Lee Bontecou valuation

Lee Bontecou (1931–2022) was born in Providence, Rhode Island. She studied at Bradford Junior College and then at the Art Students League of New York from 1952 to 1955, under William Zorach, learned to weld at the Skowhegan School in 1954, and spent 1957 and 1958 in Rome on a Fulbright scholarship. Her best-known works are wall reliefs of welded steel frames covered with canvas and industrial materials, their shapes gathered around a void or hole. She also used an oxyacetylene torch to make drawings in sprayed carbon, and later made vacuum-formed plastic fish and flower forms. In 1960 she had the first of four solo shows at Leo Castelli Gallery. After Tatyana Grosman saw her drawings in 1962, she made lithographs and etchings at Universal Limited Art Editions, beginning with First Stone, until the early 1980s. She taught at Brooklyn College from 1971 to 1991 and from 1988 lived in Orbisonia, Pennsylvania. A retrospective organised by the Hammer Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago travelled to the Museum of Modern Art in 2004, and her work is in the Whitney and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Bontecou made unique wall reliefs and other sculpture, many drawings, and lithographs and etchings published by Universal Limited Art Editions. The reliefs combine welded steel and canvas, which can sag, tear or corrode, so a buyer will ask about condition and any past repairs. For a print, check the edition number, the signature and the paper. A gallery invoice and the date of the work should go with it.