IN THE SPOTLIGHT
ALICE BABER
Alice Baber
NEWS AND EVENTS
RAGO AUCTIONS
Post War & Contemporary Art on May 14th presents an exemplary selection of painting, sculpture, and more by major figures of the 20th and 21st centuries. This standout offering is led by Sam Gilliam's 1970 acrylic Sun Woman, Miyoko Ito's 1957 oil Adam and Eve, Maria Martins's Impossible, Alice baber The White Sound of the Piper 1975, an exceedingly rare defining work of the Surrealist movement.
Alice Baber
The White Sound of the Piper
1975
oil on canvas48 h × 68¼ w × 1¼ d in (122 × 173 × 3 cm)
May 14, 2026
PHILLIPS NEW YORK
MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART: MORNING SESSION
New York
Alice Baber
The Ladder of Time
signed and dated "© Baber 77" lower left; signed, titled and dated "Alice Baber 1977 "The Ladder of Time"" on the overlap
oil on canvas
58 x 77 in. (147.3 x 195.6 cm)
Painted in 1977
Provenance
A.M. Sachs Gallery, New York
May 21, 2026
ALICE BABER
AN OVERLOOKED PAINTER GETS HER DUE IN A NEW BIOGRAPHY
Distinguished Professor Gail Levin explores how abstract expressionist Alice Baber built a celebrated career and why she later faded from view.
What appealed to you or intrigued you about Alice Baber’s life, her art, or both?
Levin: Alice Baber’s art was so beautiful, but she was completely forgotten despite having major works in 50 museums, including the Met, MoMA, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney. No one knew much about her life, and I was determined to discover her story.
ALICE BABER
Book Launch
Alice Baber: An Artist’s Triumph Over Tragedy
by Gail Levin
Join Guild Hall for a book launch celebrating Alice Baber: An Artist’s Triumph Over Tragedy by art historian and artist biographer Gail Levin. This new biography revisits the life and work of Alice Baber, an abstract painter known for luminous fields of color that seem to float and shift with light. During her lifetime, Baber’s work entered major museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, and the permanent collection of Guild Hall, before her premature death at just fifty-four. Levin draws on extensive research to trace Baber’s artistic development, her place in the mid-century art world, and the forces that contributed to her later obscurity. More than a portrait of an individual artist, the book offers a needed reappraisal, restoring Baber to the history of American modernism and introducing her work to a new generation.
THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2026
ALICE BABER
The Art Newspaper
Dallas Art Fair brings Texas's relationship-driven collecting community into focus
Jody Klotz Fine Art from Abilene, Texas, reporting selling Alice Baber’s Piper’s Message (1962) for $120,000 and Wolf Kahn’s pastel Orange Band for $32,000. Spinello Projects from Miami reported selling half its stand, dedicated to works by Marlon Portales priced between $4,000 and $20,000, as of Friday afternoon.
ALICE BABER
Discover the captivating life of a Permanent Collection artist
Exploring the Collection: Alice Baber
January 24, 2026 - May 31st 2026
Weil Gallery
WOMEN ARTISTS IN ASCENDANCE
Featuring objects on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art alongside the university art collection, Women Artists in Ascendance pulls back the curtain on the story of modern American art by displaying works from a dozen women artists who were goliaths in their own right, including Helen Frankenthaler, Alice Baber, Grace Hartigan, Lee Krasner, Joan Brown, Amanda Williams and other notable women artists.
Exhibition Info:
August 19, 2025 — July 2, 2026
Bill L. Harbert Gallery
ALICE BABER
As if in a Dream: History, Fantasy, Future
As if in a Dream: History, Fantasy, Future is curated by James Glisson, Chief Curator & Curator of Contemporary Art. This exhibition features Alice Baber, Dominic Chambers, Eduardo Chavez, Rafael Coronel, Daniel Crews-Chubb, Marsden Hartley, Mimi Lauter, Wright Ludington, Giovanni Paolo Panini, Jorge Pardo, Patricia Peco, Lari Pitman, Odilon Redon, Max Hooper Schneider, and Brenna Youngblood, among others.
