Mernet Larsen
ValueEgon research · Artist market profile
The market, in context.
Explore Mernet Larsen’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.
Read the institutional research →
Egon investment scores
Market position
Research updated
Auction highlights
Scroll horizontally if needed →
| Work | Result | Venue and date |
|---|---|---|
| Resurrection | $25,070 | Jun 2026 |
| Cardplayers | $46,114 | May 2026 |
| Untitled | Price not disclosed - auction closed | August 1, 2024 |
6 further auction entries on record for Mernet Larsen — inside Egon.
Pricing
Primary market
Contact James Cohan Gallery, New York for current pricing - the gallery does not publish prices and controls placement. Dealer resale listings on 1stDibs indicate inventory beginning around $4,500 and reaching approximately $30,000, with an average around $25,000 (1stDibs platform copy, accessed Sept 2026); these are resale asks, not gallery primary prices.
Temporal bands
- Pre 2015
- Regional Florida market; negligible auction presence.
- 2017 2019
- Entry to international salerooms; MutualArt reports a $79,344 high for 'Cardplayers' at Phillips London in 2019.
- 2020 2023
- Sparse activity, largely small works and benefit sales; several lots with undisclosed results.
2024 2026
Renewed activity at Christie's and Phillips; EGON-recorded 2026 results cluster $25k-$46k, with the Phillips May 2026 result materially above its published estimate range.
Pricing context
Pricing by type
Large acrylic paintings on canvas (50-70 inches): $20,000-$30,000 estimated retail. Works on paper/studies: $4,500-$10,000 estimated. Historical works (pre-2000): Limited data, likely under $15,000.
Temporal analysis
Pre-2015 (regional Florida market): Minimal auction presence, primarily gallery sales. 2015-2025 (James Cohan representation): Significant gallery visibility, institutional acquisitions, fair participation (Art Basel, Frieze, Armory Show), limited public price disclosure indicating gallery price management.
Market transition notes
Artist experienced major market transition after age 75. Work previously undervalued in regional market now positioned in prestigious international gallery context. Gallery representation strategy appears to focus on museum sales and top-tier collectors rather than auction market.
Price not disclosed significance
Recent auction results showing 'auction closed' without disclosed prices suggests: 1) Works may not have met reserve, 2) Gallery buybacks to support market, 3) Private treaty sales, 4) Limited collector demand at current asking prices in secondary market
Unique vs multiples
All figures above relate to unique works (acrylic paintings on canvas, and unique works on paper/studies). No significant print or multiple market identified.
Gallery controlled signal
Persistent absence of disclosed results on smaller lots, combined with James Cohan's museum-first placement strategy, continues to indicate a deliberately managed, gallery-controlled market.
Current 2026 secondary range
$25,000-$47,000 for canvases at major-house sales in 2026 (EGON database: $25,070 Christie's Jun 2026; $46,114 Phillips May 2026). Works on paper materially lower - MutualArt reports an $8,750 high for works on paper.
Liquidity
Low. Thin, episodic secondary market: single-digit annual lots, no evening-sale presence, no verified public result above $100,000. Most significant paintings sit in museum and long-term private collections, restricting supply.
Comparables
Peer set of late-recognized American figurative painters who entered blue-chip gallery programs in their 70s-80s (the cohort framed by Artnet News' 2019 feature on eight women artists whose careers ignited in their 80s). Larsen's institutional depth exceeds her price level relative to this cohort - the defining feature of her market.
Collector base
Institutional buyers (Whitney, LACMA, MFA Boston, Carnegie, Walker, Israel Museum) plus private collectors who lend to museum shows. Named private lender identified: Tiffany Hott (collection credit on 'Aw,' 2003, used as the Arts Club of Chicago exhibition image). The 2026 Arts Club retrospective draws on both private and public collections.
Auction history
Auction houses
- Regional auction houses (primary market)
- Phillips (inviting consignments)
- Artnet tracked results
- Phillips (New York and London)
- Christie's
- Sotheby's (benefit sale platform)
- Regional/online houses via Invaluable
- Market segment
- Mid-career established painter with emerging blue-chip indicators
Provenance note
Two distinct provenance streams are reported below and are deliberately NOT reconciled: (a) EGON internal auction database (2025-onward coverage), and (b) externally published aggregator/auction-house data. Similar figures are reported separately with their own provenance.
