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The accepted geography of an art movement also plays a part, alongside an artist’s gender or race. Surrealism is associated mostly with Belgium, France and Mexico, so practitioners from other regions are only gradually emerging. Christie’s has a painting by the Italian-American Enrico Donati, an artist endorsed by André Breton, the godfather of surrealism, but only latterly making his mark on the market as an overlooked male artist. His “Roi d’éclair” (1945), a burst of colour that creates a mystical monster, comes to auction next month, estimated between £80,000 and £120,000. “There’s a whole branch of American surrealism still undiscovered,” says the New York dealer Emmanuel Di Donna. He highlights too the English chapter, noting Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988), currently having a major moment at Tate, as well as Bridget Bate Tichenor (1917-90), a former model and Vogue editor who moved to Mexico and became a compelling, magical realist painter.
Di Donna accepts that “not everything is worth rediscovering. Some artists didn’t make it because they weren’t great.” He says though that artists who have died have a distinct advantage over their living peers. “Collectors can see a whole body of work, you can see the progression. A contemporary artist could do something cool, fun and expensive now, but you have no idea what they could do in 20 years’ time.” He cites the School of Paris painter Maurice Utrillo who, after some success, “would sit on a beach in the south of France and paint Montmartre in the snow, because that was the work that sold”.
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