ABSTRACT

In today’s art market, African American artists are now at the pinnacle—Kerry James Marshall’s Past Times sold for a record $21.1 million 1 at auction at Sotheby’s, New York on May 16, 2018, the highest price paid for a living African American artist at auction. The year before, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 untitled painting of a skull brought $110.5 million on May 18, 2017, at Sotheby’s, New York—an auction price high for any American artist (living or deceased). Such stratospheric prices at the top of the market reflect a dramatic shift in the past ten years of the art market to embrace African American artists; Marshall’s record price at auction in 2007 was just $541,000. When this monumental canvas was purchased in 1997 by the sellers, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority in Chicago, it cost only $25,000. The market’s mercurial embrace of African American art reflects not just the growth of the art market, but a late recognition of African American artists.