- Market liquidity
- Limited - primarily gallery-driven primary market. Secondary market underdeveloped. Most works held in institutional and private collections.
- Price trajectory
- Ascending steadily since 2015 gallery representation
- Auction frequency
- 5-15 lots annually (low volume)
- Collector profile
- Institutional collectors, sophisticated private collectors interested in feminist art history, geometric abstraction, and narrative painting
- Sell through rate
- Data not disclosed
- Geographic markets
- Primary: New York, Los Angeles, Miami (Art Basel presence). Secondary: Florida regional market
- Total lots tracked
- 15+ auction results documented
Price ranges observed
- Note
- Pricing suggests gallery-controlled primary market with limited secondary liquidity
- Average retail price 1stDibs
- $25,000
- Primary market retail 1stDibs
- $4,500 - $30,000
Auction frequency 2026
Low volume - roughly 3-8 lots per year across all houses; lifetime tracked lots on major aggregators remain under approximately 20. Secondary market remains thin relative to institutional standing.
External reported record
- Work
- Cardplayers
Caution
MutualArt reports this as the artist's record price since 2017. A separate EGON-database entry records a work titled 'Cardplayers' at Phillips in May 2026 at $46,114. These are two separate data points with distinct provenance - they are NOT treated as the same event and no hammer/premium relationship is assumed.
- Figure USD
- 79344
- House and date
- Phillips London, 2019
Notable earlier offerings
Phillips New Now, New York, Sept 19, 2017 - 'Untitled' (2007), acrylic and graphite on paper, 23 3/4 x 17 7/8 in.; Sotheby's-hosted Society for Contemporary Art (Art Institute of Chicago) benefit sale, 2020 - 'Raft'.
Sell through observations
Insufficient settled lots in the EGON database (n=1 settled, below the 3-lot minimum) to state a sell-through rate. External aggregators publish no verified buy-in rate for this artist. Several 2024 lots previously logged as 'price not disclosed / auction closed' remain unresolved.
External aggregate metrics
Artsy price database
Artsy publishes an auction-results page for the artist; scraped aggregate figures on that page (yearly lots sold / sell-through / average price) could not be reliably parsed and are therefore NOT reported as fact.
- Mutualart lots tracked
- 19 artworks at auction
- Mutualart paintings high
- $79,344
- Mutualart works on paper high
- $8,750
Invaluable recent lot dates observed
- Aug 16, 2025
- Mar 1, 2025
- Dec 7, 2024 (three lots)
- Feb 27, 2024
- Dec 14, 2023
- Oct 14, 2023
Market position
Late-recognition American painter with strong first-rank museum placement and a secondary market that has not repriced to match. The 2026 Phillips result (well above its published estimate band), an Art in America cover, and an Arts Club of Chicago retrospective are momentum signals that have not yet translated into transaction volume.
Investment outlook
Constructive but supply-constrained. Catalysts in place for 2026-2027: the Arts Club of Chicago retrospective with an independent Blake Gopnik essay and Lauren Groff texts, Art in America cover exposure, and continued Tier-1 gallery commitment. Risk factors: very low liquidity, artist age 86 (estate-supply uncertainty in either direction), and no established six-figure price floor.
