# Ida Kohlmeyer artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/ida-kohlmeyer/
Profile generated: 2026-05-08T09:41:01.197Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1912-11-03
- Death date: 1997-01-29
- Nationality: American
- Movements: Abstract Expressionism
- Common media: painting, sculpture

## About Ida Kohlmeyer

Ida Kohlmeyer (1912–1997) was an American painter and sculptor who lived and worked in New Orleans, Louisiana. Born Ida Rittenberg to Polish immigrant parents, she earned a literature degree from Newcomb College in 1933 before turning to painting in her thirties. After completing a graduate degree at the Newcomb School of Art, she studied with Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts during the summer of 1956—a pivotal experience that shifted her work toward abstraction by 1957. Kohlmeyer became associated with Abstract Expressionism and developed a distinctive pictographic visual language. Her work is held by the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Speed Art Museum, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. Active in the New Orleans Jewish community throughout her life, she remained a vital figure in Southern art until her death in Metairie, Louisiana.

## Common works and media

Kohlmeyer is best known for abstract paintings in oil and acrylic, often featuring bold color fields and pictographic symbol systems. She also produced sculptures, works on paper, and prints. Collectors may encounter her work in a range of formats including large-scale canvases, smaller panel paintings, screen prints, and mixed-media pieces. Her subject matter moved from early figurative work to fully abstract compositions after the mid-1950s, with recurring motifs drawn from symbol-like forms and gestural mark-making.

## Market and appraisal context

Ida Kohlmeyer's work appears regularly at auction, with over 560 recorded lots in public databases. Her paintings and sculptures are collected both regionally and nationally, with institutional holdings at major museums reinforcing her market standing. Factors that influence appraisal include whether a piece is an original painting, sculpture, or print; its date relative to her post-1957 abstract period; dimensions; provenance history; and condition. Works tied to her Abstract Expressionist and pictographic phases tend to attract stronger market interest. Attribution should be verified through published scholarship, as no catalogue raisonné is referenced in available sources.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine identity research from library authority files, museum records, and scholarly sources with public auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available.

## Sources

- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n84055743
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/72789605/
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500014081
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q518148
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Kohlmeyer
- RKD: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/87548