Piper says she could sense a wave of interest building in previously “overlooked and undervalued” female artists even five years ago, and it’s only gaining strength.Masters over this past week have been showcasing a variety of works by female Abstract Expressionist artists such as Ethel Schwabacher and Anna-Eva Bergman.
Over the past decades she’s seen a lot of trends come and go, and right now believes that “it’s a big moment for abstraction, especially with young artists. Until a couple of years ago, it was really about figurative painting,” she says.Piper and her team tune in early to the trends, reading, researching and connecting the dots between museum shows, gallery openings, and other public moments that could point to upcoming movements in a fast-growing market.
Bergman, for example, was one of the most famous artists after Edvard Munch in Norway, but she was the wife of the German-French abstract painter Hans Hartung. Until recently there were very few female collectors, “but women have started to work, they have their own income. Maybe they’re choosing not to confer with their partner about how they spend that money. They’re becoming collectors, and they’re looking for artists they can relate to,” she says.and Alice Neel, both of whom look at themes such as sex, aging and motherhood from a female point of view.“Their work speaks to a female audience.
“Either you talk about it in a cathartic way, which some artists did — or you go abstract. And maybe this is what’s happening now. Look , and what’s happening in Ukraine. The world is a troubled place, and abstraction is emotional, rather than descriptive” way of responding.