Institutional presence
Research updated
Exhibitions
Major solo shows
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| Year | Title | Venue | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Thinking About Cézanne | James Cohan Gallery, New York | Fourth solo with gallery, focused engagement with Cézanne |
| 2019 | The Ordinary, Reoriented | Akron Art Museum | Major museum survey |
| 2017-2018 | Getting Measured: 1957-2017 | Tampa Museum of Art | 60-year comprehensive retrospective |
| 2018 | Situation Rooms | James Cohan Gallery, New York | Second solo with gallery |
| 2016 | Things People Do | James Cohan Gallery, New York | First solo with gallery, first major NYC commercial gallery debut |
| 2015 | Chainsawer, Bicyclist, and Reading in Bed | Various Small Fires, Los Angeles | West coast debut |
| 2012 | Three Chapters | Johannes Vogt Gallery, New York | Manhattan gallery debut |
| 1992 | Retrospective | DeLand Museum of Art, Florida | Early career retrospective |
Notable group shows
Kinetic Traces
- Year
- 2025
- Dates
- June 12 - September 13, 2025
- Venue
- National Academy of Design, New York
The Original Influencers: Mernet Larsen, Steve Lotz, and Bruce Marsh
- Year
- 2025
- Dates
- January 31 - May 25, 2025
- Venue
- Mennello Museum of American Art, Orlando, FL
How Long is Now
- Year
- 2021-2022
- Dates
- September 4, 2021 - June 15, 2022
- Venue
- Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Stretching the Body
- Year
- 2021
- Venue
- Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy
Contemporary Figurative Painting (with Neo Rauch, Georg Baselitz, Dana Schutz, Ben Quilty)
- Year
- 2017-2018
- Venue
- Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
View 4 more records
Tightrope Walk: Painting Images After Abstraction
- Year
- 2015
- Venue
- White Cube, London
- Curator
- Barry Schwabsky
Transitory Patterns
- Year
- 2004
- Venue
- National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC
- Significance
- First major national exposure
41st Annual Purchase Exhibition
- Year
- 1989
- Venue
- American Academy of Arts and Letters, NYC
Made In Florida
- Year
- 1989-92
- Venues
- International tour: Belgium, Spain, France, Florida museums
- Significance
- Shown alongside John Chamberlain and Robert Rauschenberg
Current and upcoming
Mernet Larsen: Situational Awareness
- Year
- 2026
- Dates
- September 10 - December 18, 2026
Scope
Focused retrospective; approx. 20 paintings from 1986 to the present drawn from private and public collections, plus recent works made expressly for The Arts Club
- Venue
- The Arts Club of Chicago
- Curator
- Janine Mileaf, Executive Director & Chief Curator
- Publication
- Fully illustrated catalogue with prose poems by novelist Lauren Groff and a scholarly essay by Blake Gopnik
Institutional note
The Arts Club of Chicago is a members' arts club and non-collecting exhibition venue, not a first-rank collecting museum. Counted as a significant exhibition and scholarly-catalogue commitment, NOT as a museum acquisition.
All About 25 (gallery 25th-anniversary group exhibition)
- Year
- 2026
- Venue
- James Cohan, New York
- Solo exhibition count
- Over thirty solo gallery and museum exhibitions to date, per gallery and Arts Club biographies.
Art fair participation
- Art Basel Miami Beach (2025 - James Cohan Booth G20)
- Frieze Masters London (2024 - Booth E9)
- The Armory Show New York (2024 - Booth 224, 2017, 2019)
- Frieze Los Angeles (2024 - Booth C5, 2023)
- Art Basel Basel (2022 - Booth A12)
- ADAA: The Art Show (2021 - Booth A7)
- Artissima Turin (2013)
- Solo exhibitions count
- 30+ solo exhibitions
- Group exhibitions count
- 70+ group exhibitions
Museum solo record summary
Museum solo surveys to date: Tampa Museum of Art (2017-18), Akron Art Museum (2019), plus the 2026 Arts Club of Chicago focused retrospective (non-collecting venue). No international museum solo presentation identified.
Additional group shows identified
Florida Contemporary 2023-24
- Year
- 2023-2024
- Dates
- October 14, 2023 - June 30, 2024
- Venue
- The Baker Museum, Artis-Naples, Naples, FL
Publications
Mernet Larsen: Situational Awareness (exhibition catalogue)
- Year
- 2026
- Publisher
- The Arts Club of Chicago
Contributors
- Lauren Groff (prose poems)
- Blake Gopnik (scholarly essay)
- Significance
- First substantial scholarly text on the artist commissioned by an institution rather than her gallery
Note
Monograph distributed by ARTBOOK|D.A.P. (ISBN 9783735607522) frames her works as 'analogs' rather than representations, documenting her physical pre-arrangement compositional method.
