Jennifer Packer
ValueEgon research · Artist market profile
The market, in context.
Explore Jennifer Packer’s auction history alongside the exhibitions, collections and gallery relationships behind the market.
Institutional research
Collections & exhibitions
Read holdings, exhibition history and their qualifications in context.
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Egon investment scores
Market position
Research updated
Auction highlights
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| Work | Result | Venue and date |
|---|---|---|
| Untitled (2010) | Not supplied | Sotheby's Contemporary Day Auction, November 2021 |
| Fire Next Time | $2,349,000 | Sotheby's |
Pricing
Pricing intelligence
- Availability
- Works rarely appear at auction; most sales are gallery-direct
- Primary market
- Gallery-controlled through Sikkema Malloy Jenkins and Corvi-Mora
- Collector access
- Contact galleries for current pricing on available works
- Market trajectory
- Steady institutional validation suggests sustainable market versus speculative peaks of some peers
- Liquidity
- Low secondary market liquidity with limited auction appearances indicating strong primary gallery control and collector retention
Auction history
- Date
- May 19, 2022
- Sale
- New Now Evening Auction
- Work
- Fire Next Time (2012)
- Medium
- Oil on canvas, in two parts, 70⅛ x 156 inches
- Estimate
- $600,000-$800,000
- Amount USD
- $2,349,000
- Performance
- Nearly 3x high estimate
- Auction house
- Sotheby's New York
Auction results summary
- Market activity
- Limited secondary market presence indicating strong primary gallery control
- Price range USD
- 13,970 - 2,349,000
- Record established
- Since 2021
- Total lots tracked
- 6 artworks at auction (MutualArt data)
Market position
Market positioning
- Tier
- Contemporary Black figurative painting
- Peer artists
- Kerry James Marshall, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Christina Quarles, Simone Leigh, Jordan Casteel, Tomashi Jackson, Eric N. Mack
- Market context
- Part of 2019-2022 surge in Black figurative painting market that coincided with BLM movement
- Comparative performance
- Article noted 'painterly intelligence of Jennifer Packer is undeniable and poignant' - positioned as exception among quality artists in the boom
Institutional presence
Research updated
Exhibitions
Major group exhibitions
- Venue
- Whitney Museum of American Art
- Exhibition
- Whitney Biennial 2019
- Significance
- Featured prominently with multiple works including A Lesson in Longing
- Year
- 2018
- Exhibition
- 33rd Bienal de São Paulo
- Year
- 2021
- Venue
- New Orleans
- Exhibition
- Prospect 5: Yesterday we said tomorrow
- Dates
- September 25, 2024-February 9, 2025
- Venue
- Whitney Museum of American Art
- Exhibition
- Edges of Ailey
- Dates
- February 22-May 19, 2024
- Venue
- National Portrait Gallery, London
- Traveled
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2024-2025
- Exhibition
- The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure
- Dates
- 2023-2024
- Venue
- The FLAG Art Foundation, New York
- Exhibition
- Friends & Lovers
- Year
- 2023
- Venue
- Museum Brandhorst, Munich
- Exhibition
- La Vie en Rose
- Year
- 2019
- Exhibition
- Young, Gifted, and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art
- Significance
- Traveling exhibition
Museum collections
- Tier 1 museums
- Whitney Museum, MOCA LA, Serpentine Galleries, Art Institute of Chicago
- Acquisition momentum
- Strong - multiple major museum acquisitions 2018-2021
Career & Biography
Research updated
Identity
- Current location
- New York City (Bronx)
Personal context
- Partner
- April Freely (poet, deceased July 2021)
- Impact on work
- Current exhibition 'Dead Letter' (2025) addresses grief and loss following partner's death
Significant awards
- Year
- 2013
- Award
- Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant
- Year
- 2020
- Award
- Hermitage Greenfield Prize
American Academy of Arts and Letters
- Year
- 2021
- Award
- John Koch Award in Art
- Year
- 2025
- Award
- Heinz Award for the Arts
- Prize
- $250,000
Teaching positions
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)
- Status
- Current
- Position
- Associate Professor, Painting Department
Residencies fellowships
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| Year | Program | Institution | Award |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-2013 | Artist-in-Residence | Studio Museum in Harlem | Not supplied |
| 2014-2016 | Visual Arts Fellow | Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, Massachusetts | Not supplied |
| 2020-2021 | Not supplied | American Academy in Rome | Nancy B. Negley Rome Prize |
Artistic context
Focuses on intimate portraits of friends and family, viewing representation as political act. States: 'I hope to make works that suggest how dynamic and complex our lives and relationships really are.' Emphasizes 'shameless generosity and accuracy' in depicting Black lives.
Artistic Profile
Research updated
Evolution
- Early work
- 2011-2013: Small, loose portraits painted in early morning hours during Yale MFA
- Mid period
- 2014-2018: Development of commemorative floral still lifes, refinement of technique
- Mature work
- 2019-present: Large-scale works, increased institutional recognition, deeper engagement with loss and mourning
Influences
Theoretical influences
- Fred Moten (blur as political aesthetic)
- bell hooks (essay on representing whiteness)
- Christina Sharpe (wake work theory)
- Jazz and poetry rhythms
Movements and periods
Key works
Fire Next Time
- Year
- 2012
- Significance
- Auction record holder, 13-foot diptych
Say Her Name
- Year
- 2017
- Subject
- Commemorates Sandra Bland
Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (Breonna! Breonna!)
