Alexander Liberman valuation

Alexander Liberman (1912–1999) was born in Kyiv and went to school in England and France. In Paris he studied mathematics and philosophy at the Sorbonne, then painting and architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts. He moved to New York in 1941, joined Vogue, and from 1962 to 1994 was editorial director of Condé Nast. His abstract paintings were hard-edged in the 1950s and more painterly in the 1960s and 1970s. He studied welding in 1959 and made sculpture from industrial materials, steel I-beams, pipes and drums, often painted in a single bright colour, including large public works, the first commissioned by the architect Philip Johnson in 1964. He also photographed European artists in their studios, shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1959 and published as The Artist in His Studio in 1960. Betty Parsons Gallery gave him a solo exhibition in 1960, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art a retrospective in 1970. His work is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim, Tate and Storm King Art Center.

His work includes unique paintings, works on paper, painted steel sculpture and lithographs, among them the seventeen prints of Nostalgia for the Present, made at Universal Limited Art Editions in the late 1970s. For a print, check the edition number, signature, paper and publisher. Painted steel kept outdoors can rust and lose paint, so a buyer will want to know about any repainting or repair. A gallery invoice and the date of the work help.