Museum collections
Smog - acrylic and paper on canvas, 42 x 22 in. (106.7 x 55.9 cm), accession number 2017.5
- Tier
- First-rank (US)
- Works held
- 2 works in the collection
- Credit line
- Purchase, with funds from Miyoung Lee and Neil Simpkins
- Institution
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
- Acquisition type
- Curatorial purchase using named donor funds - curator-initiated acquisition
Study #1 for 'Chainsawer + Bicyclist'
- Tier
- First-rank (US)
- Credit line
- Purchase, with funds from the Drawing Committee and the Director's Discretionary Fund
- Institution
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (second work)
- Acquisition type
- Curatorial purchase (acquisitions committee plus director's fund) - strongest form of curatorial initiation
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- Tier
- First-rank encyclopedic (US)
- Credit line
- credit line not published (not located in accessible museum record)
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
- Tier
- Major US modern/contemporary collecting museum
- Credit line
- credit line not published (not located in accessible museum record)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
- Tier
- First-rank encyclopedic (US)
- Credit line
- credit line not published
View 4 more records
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
- Tier
- Major US contemporary collecting institution
- Credit line
- credit line not published
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- Tier
- First-rank (international)
- Credit line
- credit line not published
- Significance
- Only confirmed non-US permanent-collection holding; supports cross-border institutional reach
Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL
- Tier
- University museum
- Credit line
- credit line not published (Alfond Collection works enter the museum as donor-funded gifts)
Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida
- Tier
- Regional US museum
- Credit line
- credit line not published
Awards and recognition
- Academic position
- Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida (taught 1967-2003); first woman on the art faculty.
Grants fellowships
- National Endowment for the Arts
- MacDowell fellowship
Editorial honor 2025
Cover of Art in America, Winter 2025 issue - 'Getting Measured' (1999) - with accompanying artist profile. A tier-1 magazine cover is a high-strength validation signal, roughly comparable to a significant acquisition.
Collections verification note
Whitney holdings verified directly on the museum's own collection pages including verbatim credit lines - both are PURCHASES, i.e. curator-initiated acquisitions rather than accepted donor offers. All other listed collections derive from gallery, Arts Club of Chicago and Tampa Museum of Art biographies; their credit lines are not published in accessible records and have NOT been inferred.
Career & Biography
Research updated
Career
- Awards noted
- National Endowment for the Arts grant; MacDowell fellowship (per Wikipedia artist infobox).
Studio locations
- Tampa, Florida (primary - converted fire station purchased in 1960s)
- Jackson Heights, New York
Career milestones
Scroll horizontally if needed →
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1965 | First teaching position at University of Oklahoma |
| 1967 | Joined University of South Florida as first woman art faculty member in Florida |
| 1967-2003 | Taught painting and drawing at University of South Florida, retiring as Professor Emeritus |
| 1999 | Pivotal career shift from abstract to narrative figurative painting with 'Getting Measured' |
| 2011 | First commercial gallery showing at age 71 |
| 2012 | Manhattan gallery debut at Johannes Vogt Gallery with 'Three Chapters' |
| 2015 | Joined James Cohan Gallery representation |
| 2017 | Major retrospective 'Getting Measured, 1957-2017' at Tampa Museum of Art |
| 2021 | Major retrospective monograph published with essay by Hans Ulrich Obrist |
Career trajectory
Late-bloomer success story. Worked in relative regional obscurity for four decades while teaching in Florida. Gained national recognition in her 70s during the 2010s when her work resonated with digital-age concerns about perspective and perception. Despite never using computers, her geometric figures were mistaken for digital art, bringing her work into contemporary discourse.
Exhibition volume
Gallery and institutional biographies state she has exhibited extensively since the late 1970s and has been the subject of over thirty solo gallery and museum exhibitions.
Career status 2026
Active at 86. Currently the subject of a focused retrospective, 'Situational Awareness,' at The Arts Club of Chicago (Sept 10 - Dec 18, 2026), curated by Janine Mileaf, Executive Director & Chief Curator.
