A detail of Yvonne Jacquette's painting Lincolnsville Beach.
Photo: Courtesy of Hindman
Auction of the Week: Yvonne Jacquette Painting Smashes Its Estimate
A pointillist-style work by the late American artist sold for more than 30 times its predicted price at Hindman in July
Hindman’s recent “Summer Jukebox”–themed auction titled “Never Too Much” proved that there are still collectors looking to snap up new art for their walls even during the height of summer, a typically slow period for the auction world. A key work from the fine art and modern design auction at the Chicago auction house was Yvonne Jacquette’s 1977 painting Lincolnville Beach, which sold for $100,800, smashing its low estimate of $3,000. The oil-on-canvas work is a quintessential piece by the New York artist, depicting a Maine beach in her distinctive pointillistic style from an aerial perspective. It beat the artist’s previous auction record by $75,000.
“We knew the pleasing combination of this being a prime example of Jacquette’s pre-nocturne aerial perspective painting, that it was fresh to the market having been held in a corporate collection since close to when it was made, and that it has been almost a decade since one of her canvases has come to the block positioned this work to set an auction record,” says Zack Wirsum vice president and director of post war & contemporary art . “We did not know by how much this stunning work would shatter the previous record and are delighted to now have that knowledge.”
Lincolnville Beach by Yvonne Jacquette. Photo: Courtesy of Hindman
Jacquette had made a career out of looking at things differently. Since the 1960s, the artist has been focused on capturing towering perspectives and unusual points of view in her work—from the windows overlooking the flower district near her apartment on West 29th Street in New York to the World Trade Center towers. According to her gallery’s website, DC Moore Gallery, it was a flight to San Diego in ’69 that caused her to take her search for new perspectives to new heights. She soon started sketching and painting the landscape as seen from above, beginning a process that has developed into a defining element of her practice. The city of New York was a key location for Jacquette’s paintings, but she painted aerial landscapes across the country, as well as city views from San Francisco to Tokyo.
A portrait of the artist Photo: DC Moore Gallery
In ’65, she and her husband, artist and photographer Rudy Burckhardt, bought a summer home in southern Maine, an area known for drawing many artists. This striking painting depicts the beach of Lincolnville, a vibrant coastal community on Penobscot Bay where Alex Katz and his wife, Ada, lived and had a studio. In this collaborative artistic environment, Jacquette began experimenting en plein air, inspired by her new location. The works she created during this period impart her own distinct language of landscape painting. Lincolnville Beach was created through a base of pastels made from direct observation. Jacquette would then frequently add to the compositions through heightened color, repetition of certain elements, and manipulation of light and scale.
Cover: A detail of Yvonne Jacquette's painting Lincolnsville Beach.
Photo: Courtesy of Hindman
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