The Collectors' Edge

• Josef Albers: The Phenomenology of Colour

  Join us to learn how Josef Albers' revolutionary approach to colour theory fundamentally changed how we understand visual perception in art. Through relentless experimentation and disciplined investigation, he transformed simple geometric forms into profound studies of how chromatic relationships interact, influence, and transform one another when colours are placed in proximity to other colours.Born in Prussia in 1888, Albers' remarkable journey took him from the revolutionary Bauhaus in Germany to Black Mountain College in North Carolina and finally to Yale University—leaving an indelible mark on art education at each institution. His teaching philosophy was elegantly simple: "I have not taught painting because it cannot be taught. I have taught seeing." This approach influenced generations of important American artists, including Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and Eva Hesse.While Albers created significant works throughout his career—from innovative glass pieces at the Bauhaus to architectural-inspired "Adobe" paintings—his monumental "Homage to the Square" series represents his definitive achievement. Created between 1950 and his death in 1976, these meticulously executed paintings feature three or four nested squares in different colors, applied with a palette knife directly from the tube onto Masonite boards. Each painting documents a specific color relationship, with Albers noting the exact pigments on the reverse of every panel.For collectors, Albers presents a fascinating opportunity. Despite being represented in every major museum worldwide and receiving the first-ever solo exhibition for a living artist at the Metropolitan Museum in 1971, his market shows remarkable value discrepancies. While larger works command $2-3 million, smaller examples offering similar visual impact can still be acquired for $230,000-850,000. With an impressive 83.3% sell-through rate at auction and over 70% of lots exceeding high estimates in recent years, Albers represents a blue-chip investment with both cultural significance and growth potential.Explore how this towering figure of modernism can enhance your collection while providing a solid foundation for understanding color theory in 20th-century art. Contact Nordic Art Partners today for expert guidance on acquiring works by this essential artist whose influence continues to resonate throughout contemporary art and design.Get in Touch

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• Lynda Benglis: Painting in Three Dimensions

  In the late 1960s and early 70s, Lynda Benglis dissolved the boundaries between painting and sculpture through fearless experimentation, creating revolutionary works that sought to capture and freeze her gestures. The American artist, born in 1941 in Louisiana but Greek by heritage, developed her distinctive visual language after moving to New York in the 1960s, where she quickly integrated into, and made her own name in, one of the most dynamic and diverse creative decades of the C20th.She pioneered new approaches to materiality, beginning with beeswax reliefs shaped with blowtorches before creating her breakthrough "Pours" series—vibrant puddles of pigmented polyurethane poured directly onto gallery floors, where they would flow together and freeze into psychedelic sculptural forms. As she famously stated, "I wasn't breaking away from painting, but trying to redefine what it was."Beyond her artistic innovations, Benglis boldly challenged the gender politics of the art world. Her provocative 1974 Artforum advertisement directly confronted the male-dominated power structures of the industry. This image, which she arranged to publish after editors rejected it, has since been cited by The New York Times as one of the 25 works that defined art of the contemporary modern period.Her market has experienced dramatic acceleration only recently, despite her longstanding reputation and consistent presence in major museums worldwide. From her early wax works, through her pours and knots, to her signature pleated metallic sculptures, Benglis captures what she calls "an implosion or the beginning of an explosion of energy." Her auction record jumped from $245,000 in 2021 to $1.1 million in 2022, suggesting collectors are finally recognizing what art historians have long understood—that Benglis represents a rare combination of historical significance, formal innovation, and market potential.Want to learn more about collecting significant artists like Lynda Benglis? Visit nordicartpartners.com for expert guidance on building meaningful collections with confidence.Get in Touch

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• Joan Snyder: A Female Sensibility