Career milestones added
- Year
- 2025
Event
Painting 'Getting Measured' (1999) featured on the cover of the Winter 2025 issue of Art in America, with an accompanying artist profile conducted from her Tampa home
- Year
- 2026
- Event
- Follow-up Art in America piece (January 2026) in which Larsen details the cover painting
- Year
- 2026
Event
'Mernet Larsen: Situational Awareness' - focused retrospective at The Arts Club of Chicago, Sept 10 - Dec 18, 2026; approx. 20 paintings from 1986 to the present drawn from private and public collections, plus recent works made expressly for The Arts Club; accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with prose poems by novelist Lauren Groff and a scholarly essay by Blake Gopnik
- Year
- 2026
- Event
- Included in James Cohan's 25th-anniversary gallery exhibition 'All About 25'
Identity
- Artist name
- Mernet Larsen
- Current age
- 85
- Getty ulan ID
- 500488136
- Living status
- living
- Personal life
- Married to artist Roger Clay Palmer
- Birth location
- Houghton, Michigan
- Current age 2026
- 85-86 (born 1940)
Confirmation note
Getty ULAN baseline (b. 1940, Houghton, Michigan; American; female) confirmed against Wikipedia, Whitney Museum artist page and James Cohan Gallery biography as of Sept 2026. Living, active.
- Current locations
- Divides time between Tampa, Florida and New York City (Jackson Heights, Queens)
Working methods
Larsen calls her paintings 'analogs' rather than representations - compositions are planned by physically arranging cut/traced paper elements on the canvas before committing, and the scenes are constructed in her imagination rather than observed. She also uses found abstract images as Rorschach-like springboards, drawing out spatial structures and unconscious attitudes toward subject matter.
Artistic context
Gallery framing in 2026 emphasizes a six-decade practice of narrative paintings with hard-edged, enigmatic characters inhabiting an uncanny parallel world of tension and wry humor, built from contradicting spatial systems (reverse, isometric and conventional perspective).
Artistic Profile
Research updated
Style
Hard-edged, plank-and-block figures with blank or poker-faced expressions set in vertiginous, non-unified space; scale shifts and multiple contradictory vanishing points deny the viewer any single vantage point, producing an omnipresent and destabilised viewing position. Matte, graphic, low-incident surfaces.
Evolution
Six-decade arc culminating in a sustained late phase: dialogue with Cezanne in the 2024 James Cohan exhibition 'Thinking about Cezanne', and a body of new paintings made expressly for the 2026 Arts Club of Chicago retrospective - evidence of continued invention at 86 rather than late-career repetition.
Influences
Artists
- El Lissitzky (primary - Constructivism, Proun paintings)
- Paul Cézanne (lifelong interest, subject of 2024 exhibition)
- Kazimir Malevich
- Sophie Tauber-Arp
- Giorgio de Chirico (architectural rendering, perspective)
- Francis Bacon
- Al Held (reverse perspective)
- M.C. Escher (spatial conundrums)
Art historical sources
- 12th-century Japanese emaki narrative scrolls
- 15th-century Italian Renaissance painting (Sienese)
- Byzantine icon painting (reverse perspective)
- Roman painting
- Early Chinese landscapes
- Indian miniatures and palace paintings (Udaipur)
- Japanese Bunraku puppet theater
Theoretical influences
- Roland Barthes
- Structuralism
- Modernist formalism (engaging its limits)
Themes and subjects
Ordinary activities raised to the monumental - meals, hobbies, gatherings in malls, homes and outdoors, faculty meetings, card games, reading in bed - carrying an implied passivity or absence of affect that reads simultaneously as social critique and as comedy.
Movements and periods
Contemporary American figurative painting with a Constructivist structural inheritance; positioned between geometric abstraction and narrative figuration. Career phases: pre-1985 composite observational figuration; 1984-1999 process-based abstraction; 1999-present geometric narrative figuration.
