20 | 21 Art  25 March 2020

Unsung Heroines 1967 – 1996

Women Artists from the Allan Stone Collection

The present lot is among the powerful selection of works by women artists from the Allan Stone Collection. Not only was Allan Stone a pioneering supporter of Abstract Expressionism and emerging artists, he also celebrated works by women who were forging new ground in the world of art, often without the support or recognition of the larger art community. Driven by personal experience and the need for expression, these women created inventive works exploring politics, gender roles, storytelling, abstraction and art history.  

He could make a visual decision very quickly. It was like love at first sight. He trusted his instincts.

Lorraine Shemesh

The Visionary Eye of Allan Stone
Allan Stone; Allan Stone Gallery, New York, c. 1975. Images courtesy of the Allan Stone Collection


Founded in 1960 by art dealer Allan Stone (1932–2006), the New York gallery known today as Allan Stone Projects has been admired for over half a century. Celebrated for its eclectic approach and early advocacy of pivotal artists of the 20th century, Allan Stone Gallery was a leading authority on Abstract Expressionism, the New York dealer for Wayne Thiebaud for over forty years, and showed the works of Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Joseph Cornell, John Graham and John Chamberlain. Stone also promoted the work of a younger generation of artists that were in conversation with other artists in his collection, working in the mediums of assemblage, collage and new modes of abstraction. In addition to modern masterworks and contemporary art, Allan Stone also collected and exhibited international folk art, Americana and important decorative arts and industrial design.

Diana Moore b. 1946

Diana Moore is a figurative sculptor who works predominantly in concrete. She is inspired by ancient figurative sculptures from diverse cultures such as Etruscan, Greek, Egyptian, and Cambodian. Moore's use of concrete pays homage to the ancient Romans who used the medium for its strengthening properties in their architectural constructions. In her figures and portrait heads one can note a similar strength and resilience inherent within the works. The portraits and life-size sculptures are frontal yet neutral, the organic quality of their medium lending to the ambiguous nature of their ethnicity and gender. Moore deliberately creates sculptures that highlight their universality and timelessness. Moore is best known for her several monumental depiction of Justice which were commissioned by the United States General Services Administration for the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Building and U.S Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey in 1994, the Warren B. Rudmen U.S Courthouse in Concord, New Hampshire in 1997, and the John M. Shaw U.S Courthouse in Lafayette, Louisiana in 1999.

Diana Moore was born in 1946 in Norfolk, Virginia. She attended Northern Illinois University in De Kalb, and the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She had a recent solo exhibition at the Fresno Art Museum in California in 2013 as well as several recent group exhibitions including at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan, Italy, in 2013 and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine arts in 2012. She has received solo exhibitions at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, the Jersey City Museum, New Jersey, the New Jersey State Museum, Allan Stone Gallery in New York, and Gallery Joe in Philadelphia. She lives in Connecticut.

Auction Results Diana Moore

DIANA MOORE, Brown Head | ragoarts.com

Diana Moore

Brown Head

estimate: $1,000–1,500

result $625