The Appraisal
What to Know About Toyen—the Under-the-Radar Surrealist Genius Whose Market Is Rapidly Gaining Traction
In the wake of a major sale—and with a Venice Biennale bow on the horizon—we took to the Artnet Price Database to investigate.
In the wake of a major sale—and with a Venice Biennale bow on the horizon—we took to the Artnet Price Database to investigate.
Naomi Rea ShareShare This Article
Last week, a mysterious canvas by a little known Surrealist painter more than doubled its high estimate to sell for €1.5 million ($1.7 million) at Sotheby’s Surrealism sale in Paris.
The notable result was achieved for a 1966 painting, titled Chambre secrète sans serrure (secret room without a lock). Its artist, the Czech-born Marie Čermínová, took the name “Toyen” as a professional moniker in 1923. A couple of overlapping myths surround the re-naming—some suggest “Toyen” was derived from the French word “citoyen,” meaning citizen, while others have proposed it to have been a play on the Czech “‘to je on,” meaning, “it is he.”
Either way, Toyen was known to speak Czech in the masculine singular form, and refused to use feminine endings when speaking in first person. Gender and sexual politics figure heavily in their work. The artist associated with the Czech avant-garde group Devětsil, which had close links to French culture, and Toyen relocated to Paris before the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia. There, they moved in circles with the Paris Surrealist group including André Breton and Annie Le Brun.
Wondering whether the surprising result last week was a fluke or signs of a quietly growing market prompted us to investigate Toyen’s market performance using Artnet’s Price Database. Here’s what we found.
Auction record: $3 million achieved at Czech auction house Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery in April 2021
Toyen’s Performance in 2021
Lots sold: 38
Bought in: 7
Sell-through rate: 84.4 percent
Average sale price: $272,282
Mean estimate: $695,109
Total sales: $10.3 million
Top painting price: $3 million
Lowest painting price: $69,394
Lowest overall price: $696, for a signed etching from an edition of 30.
Resuscitated market interest in this obscure, gender-non-conforming artist is hardly surprising in 2022, when the market has increasingly reflected academic and curatorial interest in overlooked historical figures, particularly women or non-binary artists.
Surrealism is also having a moment, with a major surrealism exhibition currently on view at Tate (after debuting at the Met) and many of the contemporary art stars of today taking inspiration from the surrealist aesthetic, and the markets for many of the better known surrealists seeing a bump.
Based on what we know so far, both of these trends are expected to combine at the forthcoming Venice Biennale. Surrealism, and an emphasis on women and gender non-conforming artists are some of the through-lines Cecilia Alemani has picked out about her exhibition “The Milk of Dreams”—named for Leonora Carrington. Toyen is among the 213 artists included in the exhibition.
The international visibility from this major art world event could bode well for the artist’s rising market. The opportunity for one of the main auction houses to notch the world record for Toyen’s work is wide opening, meaning we will likely see more work offered to the block outside of Czech Republic.