I thought it’d be fun to do a post on a non-listed artist that I “discovered” at an upstate New York sale around two years ago. The auction house focused exclusively on books and print materials, so I was surprised to come across some really attractive, modern paintings by an artist named Rosalind Goldstein Bell. Here’s an excerpt from the biography they supplied:
R. G. Bell (1912-1990) was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Rosalind attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in Music. She was an accomplished pianist and mezzo soprano. She spent many years as a concert singer, and was a personal friend of the renowned, late tenor, Jan Peerce and his late wife Alice. During family summer vacations, Rosalind always had a penchant for sketching the beautiful landscapes around Wisconsin inland lakes. Rosalind and her husband, a violinist, moved to New York during the 1950s and were a part of the Long Island and Manhattan music world. Friends included the late well-known cellist Leonard Rose and his family. In her later years on Long Island, she concentrated on painting and sketching using oils, water colors, and acrylics. She studied with the American Modernist painter, Frank Kleinholz (1901-1987). In 1983, Rosalind and her husband moved to Ithaca to be near their daughter. Despite failing health, Rosalind continued to paint and had an exhibit at the White Apple Gallery on State Street. She wanted to share her art with the world, and would be thrilled to know that people are finding pleasure in her legacy.
I guessed from the personal last line of this biography that the dozen or so paintings in the auction were probably being consigned by her family and not from some middle man. The mention of Frank Kleinholz intrigued me even though I wasn’t familiar with his work, but it seemed to imply that he was a noted artist. Most importantly, I was drawn to the bold colors and brush strokes in all of her pieces being sold, so I went ahead and bought a few– especially since they were going for very little money (presumably because the crowd was there to buy books, not art).
A little internet research found that, in fact, R. G. Bell doesn’t have a presence on the major art sites online. I did see a visual similarity between Frank Kleinholz’s and some of Bell’s work, which seemed to confirm the biography’s assertion that she studied with him. Pictured above, for example, is Bell’s Web circa 1960. I still like her work and have two of her pieces adorning my apartment. The other four or five paintings I recently photographed and referred to an appraiser in California who is an expert in Kleinholz to see what she thinks in terms of their appeal in terms of collectibility to fans of that artist.
I guess the lesson here- if there is one- is that while, yes, we amateur collectors enjoy the comfort of knowing that our financial investment in art is ‘safe’ when the artist is ‘listed’ and has a history of sale results, I’d encourage you to not let that knowledge hinder your decision to go after the work of ‘undiscovered’ artists to which you’re attracted!
