Art world insiders, collectors, and advisors packed into a crowded Armory Show VIP preview morning on Wednesday, milling about and perusing the nearly 200 booths set up by dealers from 33 countries for the fair’s 25th anniversary edition.
Within the first few hours of the day, three works by young painter Jonathan Lyndon Chase were snapped up by US museums at the booth of Los Angeles-based Kohn Gallery.
artnet News has learned that the Walker Art Center and Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami each acquired paintings, with the Florida museum’s artistic director, Alex Gartenfeld, having been at the gallery’s stand moments before the acquisition was confirmed. The third institution was not identified by publication time.
Kohn Gallery declined to disclose prices, but a source familiar with the artist’s primary market told artnet News that the average cost of the works was $20,000. The Walker purchased Dawn Embrace (2018), but the other acquisitions had not yet been specified.
Jonathan Lyndon Chase’s Dawn Embrace (2018) sold to the Walker Art Center within hours of the opening of the 2019 Armory Show in New York. Image courtesy of the artist and Kohn Gallery.
Chase, who is based in Philadelphia, delves into issues of race, gender, and sexuality in his large-scale, mixed-media works. At his debut show at Kohn last summer, every available work was sold within a day of the opening, marking the second sold-out show the artist has put together. The first was at the Company Gallery in New York last March.
“We are thrilled to report such a strong and immediate reception to our presentation by John Altoon and Jonathan Lyndon Chase at this year’s edition of the the Armory Show,” gallery owner Michael Kohn told artnet News. “These two pioneers have been placed in conversation, highlighting various ways to challenge societal conventions of the body and the mind: Altoon in the 1960s, and Chase today.”
This isn’t the first time Chase’s paintings have entered public collections. The works in his Los Angeles show with Kohn went to two major east coast museums, three publicly accessible private collections, and a foundation in Asia. High profile collectors including Beth Rudin Dewoody and the Hort family have also acquired his work.
Prices at that show ranged between $10,000 and $15,000 for paintings, with works on paper priced under $10,000.