  Join us, Nordic Art Partners, as we discuss the compelling work and career of American painter Joan Snyder. Discover key biographical details of her formative years, the limited role of art in her upbringing and how her determined approach to evolving her own formal visual language shaped her artistic development. We discuss a wide array of her formative influences, ranging from Van Gogh, through German Expressionism to Jackson Pollock; antecedents that she recognises as helping her to develop her singular and celebrated aesthetic. Against the vibrant backdrop of the 1970s women's art movement, where scrutiny of traditional gender roles and the early evolution of sexual politics facilitated burgeoning careers of Snyder and her many , accomplished peers. Through a daring blend of materiality and motif, learn how Snyder's work challenged the accepted conventions of abstract painting, championed a female sensibility and facilitated a meteoric rise in the reception and critical appreciation of her breakthrough.As always, we seek to place her work and achievements in a context relevant to the market and her place, both perceived and actual, within it. Despite her groundbreaking contributions, her work remains undervalued when set against similarly lauded contemporaries. With new opportunities under her current representation, we consider the next steps for this vibrant and productive 84 year old titan of American painting, expecting increasing prominence within the art historical canon.Get in Touch

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• Miriam Cahn: Reclaiming the Body

  In this episode of The Collectors’ Edge join us, Nordic Art Partners, for a discussion about the work and career of Miriam Cahn, the audacious Swiss painter whose figurative works are amongst the rawest and most expressive of the entire contemporary art milieu. From her formative years in Basel to her education at the Schule for Gestaltung, Cahn has always been an agent of activism and protest, where her bold and unremitting stance led her to reject traditional painting for decades in protest at the art world's male dominance. When she returned to the canvas in the mid 1990s, she continued to defy fashion, taste and expectations with her powerful and challenging themes, forming a reputation as one of the most uniquely uncompromising figures in the entire art world. With a body of work consisting of over 45 years of artistic innovation, Cahn's work is now celebrated globally, resonating particularly within the context of the MeToo movement due to its profound engagement with sexual politics. Our episode explores the increase in her renown, her almost unparalleled institutional recognition over the past decade, and how her singularity of vision and aesthetic marks her as amongst the most powerful of voices. No episode would be complete without a discussion about the artist’s place within today’s art market, and how Cahn’s soaring reputation amongst museums and collectors has led to a remarkable and consistently high performing secondary market at auction. Join us as we celebrate the unique and jarringly powerful work of Miriam Cahn.Get in Touch

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• Ron Gorchov: Shaping Abstraction

  In this episode from Nordic Art Partners, discover the work and career of Ron Gorchov, an enigmatic figure who pioneered major innovations in painterly abstraction in the late 1960s. We recount his early biography, beginning in the 1950s; a classic rites of passage story of a bohemian artist in post-war New York, a city teeming with life and a magnet for artists who flocked in droves to the tenement apartments of downtown looking to make their mark on the most fertile time and place of the mid-twentieth century. Following a conventional artistic education in Chicago, mentored by John Graham, Mark Rothko and other luminaries of the downtown scene, Gorchov quickly made his mark in his adopted city, garnering early success and some measure of acclaim with his early works, related to both Surrealism and Abstraction and aesthetically linked to many of the Abstract Expressionists of the New York School. Balancing roles as a lifeguard and swimming instructor, his relentless dedication helped him overcome financial struggles and carve out the beginnings of a promising career as a professional artist.After a decade of development and consistent exposure, the late 1960s bore witness to his greatest achievement, the development of a uniquely shaped canvas. Both convex and concave at the same time, and resembling a shield or saddle, this revolution of the painted object/surface was to innovate a unique painting/sculptural hybrid and forever became his defining legacy. His career would attain new heights and his achievements would be widely celebrated, before the despondency of dwindling interest and relative obscurity, a difficult time which would endure for the best part of two decades.The early years of the C21st would bring a renaissance. Learn how in later life his singular achievements were again celebrated and finding new audiences. Through the advocacy and support of Vito Schnabel, as well as from several other key prestigious international galleries in important global markets, Gorchov’s work would find its way back to public consciousness and provide a heartening vindication for the now elderly painter. Now deceased, Gorchov’s work is beginning to find its place as a seminal achievement of experimental painting. His work is known far and wide, celebrated by collectors and institutions alike and supported by an ever-deepening market, these special paintings are instantly recognisable by their unique forms. Get in Touch

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