Our cover this month, Oranges Inside and Out by Paul Wonner, sold for $10,075 at Bonhams Made in California Contemporary Art auction on May 29 - June 11, 2020 in Los Angeles (online). Like many of his peers, Wonner transitioned his style of painting numerous times throughout his career.
Wonner’s rise to prominence came in his 30s as an abstract expressionist, during his time in San Francisco, where he became affiliated with the Bay Area Figurative Movement. He continued to paint in a consistent style until the late 1970s, at which point he began to focus on still life, which became some of his best known works. In the years leading up to his death in 2008, he reverted back to painting human figures.
Last year, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, Calif. received an endowment to help emerging LGBTQI artists. The gift included more than 1,800 works by Wonner and his longtime partner, artist William Theophilus Brown, both of whom worked with the museum on establishing the endowment. In their own effort to assist the LGBTQ community, Steven L. Kriz, Melisa Seyhun, Vanessa L. Kanaga and Martin M. Shenkman discuss some of the unique issues LGBTQ clients face in estate planning and how advisors can help better address them, p. 14.