Billionaires Are Begging to Buy This Art. Too Bad
Even while resisting the art market, Vija Celmins has reached its pinnacle.
Courtesy the artist and Matthew Marks Gallery
Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter, and David Hockney are household names with prices to match. The artist Vija Celmins commands similar prices from a lofty collector base; Henry Kravis, J. Tomilson Hill, and Mitchell and Emily Rales own work by Celmins, as do corporate collections such as those of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the Cartier Foundation. But in contrast with her peers, you might see her name and ask, “Who?”
“I’m not speaking in any kind of pejorative way, but I’ve always thought of Vija as a niche artist,” says Laurence Shopmaker, co-founder of Senior & Shopmaker Gallery in New York, which will exhibit a group of Celmins’s prints from Sept. 12 to Nov. 2.