# John Edward Costigan artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/john-edward-costigan/
Profile generated: 2026-05-08T11:38:02.897Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1888-02-29
- Nationality: American
- Common media: oil painting, printmaking

## About John Edward Costigan

John Edward Costigan (1888–1972) was an American painter born in Providence, Rhode Island. Active through much of the twentieth century, he built a reputation for genre scenes and animal subjects rendered in oil and on paper. Costigan was elected a National Academician, placing him among the recognized professional artists of his era. His work is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and his biography appears in standard reference works including Bénézit's Dictionnaire critique, Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, and Who Was Who in American Art. With over five hundred auction appearances recorded, Costigan's paintings and prints surface regularly in the secondary market and are encountered by collectors of American art from the early-to-mid twentieth century.

## Common works and media

Costigan worked primarily in oil on canvas and also produced prints and works on paper. His most frequently encountered subjects are genre scenes—depicting everyday life and narrative moments—and animal representations. Collectors may find landscape paintings, figurative compositions, and etchings or lithographs attributed to him at auction.

## Market and appraisal context

John Edward Costigan's works appear frequently at auction, with more than five hundred recorded lots spanning paintings, prints, and works on paper. Collectors evaluating a Costigan piece should consider medium (oil paintings typically carry higher values than prints or drawings), subject matter, condition, provenance, and scale. Genre scenes and animal subjects are among his most commonly offered categories. As with many twentieth-century American artists, attribution clarity and documented exhibition or publication history can meaningfully affect appraised value.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine artist identity research from museum, library-authority, and scholarly sources with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. This page draws on the Museum of Modern Art, RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, Getty ULAN, VIAF, Library of Congress, and Wikidata.

## Sources

- RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/18636
- The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/artists/1265
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/55923083/
- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n98017288
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500025727
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6231284
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward_Costigan