Techniques and mediums
Acrylic on canvas, frequently with paper and tracing-paper collage and graphite; dry, matte, low-impasto application with crisp masked edges. Compositions are pre-planned by physically arranging cut and traced elements on the canvas surface before painting - the artist calls the results 'analogs' rather than representations, and the scenes are imagined rather than observed. She additionally treats found abstract images as Rorschach-like prompts, extracting spatial armatures and unconscious attitudes toward subject matter that would not otherwise have occurred to her.
Fingerprint verification
Confirmed by sources
- Flatness, hard edges, planarity and figure-ground compression - confirmed by gallery and museum descriptions of flat, origami-like figures composed of plank-like shapes and blocky volumes.
- Cool / muted / limited / desaturated palette - consistent with the Whitney's 'Smog' (acrylic and paper on canvas) and with exhibition documentation.
- Uncanny and contemplative mood - directly corroborated by the Arts Club of Chicago's framing of unsettling passivity and deadpan affect, and by the gallery's description of an uncanny parallel world filled with tension and wry humor.
- 'The gaze' and 'architecture and the built environment' themes - consistent with cityscape works such as 'Smog' and with the institutional/domestic interiors (boardrooms, dining tables, malls).
Disagreements and corrections
- MEDIUM (significant disagreement): the fingerprint lists 'oil' as the dominant medium in 3 of 7 tier-1 images. Sources consistently record ACRYLIC - the Whitney catalogues 'Smog' as acrylic and paper on canvas, Phillips catalogued a 2007 work as acrylic and graphite on paper, and Singulart/Invaluable biographies describe acrylic on canvas. Oil should be demoted or removed from the medium profile.
- PERIOD BRACKET: the fingerprint's '1970-1990' bracket reflects the sampled exemplars rather than the artist's centre of gravity. The signature geometric-narrative body of work dates from 1999 onward; the 2026 Arts Club retrospective spans 1986-2026.
- STYLISTIC REGISTER: 'Cubist' and 'Magic Realist' are approximations. Sources are explicit that the spatial logic combines INCOMPATIBLE systems - reverse, isometric, parallel and conventional Renaissance perspective - derived from Constructivism (El Lissitzky), Bunraku puppet theatre, 12th-century emaki scrolls, early Chinese landscape and Indian miniatures, rather than from Cubist faceting.
- DISPERSION: the 'varied' low-coherence label is best explained by career phase rather than instability - pre-1985 composite figuration, 1984-1999 process abstraction, and 1999-present geometric narrative figuration are genuinely distinct sub-styles within one artist.
Signature works extended
- Smog
- Study #1 for 'Chainsawer + Bicyclist' (Whitney)
- Getting Measured (1999) - Art in America Winter 2025 cover; the pivotal work of her stylistic turn
- Cardplayers - her highest-priced work at auction on external record
- Aw (2003), Collection Tiffany Hott - lead image for the 2026 Arts Club of Chicago retrospective
- Punch
- Resurrection
- Raft
Critical Reception
Research updated
Critical reception
Major reviews
- Date
- April 2021
- Tone
- Positive - discussed vertiginous perspectives and anxiety
- Author
- Staff
- Exhibition
- James Cohan 2020/21
- Publication
- Artforum
- Date
- December 2020/January 2021
- Quote
- the mundane moment becomes unfamiliar and metaphysical, like a view of reality exploded from within
- Author
- Jillian Steinhauer
- Publication
- The New York Times
- Date
- October 2012
- Quote
- navigate the divide between abstraction and representation with a form of geometric figuration that owes less to Cubo-Futurism than to de Chirico
- Author
- Roberta Smith
- Exhibition
- Johannes Vogt Gallery
- Publication
- The New York Times
- Date
- 2018
- Note
- Described work as dramatizing 'anxiety's perception-skewing effects'
- Exhibition
- Situation Rooms
- Publication
- The New Yorker
- Date
- January 2021
- Quote
- Linear perspective is thrown under the bus and then reconfigured as origami
- Author
- Mario Naves
- Publication
- New Criterion
View 7 more records
- Date
- October 2012, May 2018, February 2021
- Author
- John Yau (multiple reviews)
- Quotes
- 'simultaneously critical, satirical, and tender'
- Publication
- Hyperallergic
- Significance
- Multiple positive reviews by influential critic
- Date
- March 27, 2015
- Quote
- Encountering the paintings...can feel a bit like discovering a new exotic fruit
- Author
- Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer
- Publication
- Artforum
Review: Mernet Larsen probes perception and experience
- Date
- April 1, 2015
- Author
- Sharon Mizota
- Publication
- Los Angeles Times
- Date
- 2016
- Note
- Discussed spatial warping and perspective manipulation
- Author
- Noah Dillon
- Publication
- Frieze
Illusion and Revelation in the Flatlands: The Paintings of Mernet Larsen
- Date
- September 2015
- Author
- Andrew Bernardini
- Publication
- Mousse Magazine
The Vertigo Effect (artist statement)
- Date
- May 2017
- Author
- Mernet Larsen
- Publication
- Modern Painters
Built Differently: Mernet Larsen's Strange Constructions
- Date
- March 11, 2016
- Author
- David Brody
- Publication
- Artcritical
Review gap note
No published review of the 2026 Arts Club of Chicago exhibition located as of Sept 7, 2026 - the show opens Sept 10, 2026, so reviews are pending.