March 1, 2026 – January 3, 2027
EMILY FRIEDMAN FINE ART
Emily Friedman Fine Art is pleased to present Alice Baber: Luminous Currents, an online-exclusive exhibition on Artsy running from May 14 to August 16, 2026. The exhibition features a focused collection of works on paper, including watercolors and lithographs that highlight Baber’s signature exploration of transparency, movement, and the emotive power of color.
Alice Baber: Luminous Currents
May 14 – August 16, 2026
REVIEWS
GLASSTIRE
Book Review: “Alice Baber: An Artist’s Triumph Over Tragedy”
Abstract art was booming in New York, and it soon became Baber’s visual language of choice. But unlike her male contemporaries who splattered, dripped, and poured paint with bravado, she applied colors by rubbing the paints into the canvas with her finger, building up her luminous tones intentionally and gradually. “I was certainly a part of a whole movement of artists who were interested in abstraction,” she said in an undated interview, “but my particular direction was not involved with their canons.” In the book, Levin argues convincingly that Baber’s work stemmed from her synesthesia, and that her subsequent disappearance from mainstream modern art history comes in part from the fact that “her art represents a new kind of abstraction.”
By Lauren Moya Ford
THE AUBURN PLAINSMAN
Redefining American art through untold stories at The Jule Museum
In his presentation, Nemerov highlighted the concept of livingness, or a sense of life, that was integral to the works of Frankenthaler. He also detailed how other artists featured in the exhibit portray that sense of livingness in vastly different ways. Some, such as Hartigan, opted for darker bolder motifs, and others, such as Baber, employed lighter and more subtle techniques.
Visitors to the exhibit can see the liveliness of the art with Frankenthaler's "Blue Territory," Hardigan's "Sweden" and Baber's "Lord of the Rainbow" – all being showcased in the exhibit. Ethan Olsen, one visitor to the exhibition, described why he found the storytelling of the collection to be impactful. By Erin Cosby
Photo by Roxy Duda | Photographer | The Auburn Plainsman
ALICE BABER
Celebrating Women Abstract Artists Across America In Women’s History Month
This month, throughout the spring, and continuing all year at museums across America, great women abstract artists of today, and their predecessors, receive a hard earned spotlight.
Phillips auction house in New York presents the most comprehensive selling exhibition ever mounted for pioneering Abstract Expressionist and Color Field painter Alice Baber (1959-1981) through March 26. Presented in partnership with Jody Klotz Fine Art, the exhibition spans more than two decades of Baber’s career and features nearly 30 works, including rare early watercolors and oils seldom seen on the market. By Chadd Scott,
Contributor
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
FLETCHER BENTON
Fletcher C. Benton
NEWS AND EVENTS
LOS ANGELES MODERN AUCTIONS (LAMA)
Prints & Multiples on May 19th features a lively offering of editioned works from modern and contemporary artists who expanded the possibilities of the print form. Leading works include Andy Warhol's 1967 screenprint Marilyn Monroe (F. & S. Ⅱ.30), Roy Lichtenstein's The Mask, and Richard Serra's Bo Diddley, as well as works from Robert Rauschenberg, Vija Celmins, David Hockney, Fletcher Benton, Ed Ruscha, Betye Saar, Keith Haring, Max Beckmann, Donald Sultan, Henri Matisse, and more.
Fletcher Benton
Steel Watercolor Print #102
2000
iris printimage: 7 h × 7 w in (18 × 18 cm)sight: 7½ h × 7½ w in (19 × 19 cm
19 May 2026
STAIR AUCTIONS
Fletcher Benton
Two etchings in colors on wove paper, 2000, both signed, titled and dated in pencil, numbered 22/25 and 22/20 respectively; and #23,lithograph in black on wove paper, 2002, signed, titled, dated and numbered 12/15 in pencil.
