RETNA valuation
Invented an alphabet from Arabic, Hebrew, blackletter and Los Angeles graffiti, and made it unreadable.
RETNA is Marquis Lewis, born in Los Angeles in 1979, who came up through the city's graffiti scene in the 1990s and built from it a script of his own: tall, elegant, densely packed characters that draw on Arabic calligraphy, Hebrew, Egyptian hieroglyph, blackletter and West Coast cholo lettering.
What a work by RETNA is worth
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 is free, made online from the photographs you send, and it commits you to nothing. We act for sellers across the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States.
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Bio
RETNA is Marquis Lewis, born in Los Angeles in 1979, who came up through the city's graffiti scene in the 1990s and built from it a script of his own: tall, elegant, densely packed characters that draw on Arabic calligraphy, Hebrew, Egyptian hieroglyph, blackletter and West Coast cholo lettering. It reads as writing and is not decipherable to anyone but him, which is the point. He has painted enormous murals, collaborated on the exterior of the Bowery Wall and with Louis Vuitton and Nike, and designed an album cover for Justin Bieber.
Unique paintings on canvas lead the market, generally in acrylic and enamel on a monochrome ground, with scale and density of the script the main drivers. Below them are screenprints and hand-finished editions, released in runs of around fifty to two hundred, where the presence and extent of hand-work is what distinguishes impressions and should be documented. Because the imagery is essentially calligraphic and widely reproduced, imitations circulate; studio documentation and provenance to a gallery source carry real weight. Matt unvarnished surfaces mark easily.
MOCA, Purpose and the commissions
RETNA's move into museums began with Art in the Streets at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2011, and in 2013 the museum invited him to make an installation, RETNA: Para mi gente. In 2015 he made the cover lettering for Justin Bieber's album Purpose, issued in blue, black and white versions.
He has also designed for fashion and sportswear brands, including scarves for Louis Vuitton and trainers for Nike. Those products are collected separately from the paintings and editions, and for a print or canvas the gallery or publisher's documentation is what identifies it.
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.
