Christopher Wool
Stencilled black capitals onto white aluminium with no spaces, and then spent years erasing paint.
Christopher Wool was born in Chicago in 1955 and came out of the downtown New York scene of the early 1980s. The word paintings that made his name stencil block capitals in black enamel onto white aluminium panels, broken across lines without regard for the words — RIOT, SELLTHE HOUSESELL THECAR SELL THEKIDS — so reading becomes an effort. The later work uses silkscreen, spray paint and above all erasure: marks are made, wiped away with solvent while wet, then re-photographed and re-silkscreened, so the picture is a record of its own removal.
Word paintings lead this market decisively and are unique. Enamel on aluminium is unforgiving — the white grounds show every scuff, the panels dent, and retouching against flat black stencilling cannot be disguised — so condition weighs heavily and inspection should be in raking light. Wool has also produced a substantial body of photographic work in book form and in editions, and a print output in screenprint and lithography. Provenance to a documented gallery source is expected, and the artist maintains close control of his own record.
If you own a work by Christopher Wool
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
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Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.