Two 8 x 8 in. (sight), 16 1/4 x 16 1/4 in. (frame), one 6 x 6 in. (sight), 14 1/4 x 14 1/4 in. (frame).
20th Century, Modern & Contemporary Fine Art
With a focus on art from the 20th and 21st centuries, this sale offers paintings, works on paper, sculpture and photography in a variety of media and styles, showcasing the artistic practice of Modern, Post-War and Contemporary artists from around the world.
MAY 21, 2026
STAIR AUCTIONS
Fletcher Benton
Two etchings in colors on wove paper, 2000, both signed, titled and dated in pencil, numbered 22/25 and 22/20 respectively; and #23,lithograph in black on wove paper, 2002, signed, titled, dated and numbered 12/15 in pencil.
Two 8 x 8 in. (sight), 16 1/4 x 16 1/4 in. (frame), one 6 x 6 in. (sight), 14 1/4 x 14 1/4 in. (frame).
20th Century, Modern & Contemporary Fine Art
With a focus on art from the 20th and 21st centuries, this sale offers paintings, works on paper, sculpture and photography in a variety of media and styles, showcasing the artistic practice of Modern, Post-War and Contemporary artists from around the world.
MAY 21, 2026
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
GENE DAVIS
Gene Davis
NEWS AND EVENTS
SWANN AUCTION GALLERIES
Swann Galleries’ Spring offering of Modern & Post-War Art will feature a selection of works from the era’s best genres include Abstract Expressionism, Hard-Edge Abstraction, and Color Field painting.
Gene Davis
Devil's Fork.
Acrylic on unprimed canvas, 1980.
Signed, dated, and titled in pencil, verso.
34 1/4 x 28 5/8 in. (87 x 72.7 cm.), Frame: 37 x 31 1/2 in. (94 x 80 cm.)
May 14, 2026
DOYLE NEW YORK
Property of an Early JAR Collector
Gene Davis
Blue Stripes, 1970
Acrylic on canvas
79 1/4 x 86 1/4 inches
Provenance:
Charles Cowles Gallery, New York
Private Collection, Los Angeles
NEW YORK, NY -- Doyle will hold an auction of Important Fine Art on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 at 11am. The sale will present an exceptional selection of artworks spanning the mid-19th to the late 20th century.
Among the sale highlights are works by Claudio Bravo, Gene Davis, Lucio Fontana, Zarina Hashmi, Scott Kahn, Franz Kline, Richard Lindner, Syd Solomon, Louise Nevelson and Maurice Prendergast.
May 20, 2026
GENE DAVIS
The Washington Color School: A Time, a Place, a Legacy
By the end of the 1950s, New York Abstract Expressionism had begun to wane. Painters adopted the large scale and rich palette of artists like Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko but with new processes and goals in mind. Many of these painters lived in Washington, D.C., where their originality earned them the name Washington Color School.
Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Gene Davis, and Paul Reed, among others, were important innovators in new working methods based on staining unprimed canvas to create paintings that appeared both optical and physical. Art historian David Gariff examines this golden age in the history of modern American art including works by second-generation D.C. colorists Alma Thomas, Anne Truitt, Sam Gilliam, and Kenneth Young.
May 15, 2026
GENE DAVIS
This exhibition includes works by Pierre Alechinsky, Vincent Baldassano, Robert Baxter, Romare Bearden, Ilya Bolotowsky, Ann Chernow, Eric Chiang, Ed Colker, Arnold Copeland, Michael Cummings, Charles Michael Daugherty, James Daugherty, Lisa Daugherty, Gene Davis, Paul Decker, Stevan Dohanos, Seymour Fogel, Sam Francis, Elsie Freund, Frances Gershwin Godowsky, Sam Gilliam, Sidney Gordin, Richard Hunt, Roberto Lugo, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Tudor Maier, Suzanne McCullough, Joan Miró, László Moholy-Nagy, Robert Natkin, John Nichols, A. R. Penck, Walter Quirt, Paul Rand, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Risko, Alex Ross, Arnold Roth, Barbara Rothenberg, Eric von Schmidt, Larry Silver, Frank Smith, Tracy Sugarman, and Jack Whitten.
