Richard Tuttle
Makes very small, very slight things out of wire, cloth and paper, and insists on where they go.
Richard Tuttle was born in New Jersey in 1941 and has spent sixty years making work at a scale and with a slightness that has repeatedly divided critics — a 1975 Whitney exhibition of wire pieces and dyed cloth octagonals was attacked so severely that the curator lost her job, and is now regarded as a landmark. The works are made from wire, string, plywood, cardboard, cloth, floor paint and paper, frequently placed close to the wall or the floor, and their exact position, height and lighting are specified because they are half the piece.
Installation instructions are part of the work and a piece without them is materially compromised — this is the central practical point in the market. The materials are humble and genuinely fragile: dyed cloth fades, wire distorts, cardboard and paper cockle, and none of it was made to be robust. Condition and documentation therefore matter more than scale or subject. The early wire and cloth pieces lead the market. Tuttle has also made a large number of artist's books and print editions, which are the accessible part of the output.
If you own a work by Richard Tuttle
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.