Critical consensus
Critics consistently praise Larsen's unique perspective manipulation, geometric figuration, wry humor, and prescient engagement with how we perceive space in digital age. Described as 'original,' 'beguiling,' 'psychologically complex.' Recognition that she developed this language independently over decades before gaining wider attention. Feminist art history angle noted - first woman art faculty in Florida, commercial gallery debut at age 71.
- Catalogue raisonnes
- No comprehensive catalogue raisonné published
Academic scholarship
Growing scholarly attention. Curator Veronica Roberts (Blanton Museum) has written extensively. Inclusion in Phaidon's Vitamin P indicates art historical recognition. Featured in Contemporary Art Review LA interview (2023). MacDowell Fellowship indicates peer recognition.
Curatorial framing 2026
The Arts Club of Chicago frames Larsen's figures as undertaking the ordinary activities of life while simultaneously implying a passivity or lack of affect that is unsettling yet familiar; the deadpan expressions suggest a critique of society while the paintings remain genuinely funny, producing a stillness that elevates each gesture beyond the mundane activity it depicts.
Media tracked 2025 2026
- ArtDaily
- Two Coats of Paint
- Whitewall
- Artnet News
- Contemporary Art Review LA (long-form interview)
Recent signals 2025 2026
- Date
- Winter 2025
- Type
- Cover feature and artist profile
Detail
'Getting Measured' (1999) appeared on the cover of the Winter 2025 issue; Larsen was profiled from her home in Tampa and recounted the backstory of the canvas. A follow-up piece, 'Mernet Larsen Details Her Painting on the Cover of Art in America,' was published in January 2026.
- Publication
- Art in America
- Significance
- Tier-1 US art magazine cover - a leading indicator of further institutional interest and the strongest editorial signal in this research cycle.
- Date
- 2026
- Type
- Scholarly essay plus literary commission
Detail
An essay by New York Times contributor and art historian Blake Gopnik accompanies the 'Situational Awareness' retrospective, alongside prose poems by the novelist Lauren Groff - art-historical and literary attention converging on the work.
Authors
- Blake Gopnik
- Lauren Groff
- Publication
- The Arts Club of Chicago exhibition catalogue
Canonical quotes reconfirmed
The Whitney's artist page continues to cite Roberta Smith's account of the work as navigating abstraction and representation through a geometric figuration closer to de Chirico, architectural rendering and early Sienese painting than to Cubo-Futurism, and Andrew Berardini's description of a folded, all-at-once pictorial space in which every vanishing point aims back at the viewer.
Publications and media
Recurring reception framing since 2019 has been the 'late recognition' narrative - Artnet News' November 2019 feature on eight women artists whose careers caught fire in their 80s remains the most cited framing of her market and critical arc.
Art historical positioning
Increasingly treated as a figure whose decades of regional practice anticipated digital-age spatial perception. The 2026 Arts Club retrospective, with an independently commissioned scholarly essay, marks a shift from gallery-sponsored to institution-sponsored scholarship; a sustained academic literature or catalogue raisonne does not yet exist.