February 26, 2026 – June 7, 2026
Opening reception, Thursday February 26 from 6-8pm.
GENE DAVIS
We, Too, Are Made of Wonders
The exhibition features artists such as Dorothy Hood, Mildred Thompson and Boramie Ann Sao, who explore abstract theories and scientific laws using rich colors and dynamic movement. Lamar Dodd and Robert McCall observe NASA space missions and attempt to capture their cultural significance. Photographers Arthur Tress and Mark Steinmetz compel audiences to consider the miracle of flight by offering views of the sky from multiple vantage points. John Biggers, Helen Lundeberg and Gene Davis venerate the Earth and sky, reminding viewers to take a moment and look up.
January 24 – June 28, 2026
REVIEWS
A CONVERSATION WITH GENE DAVIS
Do you think it might have something to do with spatial qualities?
What my stripes have become now are quite different from what they started out as. I didn’t really understand what I was about at first. I think maybe the best painters don’t know what they’re doing in the beginning. The painter who can tell you exactly what he’s doing isn’t doing much. At first I didn’t have the foggiest notion of what I was doing. It just seemed like maybe a good idea. Pure whim motivated it. I think that’s a pretty good motivation anyway, to do something just for the sheer hell of it. Later I began to realize there was something behind my decision. You see, I’m a frustrated musician. I studied music all through my teens. But I have a tin ear, and I wasn’t really very good. Painting stripes with musical intervals may be a kind of unconscious compensation for the fact that I never made it as a musician. I don’t set out to do musical paintings—that’s corny. The fact remains, however, that music is an art of interval and my work is an art of interval.
I have always been an interval artist. Even now in the new black and white paintings I’m working on, I am interested in spatial interval. Before it was color interval.
—Barbara Rose
THE PAINTER WHO EARNED HIS STRIPES
Gene Davis, the leading member of the Washington Color School, is celebrated a half century after his striped paintings caught on
“The Smithsonian Institution, which benefitted from a generous amount of his work donated to the museum after his death in 1985 at 64, may have missed the 50th anniversary of the landmark “Washington Color Painters” exhibition last year, but is making up for it with the newly opened “Gene Davis: Hot Beat” at its Smithsonian American Art Museum.
—Roger Catlin - Museums Correspondent
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
PHYLLIS DOWNS
Phyllis Downs (1939–1961), Phyllis Ames (1962–1968) and Phyllis Wiener (1971–2013
NEWS AND EVENTS
STAIR AUCTION
Phyllis Downs (1939–1961), Phyllis Ames (1962–1968) and Phyllis Wiener (1971–2013
Oil on canvas, 1956, signed 'Downs' lower right, titled on a label on the stretcher, with label from Tweed Gallery, University of Minnesota and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
39 1/2 x 35 1/2 in., 43 x 39 in. (frame).
Provenance
Gift of the T. B. Walker Foundation, 1958.
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN.
20th Century, Modern & Contemporary Fine Art
With a focus on art from the 20th and 21st centuries, this sale offers paintings, works on paper, sculpture and photography in a variety of media and styles, showcasing the artistic practice of Modern, Post-War and Contemporary artists from around the world.
MAY 21, 2026
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
JON SCHUELER
Jon Schueler
NEWS AND EVENTS
JON SCHUELER
Featured Film Event: "Woman in the Sky"
A new 16-minute documentary titled Woman in the Sky, directed by Max Woertendyke, is a focal point of 2026 events. The film explores the life of Schueler’s widow, Magda Salvesen, and her role in preserving his artistic legacy.
Date & Time
May 29, 2026, at 7:00 PM.
Location: Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave, New York, NY.
