Perhaps the buzziest booth of the night was Ricco/Maresca’s solo presentation of Franne Davids. “We sent out a preview last week, and there was basically a frenzy. We actually had to stop selling,” gallery associate director Kylie Ryu said. “It was wild.”
A largely self-taught artist who was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a young woman, Davids spent the rest of her life oil painting in the basement of her childhood home in Waterbury, Connecticut. “This is really a true discovery,” dealer Frank Maresca said of the vibrantly colored canvases, which feature heavy, impasto-like surfaces due to the artist continually reworking and revising pieces for years on end. The paintings are likely a manifestation of the hallucinations Davids experienced throughout her adult life, a fantasy world filled with women in boldly patterned garments. “Everything revolves around women, and I believe that she placed herself in every single painting,” Marseca added. The trove of work includes 42 large-scale canvases and many smaller works on canvas, none of which have ever been seen publicly. The gallery has priced the large paintings, which are all sold or on hold for institutions, at $60,000 to $70,000, with the works on paper ranging from
$8,000 to $12,000. The ADAA presentation coincides with a solo show at the dealer’s Chelsea gallery, on view November 1 through December 7. The artist came to the gallery by chance. Davids’s brother had been making inquiries to try and sell the art. Eventually, an art dealer friend forwarded a few images to Maresca, who was transfixed. “It was instantaneous for me. I sent my art handler in a van two and a half hours to Connecticut to pick up three paintings,” he recalled. “My instinct, 42 years of being in the business, tells me we are looking at the beginning of something wonderful.”