A Star is Born: Secundino Hernández’s Work Increased in Value by 300 Percent in Just Under Six Years

At ARCO, his work sold out in seconds, will he repeat the feat at the Armory Show?

Secundino Hernández
Photo via: Terra

Secundino Hernández, Spain’s most successful art export in recent years (see Spanish Art Sensation Secundino Hernández Is Not Worried About Success), sold the three paintings he was showing at the booth of the Finnish gallery Forsblom at ARCO in just one minute, La Razón reports.

The three large canvases, priced at €36,000 each, changed hands barely sixty seconds into the 34th edition of the Madrid art fair, which took place last week (see ARCO’s 34th Edition Consolidates the Madrid Fair’s Position as a Top Destination for European and Latin American Art).

“Secundino works with five galleries in the world, and we all have lists of clients waiting for new available works,” Ilkka Tikkanen, from Forsblom, told the Spanish newspaper.

Tikkanen estimates that, in the last two fyears, Hernández’s work has increased in value by a whopping 300 percent. “I know [Secundino] quite well, and his success is not just about the value his work has acquired in the market. The important thing is that his painting has a number of qualities that make it special. He has created his own language. When you see a ‘Secundino,’ you know you are seeing something unique.”

At ARCO, Hernández was also showing with Heinrich Ehrhardt (See The 7 Best Booths at ARCOMadrid). The Madrid-based gallery can boast of having discovered the painter—who worked for them as a technician—and, by giving him his first shows, of being responsible for his newfound star status. One of the paintings by Hernández available at their ARCO stand was sold during the first morning of the fair for €70,000.

And yet, “there’s more to Secundino than the ‘sold out’ label,” as Pablo Flórez, from Heinrich Ehrhardt, told La Razón. “His painting has an enormous plasticity, but also a gestural language that makes it easy for everybody to understand and enjoy,” he explained.

During the Armory Show in New York this week, Hernández will be showing news works at the booths of Forsblom and Victoria Miro.


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