If you wanted to purchase a piece of mid-century art for your collection from a woman artist from Alabama who is a legacy artist, where would you start?
When an artist begins their career, they focus on honing their artistic talent and surviving. They don’t know yet what work will stand and be significant in the formation of their careers decades later. Much of this early work, though good and influential in understanding their creative development, is often undervalued, stored, forgotten, and even deaccessioned as the artist moves through their career.
Local galleries typically carry new-ish work from artists who are emerging or mid-career. Good luck trying major online galleries–you’ll pay a fortune for those pieces. You might get lucky with an antiques and art dealer who also carries vintage pieces or a regional art auction house, or even an eBay find. It’s tough sledding, though, unless you know an artist who has been painting since mid-century and still has a collection of their work available.
We are very fortunate to have in our collection a legacy woman artist from Alabama who’s mid-century early drawings on paper are preserved–Miriam McClung! Some of these pieces were done while she was studying at the University of Alabama in the late 1950s, and others while she attended the Art Students League in NYC in 1958-59. They include abstracts, figure sketches, and landscapes of Tuscaloosa and NYC during that period.
Please contact us if you see a piece and are interested in learning more about it. We offer free shipping between now and Jan 3, 2026.
