Ever since a video of Miriam’s work in storage went viral in 2023, we have been exploring the concept of viewing her art as a collection rather than individual pieces. Several commenters on the video encouraged us to keep all the work together until it can be evaluated.
At first, the concept of viewing Miriam’s work as a collection was counterproductive to the sale and marketing of her work individually. After further investigation and research, we realized the comprehensiveness, quality, and condition of her existing body of work combined with a collection of documents and thoughts about her work presented a valuable opportunity for art historians seeking research to understand American art in the South from a woman artist perspective.
As such, we have contacted several art historians and university professors of art about next steps to making her collection available to students and researchers. And as our understanding of the value of her art collection as a whole continues to grow, we have also temporarily taken her work off the market until we have finished a complete inventory of her work, professional appraisal of the collection, and plan for the collection into the future for estate purposes.
To help us understand this important but difficult work, we’ve talked and received generous insight from art historian Susan Cooke, estate director Denise Lassaw (daughter of American abstract sculpture artist Ibram Lassaw, and joined the Catalog Raisonne Scholars Association. We beginning to explore a digital catalog raisonne to establish a reliable list of her authentic works, their chronology, and history to include provenance, bibliographic, and exhibition histories. This is a years-long process but is critical to helping set Miriam’s place as an artist in the history of Southern women artists.
We’ve also engaged the services of an art advisor out of Chattanooga to appraise Miriam’s art for estate planning. They visited the art storage in July for an initial peak at the collection and was encouraged by what she saw. Our job is to complete the inventory so she can create an efficient appraisal. To help Frank (me!) with the inventory, we hired our first full-time employee!
Underpinning this new focus on Miriam’s work as a collection is understanding and creating the legal and structural vehicles necessary to establish and protect Miriam’s artistic legacy. We are working with art-specific estate planning attorney and art intellectual property rights attorney to craft a plan for the future.
We’ve also been building shelves in the existing storage unit to accommodate a longer-term stay there. With the cost of new construction so high since the pandemic, our plans for a permanent storage facility and studio are on an indefinite hold.
LOOKING AHEAD
Miriam continues to paint, draw, and sketch almost every day despite facing the difficulties of aging and macular degeneration in her eyes. We hope to plan a fall trip to Birmingham to visit family and see friends if her health allows.
We know many of you have asked about Miriam’s art will be available again. We’re keeping a list of those interested in specific pieces and will notify you when they become available.
