The estate of John Wesley, the artist whose Pop paintings won thousands of followers, will now be represented exclusively by Pace, one of the world's leading galleries, with venues in eight cities.
For 27 years, Wesley was represented by Fredericks & Freiser in New York. Still, Pace said the new representation of the Wesley estate would be done "in association" with Fredericks & Freiser. The move to Pace will also see Wesley's ownership end its relationship with London's Waddington Custot gallery. Pace now plans to showcase Wesley's art at Frieze Los Angeles, which opens next week, almost exactly a year after the artist's death. Though Wesley is still lesser known than the pop artists to whom he has long been compared, he has already gained a wide range of admirers during his lifetime, such as the minimalist sculptor Donald Judd, whose Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, placed Wesley's paintings on permanent display.
Wesley's work was often unclassifiable, as it relied on images borrowed from the mass media. And although his paintings may resemble cartoons or advertising, they sometimes depict sexual activities that would hardly be portrayed in any of them. His work has been the subject of research at the Center for Contemporary Art PS1 and the Fondazione Prada. Glimcher said that part of the reason Wesley's work is not better known, both in the marketplace and in institutions, is because the people who own his paintings are reluctant to give them up easily.