- Year
- 2020
- Subject
- Memorial to Breonna Taylor
A Lesson in Longing
- Size
- 108.5 x 137 inches
- Year
- 2019
- Significance
- Monumental work featured in Whitney Biennial, acquired by Whitney
The Body Has Memory
- Year
- 2018
- Subject
- Portrait of artist Eric N. Mack
Tia
- Year
- 2017
- Significance
- Exemplary portrait work
Transfiguration (He's No Saint)
- Year
- 2017
- Significance
- Addresses stop-and-search racial profiling
Primary subjects
- Intimate portraits of friends, family, and fellow artists
- Floral still lifes (described as funerary bouquets)
- Interior scenes
- Commemorative works responding to racial violence
Formal innovations
Uses incompleteness, blur, and material removal to protect subjects' interiority while maintaining presence. Resists straightforward legibility, requiring sustained viewing.
Political dimension
Explicitly political practice centered on Black visibility and representation. Packer states: 'My inclination to paint bodies, especially from life, is a completely political one. We belong here. We deserve to be seen and acknowledged in real time.'
Techniques and mediums
- Color
- Monochromatic or limited palettes - often pinks, reds, blues, earth tones
- Style
- Loose, improvisational brushstrokes with limited color palettes
- Medium
- Primarily oil on canvas, also works on paper with charcoal and pastel
- Process
- Made through 'undoing' - scraping, blotting, removal of paint
- Technique
- Uses turpentine to blur colors and lines, emphasizes transparency
- Composition
- Figures often merge with or retreat into backgrounds; incomplete areas left visible
Critical Reception
Research updated
Critical reception
Critical consensus
Universally praised for technical virtuosity, emotional depth, and political significance. Distinguished from speculative market boom artists as having substantive practice. Noted for 'painterly intelligence' and ability to balance intimacy with formal innovation.
Key themes identified
Memory, loss, mourning, Black visibility, tender representation, resistance to easy legibility, protection of subjects' interiority, funerary imagery, institutional violence, grief as political
Publications and media
Catalogue publications
Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing
- Year
- 2021
- Publisher
- Serpentine/Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König
- Contributors
- Hans Ulrich Obrist, Christina Sharpe, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Rizvana Bradley, Dona Nelson, bell hooks essay
- Significance
- Comprehensive scholarly catalogue
Jennifer Packer: Tenderheaded
- Year
- 2018
- Status
- Now hard to find
- Features
- Conversation with Kerry James Marshall
- Publisher
- Renaissance Society
Major publications coverage
- Critics
- Barry Schwabsky, Beau Rutland, Juliana Halpert
- Frequency
- Multiple features and reviews
- Assessment
- Serious critical attention from leading contemporary art journal
- Publication
- Artforum
- Recent
- December 2025 review of 'Dead Letter' exhibition
- Publication
- The New York Times
- Critic
- Adrian Searle, Laura Cumming
- Assessment
- ★★★★ rating, described as 'paintings that creep up on you'
- Publication
- The Guardian
- Quote
- If you only have time to visit one [show], go to the Serpentine Gallery
- Critic
- Will Gompertz
- Rating
- ★★★★★
- Publication
- BBC Arts
- Dates
- Multiple features including December 2019, November 2025
- Contributor
- Amber Jamilla Musser
- Publication
- The Brooklyn Rail
View 5 more records
- Feature
- Interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist
- Publication
- Cultured Magazine
- Coverage
- Multiple interviews and exhibition coverage
- Publication
- The Art Newspaper
- Recent
- December 2025 review - 'paintings that cut deep'
- Publication
- Hyperallergic
- Year
- 2021
- Assessment
- Included in annual coverage of significant artists
- Publication
- ArtReview
- Year
- 2016
- Feature
- 'With Shameless Generosity: An Interview with Jennifer Packer'
- Publication
- Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts & Letters
- Significance
- Extensive scholarly interview
Gallery & Representation
Research updated
- Fair presence
- Represented at major fairs including Frieze London (noted '30 Artists to Watch at Frieze London' 2015)
Representation
- Market strategy
- Controlled release with emphasis on institutional placement over speculative secondary market
- Gallery tier assessment
- Strong Tier 2 galleries with excellent institutional relationships
Sources & research notes
Egon’s artist research combines historical auction records, recent sales, institutional history, critical reception and gallery information. Researched auction records and auction highlights are identified separately.
Read prices with their work, sale date, currency and stated basis. Egon’s market assessments are distinct from reported auction results.
Reference: Egon, “Jennifer Packer: Market Intelligence & Investment Profile.”
Research updates by section
These dates show when Egon’s research sections were updated. Source retrieval dates, where supplied above, refer to individual evidence notes.
Ranking updated . Research sections follow their own update dates.
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