Carmen Herrera was a Cuban-American artist known for her geometric minimal paintings. She was born 1915, in Havana, Cuba, worked in New York, and passed away last year in February, just shy of her 106th birthday.
I like Herrera because she sometimes achieves the very difficult task of making overly simple geometric paintings look good. Not all the time, but enough that she is considered a pioneering figure in geometric abstraction and the Hard-edge painting movement (even though she didn’t achieve widespread recognition until after the year 2000). Herrera’s art has now been exhibited in numerous museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City and at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Herrera has been on my wish list for a while now, but I had mostly given up hope of investing in her work because she did not produce much work over her lengthy life, with very few of those works being affordable prints. Which means there is an exclusivity premium with Carmen Herrera’s artwork. However, I was recently reminded of Carmen Herrera after the acquisition of her 2013 painting by Masterworks.
Its low Initial Offering Price compared to comparative works (700K vs 2 million) is what excites me about this offer, even if the painting is from a later time period than the comparative work. The lower the initial offering the better chance for a profitable close-out. I think Masterworks might be offering this painting at such a low price because the general public is not overly familiar with Herrera. But the art-going public with be keenly aware of how good an opportunity this could turn out to be.
While I’m at it, I may as well mention the Yayoi Kusama and Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings that are currently looking for investment on Masterworks too. The Yayoi Kusama is interesting for me considering it is an Infinity Nets painting, which are typically highly coveted by collectors. The Jean-Michel Basquiat is also interesting, but leaves less room for growth with an Initial Offering Price of 36 million. But if you think Jean-Michel Basquiat will soon overtake Picasso as the most popular artist in the world, it could be a smart investment too.
If you have any further questions about investing in art funds like Masterworks or Yieldstreet, please reach out to mark@easelinvesting.com, and we would be happy to set you on the right path.
