Famous Art Couples Are Finally Getting Even
Artist Leonora Carrington Just Smashed Her Auction Record — and Her Ex-Lover’s
Vogue model and aspiring photographer Lee Miller was assisting her famous surrealist lover Man Ray in his lab one day when a mouse startled her, causing her to do the one thing you’re not supposed to do in a darkroom: turn on the lights. It was a happy accident. The overexposed negatives produced a halo-like effect, which Miller and Ray then refined together over time, dubbing it “Solarization.” But the technique soon became Ray’s signature style — not Miller’s — and to her frustration, was credited solely to him in the annals of art history until just recently.
In 2022, one of Man Ray’s photos sold for a whopping $12.4 million — a personal record for Ray, and the most expensive photograph ever to be sold at auction.
About a year earlier, Lee Miller bested a personal auction record as well. But her photo achieved just $504K.
Four percent of his.
All art is not apples to apples, or buttcheeks to buttcheeks in the case of the two record-setters (above) . . . although ironically, these pairs are more similar than most.
That said, auction records do reflect an artist’s worth in the eyes of a shifting society, as well as insights about those societal shifts themselves. Especially when the comparison is being made about former romantic equals and professional partners, making similar work at similar times and in the same artistic movements. All things were relatively equal, except for the subjectivity of their work and of course — their genders.
However, although Miller still lags behind Ray, it’s important to give her context: prior to 2021, her previous auction records were $230K in 2012 and $377K in 2014 before jumping to $504K in 2021— more than double in less than a decade. And furthermore, her only work to underperform since her record-breaker was a photograph she took of Man Ray in 1931. Considering how they parted ways, I wonder if she’d really mind.
Miller’s upward trend is not anomalous. Her contemporary, Leonora Carrington, had a record-smashing sale this week.
The meteoric rise of surrealist women
As a young British woman, Leonora Carrington literally fled her silver spoon upbringing to fall in with Max Ernst and the surrealists. And like Miller with Ray, Carrington juggled her artistic ambitions alongside her love affair with Ernst and her alleged role as his “muse.” Although The MET Museum recalls that when art historian Whitney Chadwick interviewed Carrington on the subject, she was quick to push back:
“I thought it was bullshit. I didn’t have time to be anyone’s muse. I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist.”
Still, despite many prolific years of living as a working artist in Mexico, Carrington’s market value paled in comparison to Ernst’s. Prior to this week, her auction record was a mere $3.2 million in 2022; meanwhile, Ernst’s record — hit the same year — was $24.4 million. Two years ago, her value was 13% of his.
Today, it’s 117%.
Les Distractions de Dagobert (1945) sold after ten minutes of spirited bidding among its two highest contenders, finally selling for the phenomenal estimate-crushing sum of $28.5 million at the Sotheby’s modern art evening sale. Which perhaps shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, considering she’s following the footsteps of her trailblazer contemporary: Frida Kahlo.
As brilliant artists and torrid lovers, Kahlo and Diego Rivera have long been adored by art historians and Salma Hayek fans alike. But their auction records are now cleaving them further and further apart. Rivera’s $14.1 million record was reached in 2022, but still trails far behind Kahlo’s massive $34.9 million 2021 record. And with Madonna’s walls reportedly decked with $100 million worth of Kahlos, her value is unlikely to fall anytime soon.
Auction records reflect an artist’s worth in the eyes of a shifting society, as well as insights about those societal shifts themselves
Perhaps these women of the surrealist movement have Kahlo‘s celebrity zeitgeist to thank —in fact, SKY just announced its upcoming Lee Miller biopic starring Kate Winslet. But it’s also possible the value increase of female artists lately is reflective of the rise of women in general — particularly their pocketbooks.
Earlier this year, Statista.com published a report calculating Women as a proportion of ultra wealthy individuals worldwide (UHNW) 2014–2022: “As of 2022, 11 percent of all ultra wealthy individuals worldwide were women. By comparison, the share was 6.5 percent in 2016.” That’s not to say wealthy women are the only buyers of work by female artists, but it’s certainly a trend worth paying mind. Just imagine what the auction records of Miller, Carrington and Kahlo would reach if the share of wealthy women were to become fifty percent.
