Charles Gaines
American · b. 1944 · Painter, Printmaker
Charles Gaines is an American visual artist, whose work interrogates the discourse of aesthetics, politics, and philosophy. Taking the form of drawings, photographic series and… (Wikipedia)
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1 work by Charles Gaines with an auction history (offered more than once) →
Record prices
Numbers and Trees: Central Park Series III: Tree #6, GinaPhillips · $167,700≈ £128,152≈ €145,573Sign up to see
Explosion #29Phillips · $55,000≈ £41,816≈ €46,773Sign up to see
Explosion #29Phillips · $20,000≈ £15,585≈ €17,082Sign up to see
Charles Gaines’s highest prices recorded at auction, ranked in US dollars at each sale-date exchange rate and shown in the currency of the sale (with the buyer’s premium where the house publishes it).
ArtSell has recorded 12 auction results for Charles Gaines between 2018 and 2025, of which 11 sold (92%). Recorded sale prices range from $5.7kSign up free to see to $168kSign up free to see. The highest price recorded is $168kSign up free to see for Numbers and Trees: Central Park Series III: Tree #6, Gina at Phillips in November 2025. The most common medium is drawings (6 lots). Most results come from Phillips (8), Rago Auctions (2) and Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA) (2).
12 results
- $167,700≈ £128,152≈ €145,573Sign up free to see
- Explosion #19, 2007£9,525≈ $12,065≈ €11,500Sign up free to see
- $19,050≈ £14,672≈ €17,605Sign up free to see
- $8,515≈ £6,691≈ €7,795Sign up free to see
- Explosion #8 (diptych), 2006$12,600≈ £9,900≈ €11,535Sign up free to see
- $5,670≈ £4,510≈ €5,253Sign up free to see
- $8,190≈ £6,514≈ €7,588Sign up free to see
- $11,340≈ £10,023≈ €11,512Sign up free to see
- $8,820≈ £6,773≈ €8,164Sign up free to see
- Explosion #29, 2009$20,000≈ £15,585≈ €17,082Sign up free to see
Charles Gaines works on paper (6)Charles Gaines drawings (6)Charles Gaines prints (3)Charles Gaines photographs (3)
Charles Gaines: quick facts
What is the highest price paid for a work by Charles Gaines at auction?
$167,700Sign up free to see, for Numbers and Trees: Central Park Series III: Tree #6, Gina at Phillips (November 2025) — the highest price in ArtSell’s records.
What is a typical auction price for Charles Gaines?
The median sale price is $12.1kSign up free to see across 11 priced sales. Prices vary by medium, size and date — see the price chart & statistics.
How many works by Charles Gaines have sold at auction?
11 of 12 recorded lots sold between 2018 and 2025.
Which auction houses sell Charles Gaines?
Phillips, Rago Auctions and Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA) account for the most recorded results. Phillips · Rago Auctions · Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA)
About Charles Gaines
Charles Gaines is an American visual artist, whose work interrogates the discourse of aesthetics, politics, and philosophy. Taking the form of drawings, photographic series and video installations, the work consistently involves the use of systems, predominantly in the form of the grid, often in combination with photography. His work is rooted in conceptual art – in dialogue with artists such as Sol LeWitt, Lawrence Weiner and Mel Bochner – and Gaines is committed to its tenets of engaging cognition and language. As one of the only African-American conceptual artists working in the 1970s, a time when political expressionism was a prevailing concern among African-American artists, Gaines was an outlier in his pursuit of abstraction and non-didactic approach to race and politics. There is a strong musical thread running through much of Gaines' work, evident in his repeated use of musical scores as well in his engagement with the idea of indeterminacy, as similar to John Cage and Sol LeWitt. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
From Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.