NYC Judge Serves Kavi Gupta Restraining Order Over $2 Million Dispute

A New York judge has temporarily barred Chicago dealer Kavi Gupta and his gallery from selling or marketing a collection of artworks at the center of an increasingly messy dispute with a company that gave the struggling gallery more than $2 million in cash last year.

Via ARTnews

Image: Young-Il Ahn with, left to right, Soraya Ahn, Jessica Moss, and Kavi Gupta in 2018. KAVI GUPTA, CHICAGO

Gertrude Abercrombie painting sells for record $1.35 million / bought at estate sale for $30

A painting by Gertrude Abercrombie purchased for $30 at a Michigan estate sale sold Thursday at a New York art auction for $1,060,000 ($1,352,600 including the buyer’s premium), making it the first-ever work by the individualist Chicago painter to cross the $1 million threshold.

Paintings by Abercrombie, who died at age 68 in 1977, could still be found at thrift stores until the early 2000s. But the market for her art has soared since, with buyers increasingly taken with her spare, introspective vision. The 8-by-11-inch work, titled “Alderman Merriam’s Shells” (1951), depicts an arrangement of sea shells — a recurring motif in her output.

Via Chicago Sun Times

A Knockout Show Resets the Record With ‘Krasner and Pollock’

She had to settle for the kitchen as her studio but Lee Krasner finally gets her share of the spotlight at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Via NYT