Christopher Wool valuation
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.
What a work by Christopher Wool is worth
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Bio
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.
At a glance
- Born
- 1955, Boston
The retrospectives, and the books
Wool's first retrospective opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 1998 and travelled to the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Kunsthalle Basel. The Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris showed him in 2012 and the Guggenheim in New York gave him a retrospective in 2013 and 2014.
His photographic books, Absent Without Leave in 1993 and East Broadway Breakdown in 2003, are collected in their own right, alongside the editions. For a painting, the date and the gallery provenance identify it, since many of the word paintings share similar titles.
Tworkov, 303 Gallery and Apocalypse Now
Wool studied at the New York Studio School under Jack Tworkov and Harry Kramer before leaving for the city's underground film and music scene, and from 1980 to 1984 worked part time as a studio assistant to the sculptor Joel Shapiro. He is said to have begun the word paintings after seeing the words sex and luv sprayed on a new white truck. In 1988 he and Robert Gober made a joint installation at 303 Gallery in New York that included Apocalypse Now, a painting of a line from Coppola's film.
He was a fellow of the American Academy in Rome in 1989 and a DAAD artist in residence in Berlin in 1992, and has received the Wolfgang Hahn Prize. In 2007 he and Josh Smith published the artist's book Can Your Monkey Do the Dog in an edition of 1,000 with 300 artist's proofs, and in 2012 he designed the set for Moving Parts for Benjamin Millepied's L.A. Dance Project. He lives and works in New York and in Marfa, Texas.
Best auction results
- Untitled (RIOT) $29.9m
- Word painting, 1990 · New York · 12 May 2015
- Publicly reported
- More than double the low estimate, and an auction record for the artist.
- Apocalypse Now $26.5m
- Word painting, 1988 · New York · 12 November 2013
- Publicly reported
- Bought by the dealer Christophe van de Weghe for a client, while the artist's retrospective was at the Guggenheim.
Results as reported at the time of sale, inclusive of buyer's premium. They are a record of what specific works achieved on specific days, not a guide to what any other work is worth.
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.
