The estate of Robert Colescott will now be represented by Gladstone Gallery, which will mount its first exhibition for the artist next year and bring work by him to the upcoming edition of Art Basel Miami Beach next month.
Colescott, who died in 2009, is one of the 20th century’s most important American artists. His large-scale paintings are known for their satirical, biting condemnations of both American history and art history.
Among his most famous works is George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook (1975), which transforms George Washington and his company into Black figures, many of whom he depicted as racist stereotypes. The painting remains provocative—it was critiqued even during its time. Colescott intended the work to highlight not only how Black people had been excluded from the historical and painted record, but also to show that when those figures do appear, they are show up as caricatures.
Colescott represented the United States at the 1997 Venice Biennale, becoming the first Black artist to do so. He was the subject of a major traveling retrospective in 1987 that originated at the San Jose Museum of Art in California, and in 2019, Lowery Stokes Sims co-curated his first posthumous retrospective, which debuted at the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati in Ohio. He will be the subject of another retrospective that will open in December at the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington to mark the centennial of the artist’s birth.
“His work resonates with so many important artists in the program, and it felt like a very natural fit,” Gladstone senior partner Max Falkenstein told ARTnews. “Gladstone has never shied away from art that explores identity and politics, and Colescott represents the foundation of this for so many contemporary artists today.”
Falkenstein, who described himself as a “huge fan of Colescott,” said the gallery had long been interested in representing Colescott’s art, but a recent introduction to the family a few months ago led to the partnership. The estate was looking for new representation after its longtime gallery Blum, which first mounted a Colescott show in 2018, closed over the summer. “The dialog developed very naturally,” Falkenstein said of the conversation with the estate.
In an email to ARTnews, the estate said that its choice of a gallery representative was made with how best to preserve and advance the legacy of Colescott. “From our very first conversation with the Gladstone partners, it was evident that their enthusiasm, professionalism, and shared commitment to legacy building aligned seamlessly with our own,” the family said. “During our time together, they expressed many of the same goals and aspirations that have guided us for years. Our partnership with Gladstone represents both an intuitive and intellectual connection—a true meeting of values, vision, and dedication.”
George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware sold for $15.3 million at a Sotheby’s New York sale in 2021, shattering the artist’s previous auction record of $912,500 set in 2018. That painting is now in the collection of the forthcoming Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles.
While that might seem like an outlier, Falkenstein characterized Colescott’s market as being “strong, but there are still a lot of opportunities for growth and development. We look forward to supporting it on every aspect of his 50-year career. We’re looking forward to getting started.”