Gallery & Representation
Research updated
- Fair presence
- Continued participation through James Cohan's fair program; no artist-specific 2026 solo booth verified in this research cycle.
Representation
Gallery strategy
James Cohan positioning Larsen as important historical figure whose work anticipates digital-age concerns. Focus on museum placement, top-tier collectors, critical legitimacy rather than auction market volume. Regular participation in blue-chip fairs (Art Basel, Frieze Masters).
Previous representation
Scroll horizontally if needed →
| Years | Gallery | Location | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-2015 | Johannes Vogt Gallery | New York | First Manhattan commercial gallery |
| 2015 | Various Small Fires | Los Angeles | West coast exposure |
| 2010 | Mindy Solomon Gallery | St. Petersburg, FL | Regional Florida representation |
| 1970s-2000s | Multiple Florida regional galleries | Not supplied | Built regional reputation over decades |
Current primary representation
- Since
- 2015
- Tenure
- 2015-present (11 years)
- Gallery
- James Cohan Gallery
Locations
- New York (48 Walker St, 52 Walker St, 291 Grand St)
- 48 Walker Street, New York
- 52 Walker Street, New York
Status 2026
Confirmed active on the gallery's artist roster as of September 2026; the gallery continues to publish her public-exhibition schedule and included her in its 25th-anniversary exhibition 'All About 25'.
- Gallery tier
- Tier 1-2 international (blue-chip-adjacent New York gallery, 25 years in operation)
Relationship notes
Four solo exhibitions to date (2016, 2018, 2020-21, 2024 'Thinking about Cezanne' at 52 Walker Street, Feb 15 - Mar 16, 2024); gallery also promotes her museum exhibition schedule and published her retrospective monograph.
- No representation change detected
- No evidence of any change in primary representation since the previous update.
Geographic reach
Institutional reach 2026
US museum collections concentrated in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and Florida; single confirmed international public collection (Israel Museum, Jerusalem). New Midwest institutional exposure via The Arts Club of Chicago in 2026.
Secondary market channels
Dealer resale inventory listed on 1stDibs (approx. $4,500-$30,000 asks); aggregator coverage on Artnet, Artsy, MutualArt, Invaluable and Singulart. Auction access principally via Phillips and Christie's.
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, “Mernet Larsen: Market Intelligence & Investment Profile.”
Research bibliography · 24 sources
Sources recorded for this artist’s research. This bibliography does not assign every source to an individual claim.
- Mernet Larsen | Smog | Whitney Museum of American Art
- Mernet Larsen | Study #1 for 'Chainsawer + Bicyclist' | Whitney Museum of American Art
- Mernet Larsen | Whitney Museum of American Art
- Mernet Larsen - Artists - James Cohan
- Exhibitions - James Cohan
- Public Exhibitions - James Cohan
- Mernet Larsen - The Arts Club of Chicago
- Home - The Arts Club of Chicago
- Mernet Larsen: Situational Awareness - WBEZ Event Listing
- Chicago Gallery News - The Arts Club of Chicago
- Mernet Larsen | 19 Artworks at Auction | MutualArt
- Mernet Larsen Artwork for Sale at Online Auction | Invaluable
- Mernet Larsen | Artnet
- Mernet Larsen - Auction Results and Sales Data | Artsy
- Mernet Larsen - For Sale on 1stDibs
- Mernet Larsen - New Now New York, 19 September 2017 | Phillips
- Mernet Larsen | Raft | Society for Contemporary Art Collectors Sale | Sotheby's
- Mernet Larsen: Getting Measured, 1957-2017 | Tampa Museum of Art
- Mernet Larsen - Wikipedia
- Mernet Larsen - ARTBOOK | D.A.P.
- Interview with Mernet Larsen - Contemporary Art Review LA
- SA+AH alumna creates legacy with her unique artistic style - University of Florida
- Longtime Florida artist Mernet Larsen exhibits her work in Los Angeles - University of Florida
- Mernet Larsen Art for Sale on SINGULART
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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