This Fall’s Art Auctions
*This preview appears in CGN's fall 2024 magazine. To subscribe to the print edition click here.*
This fall the auctions heat up alongside the season of new art in area galleries and museums. Some notable dates from area auction houses are listed here, but CGN’s calendar is updated daily.
Of course you may bid early and online, but it’s worth treating yourself to the experience of bidding in person at least once in your life. You never know what you might bring home to enjoy for years to come. – GV
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American Art
Heritage Auctions Chicago
Incredible highlights from Heritage Auctions’ upcoming American Art auction visit the Chicago gallery this fall, featuring Maxfield Parrish’s 1919 painting, “There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.” Known for its vivid colors and enchanting interpretation of the nursery rhyme, the work exemplifies Parrish’s signature style. Don’t miss this early opportunity to view an exceptional curation of top lots from the remarkable November 15 auction, including work by Ernie Barnes, Joseph Christian Leyendecker, Joseph Stella, and more.
Auction Preview: October 21–24 • Gallery Talk and Reception: October 24, 5 to 7 pm • Auction November 15
222 W. Hubbard St. in River North
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Post War and Contemporary Art
Freeman’s | Hindman
Freeman’s | Hindman’s Post War and Contemporary Art auction will feature a compelling variety of paintings, sculptures, works on paper, textiles and photography ranging from the mid-40s Midwestern mixed media Surrealism of Julia Thecla to the very of-the-now dreamy figuration of Contemporary Ghanaian painter Gideon Appah. Highlights in the sale with hometown appeal include a stunning and rarely-seen-at-auction Bisa Butler quilted fabric portrait, The Boss, c. 2004. Butler’s work takes cues from, and carries on, the important visual and social traditions of Chicago’s AfriCOBRA movement, and our very own Art Institute of Chicago proudly gave Butler her first museum show in 2020. Also of note and with local links, are uncommon and top-notch three-dimensional paintings from Chicago Imagists Roger Brown and Karl Wirsum. Brown’s 1973-1974 Bus Stop is a fully realized, scaled down Greyhound station, with all the silhouetted window activity and signature Brown grays one could want. The articulated, sort of seated, fanciful Wirsum figure Please Don’t Get Up (1980) once belonged to legendary Chicago gallerist Phyllis Kind. Finally no Freeman’s | Hindman sale would be complete without an enchanting Gertrude Abercrombie. Her 1956 masterwork The Magician depicts a raven-haired Abercrombie alter ego levitating above a deep green chaise lounge by a spellcasting black cat, likely also a stand-in for the artist. Still housed in the original frame, the painting was purchased directly from Abercrombie at the famed 57th Street Art Fair the same year it was painted. A father and his ten-year-old son purchased the painting then, and the son is now current seller.
– Zachary Wirsum, Freeman’s | Hindman Senior Vice President, Head of Department, Post War & Contemporary Art
Freeman’s | Hindman
Auction September 25 • 1550 W. Carroll Ave. in West Town
www.hindmanauctions.com
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Jewelry: Antique to Art Deco
September 18
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Prints and Multiples
September 26
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Cabinet of Morbid Curiosities: The Richard Harris Collection
October 2
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Design
October 24