1987 Beverly Buchanan "Happy Shack" Lithograph
GUEST: I had purchased it a couple years ago from Wayne Kline estates, and didn't know much about it, but I heard about the artist, which is Beverly Buchanan, and I know she was a well-known artist, so I decided I would purchase it. I know she was a Black artist.
APPRAISER: It was from, uh...
GUEST: Wayne Kline estate.
APPRAISER: He was the printer.
GUEST: The printer.
APPRAISER: Yes.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: This is a color lithograph by Beverly Buchanan, and it's called Happy Shack, from 1987. Beverly Buchanan was born on October 8, 1940, and she died at the age of 74 in 2015. She is not known as a printmaker, so it's really exciting to see a work of Beverly Buchanan in this form, as a color lithograph. I can see it's Beverly Buchanan right away, because of what she's depicted here.
GUEST: The shack.
APPRAISER: Exactly, these shacks. She grew up in the South, and she saw houses like this in the South. She was a scientist, and she worked in public health in New York and New Jersey before becoming an artist. And when she started to work as an artist, she always went to this image, the images of these shacks. But she's probably best known for doing sculpture, little models out of painted card...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...and wood that r, represent these shacks. So this was exciting, to see a big color lithograph by Beverly Buchanan, and it's signed by the artist. It's annotated artist's proof, with a number. And it comes from an edition. There was an edition of 50 of these made, and then typically, there's a certain number of artist's proofs that are set aside. And some are often kept by the printer. So that's why, when you went to this estate, the printer's estate, they had this still. That was sometimes a way to pay the printer-- they got to keep some of the prints. And the colors are super-bright. Each of the colors in a color lithograph is printed separately, they overlap, so it's almost like a stacking of all these colors to arrive at this image. As far as I know, this is the only lithograph she made. But it's in a number of museums. But this has also never come to auction before. I couldn't find any auction results. What did you purchase it for?
GUEST: I purchased for about $500, because, like I said, I liked the color in it, and I knew she was a Black artist.
APPRAISER: Yes.
GUEST: And that she had passed away, and I knew that one day, it would be worth money.
APPRAISER: I would estimate it at $5,000 to $7,000. And I would be not surprised if it sold for much more. It would have a lot of interest at auction.
GUEST: Okay, wow. It's good to know.
APPRAISER: I would insure it for at least $10,000.
$5,000 Auction
$10,000 Insurance
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Understanding Our Appraisals
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Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."
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