and artist, Thevenaz was a friend of Stettheimer’s who appears in two of her real paintings – performing a pear tree in “Sunday Afternoon in the Country” and taking a photo with a camera in “Asbury Park South”. Known for his decorative paintings and portraits influenced by Cubism, Thévenaz was in full swing when he died in 1921 at the age of 30.
Meredith Hilferty, director of fine arts at Rago, said documentation accompanied the inventory of paintings from Spanierman, but not most of the works on paper. Rago didn’t question the provenance of the multi-membered lady until Bloemink intervened, and then Rago quickly changed the description of the auction, citing Stettheimer as a provenance rather than an artist. The drawing sold in September for $ 5,000, well above its high estimate of $ 1,500. Hilferty said she didn’t know when or how the corner of the drawing disappeared. And with the death of Ira Spanierman, the owner of the gallery, in 2019, she said, “There’s really no one to ask.”
Bloemink also learned of the existence of a third falsely identified Stettheimer, which was to be managed by a Manhattan gallery. “It wasn’t a painting,” she says. “But I can’t tell you more. The owner is a friend whose business will be harmed. She said the owner returned the job to her shipper after talking to Bloemink. It is not known if this work is still purchased as a Stettheimer.
Born into a wealthy family, Stettheimer neither needed nor wanted to sell her art. She once said that “letting people have your paintings is like letting them wear your clothes.” After his death in 1944, most of his work went to institutions. Yet every now and then a legitimate Stettheimer emerges.
In 1949, “Asbury Park South,” one of Stettheimer’s most important paintings, of an interracial crowd on a restricted New Jersey beach, was donated to Fisk University by Florine’s sister Ettie. In 2010, with her finances strained, the historically black Nashville School quietly sold her to a dealer – a move that drew criticism when The Times found out. It was the first time that a large Stettheimer entered the market in 20 years. Another dealer sold it back to the New York Armory Show in 2012 for an undisclosed amount.
In 2020, two legitimate Stettheimers – both with lots of provenance – passed through New York galleries on their way to new owners. If a Stettheimer appears, it’s usually one of his floral paintings, which was sold by Debra Force Fine Art. “We were thrilled to have him,” Force said, “because his job doesn’t come back very often. Force did not disclose the final price, but said the gallery initially requested $ 600,000 and was happy with what the painting brought.
The Alexandre gallery also sold a real Stettheimer last year, the 1927 work “Fourth of July, n ° 2”. Phil Alexandre, the president of the gallery, did not indicate the amount paid by his new owner, but said that if “July 4th, # 2” reappeared in his gallery today, he would ask between $ 775,000 and $ 825,000 and is convinced it would sell. quickly.
If so, why was a Stettheimer portrait of Marcel Duchamp not auctioned at Christie’s in 2017? The unusual and prominent painting, framed by rows of silver “MDs” (Stettheimer often designed his own frames), shows Duchamp twice – both as his conventional self and his female alter ego, Rrose Sélavy. The pre-sale estimate was $ 1-1.5 million, but it didn’t hit its reserve.
“The challenge with Stettheimer,” said Eric Widing, vice president of Christie’s, “is so little of his art hits the market that there is a dearth of good price data for people to assess. . But after the auction, Christie’s experienced what Widing called “one of the most active aftermarket bursts of interest I’ve ever seen”.
Within a week, he said, Stettheimer’s portrait of Duchamp sold privately, “at a substantial price.”
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