The 30th anniversary edition of the Armory Show marked the beginning of the fall season in New York, and that means that school is officially back in session, as dealers and collectors are fond of saying.
Since the Frieze’s acquisition of the Armory Show and Expo Chicago, there has been talk of an art fair conglomerate pulling itself apart at the seams. Frieze Seoul, which takes place at the same time as Armory Show, is a major draw for galleries hoping to capitalize on the bourgeoning—and still evolving—Asian market.
As in the past few editions, none of the galleries referred to as “the megas”—David Zwirner, Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, and Pace Gallery—took part. Still, heavy-hitting collectors, tastemakers, and market observers were spotted promenading the aisles, air kissing and handshaking their friends while also, of course, evaluating the goods on offer.
MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry, Sotheby’s Fine Art division chairman Amy Cappellazzo, and curator Cecilia Alemani were present, as were collectors such as Agnes Gund, the Mugrabis, and the Rubells. Celebrities such as David Byrne and an ageless Paul Rudd were also present.
The mega-galleries typically bring the most expensive works to these fairs, and their lack meant that few works here sold at values above the million-dollar mark. But collectors sometimes look for the highest quality at a the right price, and that makes lower-value works worth surveying, too. Here are a handful of the works that sold on the Armory Show’s VIP preview day.
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Walton Ford at Kasmin
Image Credit: Courtesy Kasmin On the heels of a show at the Morgan Library earlier this year, Walton Ford’s five-foot-tall watercolor The Singer Tract (2023) sold for $750,000. The richness of the work betrays the medium here: gold, brown and amber hues radiate from the canvas in a way rarely seen in watercolors. On the modern side of things, the gallery also sold Robert Motherwell’s Apse (1980–84) for $825,000 as well as works by Sara Anstis, Jan-Ole Schiemann, and Emil Sands.
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Lynne Drexler at Berry Campbell
Image Credit: ©The Lynne Drexler Archive/Courtesy Berry Campbell, New York The Chelsea-based gallery Berry Campbell sold a never-before-seen painting by Lynne Drexler, Autumn Twilight (1977) for $450,000. Despite her being generally lesser-known, Drexler’s market has reached record highs in the past two years, with one of her paintings even selling for $1.38 million at auction last year. It seems as though there’s still a lot of interest in her art. Berry Campbell, which specializes in art by female painters of the postwar era, also sold Yvonne Thomas’s Blue Green (1964) for $125,000 and Nanette Carter’s Cantilevered #14 (2014) for $22,000.
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Lee Bae at Johyun Gallery
Image Credit: Courtesy Johyun Gallery The Busan-based Johyun Gallery sold three charcoal works by the South Korean artist Lee Bae ranging in price from $90,000 to $300,000. Lee’s work has been in demand this year. During Frieze New York, Perrotin sold out of its solo booth of Lee’s art, with prices ranging from $75,000 to $230,000. The artist was also featured in a Venice Biennale–adjacent exhibition and, perhaps more importantly (depending on your age demo), his work was seen in a YouTube video about the art collection of RM, the 29-year-old leader of the Korean pop group BTS. Johyun also reported selling a painting by Lee Kwangho in the range of $30,000 to $40,000, an oil on canvas work by Kang Kang-Hoon for a price between $25,000 and $35,000.
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Lita Albuquerque at Michael Kohn Gallery
Image Credit: Photo Karl Puchlik/Courtesy Michael Kohn Gallery The Los Angeles–based Michael Kohn Gallery reported selling two Lita Albuquerque paintings, one for $75,000, the other for $95,000. Albuquerque is just one of the gallery’s robust roster of established West Coasters, among them Joe Goode and Sharon Ellis, as well as the estates of Wallace Berman, John Altoon and Martha Alf. The gallery also sold works from their growing roster of early and mid-career artists, including two oil paintings by Nir Hod for $95,000 and $140,000, an Alicia Adamerovich painting for $55,000, and a William Brickel painting for $10,000.
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Sam Moyer at Sean Kelly
Image Credit: Courtesy Sean Kelly Compound Fern (2024), a work that incorporates marble and acrylic on plaster-coated canvas, sold for $70,000 at Sean Kelly’s booth. The work is from the artist’s “Clippings” series, which shows how remarkably close one can come to traditional painting and drawing practices while also making use of non-traditional materials like marble. The gallery also sold several works by Hugo McCloud priced at $30,000 each and two prints by Jose Dávila for $65,000 each.
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Doug Aitken at 303 Gallery
Image Credit: © Rob Pruitt/Photo Justin Craun/Courtesy 303 Gallery, New York New York stalwart 303 Gallery found homes for two works by Rob Pruitt at $175,000 each. The gallery also sold three works by Sam Falls in the range of $70,000 to $90,000 each, a painting by Hans-Peter Feldmann for $77,000, and three editions of a 2019 work by Jeppe Hein called YOU ARE AMAZING JUST THE WAY YOU ARE (handwritten). The Hein works were comprised of powder-coated aluminum, blue neon tubes, two-way mirroring, powder-coated steel, and transformers, and sold for $49,980 each. A sculpture by Alicja Kwade also went for $33,000.