JON SCHUELER
ART AT KIRKCALDY GALLERIES
Collecting the Contemporary: Scottish Art at Kirkcaldy Galleries
This display features works by modern and contemporary painters who were inspired by Scotland. In addition to works by John Bellany, Ken Currie, Callum Innes and Jon Schueler,
31 Jan 2025 - 31 Dec 2027
REVIEWS
ARTNET
Inside a New Gallery Championing Postwar Abstraction
In a time marked by mass gallery closures, Matthew Shamnoski took the leap from online to brick and mortar with a gallery dedicated to stewarding the architects of 20th-century abstraction.
I’m very excited about our next exhibition, “Jon Schueler: Moods and Memories,” which centers on works Schueler created as dedications and remembrances—most notably paintings dedicated to his widow, Magda Salvesen, who continues to lead the foundation. These works reveal a deeply personal dimension of Schueler’s practice, where memory and emotional attachment become inseparable from abstraction. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Max Woertendyke’s new short documentary, Woman in the Sky (2025), which focuses on Magda and the legacy she has helped shape. We’ll be hosting a screening at the opening reception on February 12.
THE NEW CRITERION
OF SOUND MIND
by Erik Anjou
On the life and work of the painter Jon Schueler.
A number of years ago I was introduced to the work of Jon Schueler (1916–92), the Abstract Expressionist painter, protégé of Clyfford Still, and subject of the first solo show at Leo Castelli’s new gallery in 1957. Expansive, luminous works that hover between abstraction and representation, swaths and splashes of soft-edged color that float like clouds from the canvas—to cut to the chase, I became an acolyte. Both a Schueler painting and his heralded autobiography, The Sound of Sleat, adorn my Inwood apartment.
JON SCHUELER
Acclaimed Art World Documentary from Executive Producer David Corenswet Expands National Reach with Austin Film Festival Selection
"Woman in the Sky" Offers an Intimate Portrait of Love, Legacy, and Magda Salvesen's Pioneering Role in Artist Estate Management.
ETHICS PRESS
Infused with Place
The Translation of Scotland's Geography in Paintings of the Sea
by Joe Boyd
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
ENRIQUE CARBAJAL GONZALEZ
Enrique Carbajal González
NEWS AND EVENTS
SETDART AUCTIONS
"SEBASTIÁN"; ENRIQUE CARBAJAL GONZÁLEZ (Chihuahua, Mexico, 1947).
"Horizontal black, vertical black", 2010.
Mixed media on cardboard.
Signed and dated on the back.
Measurements: 42 x 55 cm; 45,5 x 60 cm (frame).
May 20, 2026
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
SYD SOLOMON
SYD SOLOMON
NEWS AND EVENTS
DOYLE NEW YORK
Estate of Justine Godchaux McCarthy
Syd Solomon
Point D'Sol, 1965-66
Signed Syd Solomon (lr) and signed, dated and titled on the verso
Oil on canvas
30 x 39 3/4 inches (76.2 x 101 cm)
Framed 32 1/4 x 42 inches
NEW YORK, NY -- Doyle will hold an auction of Important Fine Art on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 at 11am. The sale will present an exceptional selection of artworks spanning the mid-19th to the late 20th century.
Among the sale highlights are works by Claudio Bravo, Gene Davis, Lucio Fontana, Zarina Hashmi, Scott Kahn, Franz Kline, Richard Lindner, Syd Solomon, Louise Nevelson and Maurice Prendergast.
May 20, 2026
SYD SOLOMON
Syd Solomon: Concealed and Revealed
Exploring the dualities of war — concealment and revelation, chaos and order – Solomon illustrates the complexities and nuances of military service, providing a visual representation of the psychological and emotional landscapes that Veterans navigate through his abstract art.
February 7, 2025 - June 1, 2026
HERITAGE GALLERY AUCTIONS
Syd Solomon
Original Abstract Oil and Acrylic on Canvas. Swirling broad strokes in striking colors, using the two different materials to create visual dissonance within each one. Signed bottom right. Signed and dated '84 on the back along with the materials and title: "Dawnote", including gallery labels. Overall Size: 36 x 19.5 inches - Sight Size: 34.5 x 17.5 inches.
May 31, 2026