Museums lag behind
Museums are slow to keep up. The Baltimore Museum of Fine Art dedicated the year 2020 to only acquiring work by women, perhaps spurred by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston when it announced its 2019 commitment to a “takeover” of its entire third floor with artworks by women. Their website states:
“Despite more than a century of feminist activism and great strides towards social, professional and political equality, women remain dramatically underrepresented and undervalued in the art world today.”
But others tiptoe behind. The Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco recently purchased this painting by Lavinia Fontana, somewhat humorously featuring a woman surrounded by her mostly male children — a little clown car of historic testosterone.
I used to live in SF and used to stroll the Legion on the weekends, so I’m well-aware that museum continues to display very few female artists; chief curator Emily Beeny shares her interesting justification with ArtNet.com:
“When you bring works of art attributed to women into a collection where the level of quality is already very high, it’s important that those works be of commensurate quality so that you don’t invite invidious comparison.”
That’s always the fear, isn’t it?
The Public Library of Science, of all places, published a 2019 study which found that among 18 major U.S. museums, 87% of the collections were male artists and 85% were white. But I recently heard murmurs from a New York gallerist friend that many major museums are no longer even considering acquisitions of white male work anymore. It’ll be interesting to see if this sticks.
But even if it doesn’t, change will likely continue to be slow. Because the reality is that most major museums are grappling with 50 to 100 years of male-centric collections; and with boards and sponsorships who are both passionate and precious, they are unlikely to offload even 15% to balance out. (Although considering Miller, Kahlo and Carrington, now is the time to do it—because in just a few years, they’ll have to ditch fifty to get fifty.) Even so, the downside of women artists being sidelined over the years is that their work is less tracked, cared for, and even surviving. The ship will take a long time to turn, and in the meantime you can look forward to many apologetic little plaques declaring the places of women alongside the men whose work is featured.
Let’s focus on the shifts museums are able to make in short order. Headliner exhibitions this year are celebrating the likes of Yayoi Kusama, Barbara Kruger, Judy Chicago and Yoko Ono — and that’s London alone.
More cheeks, please.
Which brings us back to artistic couples.
John Lennon’s auction record was achieved in 2014, a $109K drawing of presumably himself playing the guitar entitled, “You Might Well Arsk.” You may be surprised to hear that, for all her fame and fandom, Ono’s auction record barely sits above his: $116.5K, in 2010. Don’t be discouraged. Considering Ono’s current Tate Modern show and Leonora Carrington’s big win this week, I expect that will change. Because as with periods, where one goes others will follow.
Women are a good investment. We always have been.
Thank you for clapping! Follow me for more art history excavations.
Auction Records Currently Held By Famous Couples:
Max Ernst: $24.4M in 2022 (MutualArt.com)
Leonora Carrington: TBD
Diego Rivera: $14.1M in 2022 (MutualArt.com)
Frida Kahlo: $34.9M in 2021 (BBC.co.uk)
Lee Krasner: $11.7M in 2019 (MutualArt.com)
Jackson Pollock: $61.2M in 2021 (MutualArt.com)
Pablo Picasso: $179.4M in 2015 (SmithsonianMag.com)
Dora Maar: $707K in 2009 (MutualArt.com)
Lee Miller: $504K in April, 2021 (MutualArt.com)
Man Ray: $12.4M in 2022 (TheValue.com)
John Lennon: $109K in June, 2014 (Artsy.Net)
Yoko Ono: $116.5K in May, 2010 (ArtNet.com)
Additional Sources:
- “Madonna’s Multimillion-Dollar Art Collection Includes Frida Kahlo Paintings,” by Shirley Gómez, Hola.com
- “Women artists are everywhere in 2024 but let’s face it, it’s about damn time,” by Nancy Durrant, Standard.co.uk
- “A study found that 85% of artists in U.S. museum collections are white, and 87% are male,” by Benjamin Sutton, Artsy.net
- “Major Leonora Carrington painting poised to smash Surrealist’s auction record,” by Benjamin Sutton, TheArtNewspaper.com
- “This Leonora Carrington Painting Is Guaranteed to Smash Her Auction Record,” by Brian Boucher, ArtNet.com
- “Leonora Carrington’s Magnum Opus to Highlight Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction,” by Sotheby’s, Sothebys.com
- “Lee Miller, Undeterred,” by Lauren Richman, Indiana University, IU.edu
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