Dorothea Tanning, Children's Games (1942). Courtesy Christie's.
Megan Fox Kelly spoke with Vivienne Chow at Artnet News following Christie’s London of Dorothea Tanning’s 1942 painting Children’s Games, which sold for £3.8 million ($5 million), nearly four times its £1 million low estimate. With fees, the work reached $6.26 million, setting a new auction record for the American Surrealist and nearly doubling her previous high, set just four months ago.
The timing of this record is no accident, said New York-based art advisor Megan Fox Kelly, noting that Tanning is no longer a “niche” interest for some collectors. She points to a confluence of factors, including heightened visibility for Surrealism, underscored by the major show at Paris’s Centre Pompidou in 2024—in which Tanning’s works were featured—and a broader “long-overdue” reassessment of women artists of the 20th century. She added that when a major early work like Children’s Games surfaces, serious collectors recognize they may not see another opportunity like it for years.
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