Angeles Agrela

Life and work

Angeles Agrela was born in 1966 in Ubeda, in the province of Jaen, Spain. She studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Granada and later spent formative periods abroad, an Erasmus scholarship in Italy in 1991, a Manuel Rivera scholarship in Havana in 1998, and a residency at the Glogauer Center in Berlin in 2007. She held her first solo exhibition in 1994 at the Palacio de los Condes de Gabia in Granada and has since worked across painting, drawing, photography, video and installation. She currently lives and works in Granada. Her practice has come to center on large scale portraits in which elaborate, often sculptural hair becomes the central motif, a device she uses to reconsider how women have historically been represented in art. Her exhibition history includes Camuflaje at Galeria Espacio Minimo in Murcia in 2000, Salto al vacio at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo in Seville in 2001, Superculto at the Museo Barjola in Gijon in 2008, La profundidad de la piel at Galeria Magda Bellotti in Madrid in 2011, Fanzination at Galeria Yusto Giner in Madrid in 2021, FAUNA at Anat Ebgi in Los Angeles in 2022, and Self portrait as a Schoolgirl at Nicodim in New York in 2024.

Disciplines in the saleroom

Agrela works across several distinct bodies of work, and they behave differently once they reach a saleroom. Paintings on canvas and larger mixed media pieces remain rare on the open market. What actually circulates, based on the results recorded by Phillips in Hong Kong and New York, are works on paper made with acrylic and colored pencil, mostly the large scale portrait heads for which she is best known. Photography, video and installation pieces, and public commissions such as her official portrait work, have not appeared at auction to date. At LLB Auction, one work by Agrela has come to sale so far. A painting on canvas, a photographic print and a work on paper belong to different markets, since only the works on paper currently have a documented price history at auction.

What a specialist examines

On a work on paper, a specialist first checks the support, since Agrela's papers vary in weight and tone and any foxing, cockling or trimming at the edges changes the condition grading. The layering of acrylic ground under colored pencil or pigment marker is checked next, since it defines the surface and is not simple to reproduce. Signatures are checked for placement, usually low on the sheet or on the reverse, and compared against known examples from the same period. Dating relies on the exhibition history and on the gallery that originally placed the work, since Agrela has shown consistently with Galeria Yusto Giner, Galeria Magda Bellotti, Anat Ebgi and Nicodim, and an invoice or exhibition label from one of these galleries is the strongest form of provenance available. The title given to a portrait, often a first name, should also match the gallery or auction record if one exists.

Market position

Phillips has sold works on paper by Agrela in both Hong Kong and New York between 2022 and 2024. In Hong Kong, a 2021 acrylic and pencil portrait brought 304,800 Hong Kong dollars in 2024. In New York, a 2020 work brought 144,900 US dollars in 2022, and another 2020 work brought 113,400 US dollars the same year. Earlier and smaller works have sold for less, a 2016 work for 31,750 US dollars in 2023 and a 2015 work for 56,700 US dollars in 2022. All of these results come from Phillips day sales and online sales, and works on paper are the only part of Agrela's practice with a documented price history at auction to date.

What a seller should have ready

A seller should assemble the original gallery invoice or a bill of sale, photographs of the front and the reverse of the sheet showing any inscriptions, the exact medium, support and dimensions, and a condition report noting the state of the paper and any retouching. Exhibition history matters for a work that was shown publicly, since Agrela's gallery and museum shows are documented and a listed appearance supports both authorship and value. Where the work is a portrait, the sitter's name or working title, if known, should be recorded alongside the piece, since this is how Phillips has consistently catalogued her work on paper.