When an Artist’s “Minor” Works Matter More

Famous artists are often synonymous with their most identifiable works, from John Singer Sargent and his luminous portraits to Andy Warhol and his Campbell’s soup cans. These iconic masterpieces often come to define entire artistic careers and movements. Yet some of the richest insights into these artists’ practices emerge through overlooked paintings, sketches, prints, and experiments that exist in the shadow of their most celebrated works.

Follow along as we shift the focus to these undersung works to showcase just how illuminating they can be in terms of how artists experiment, break rules, or refine aesthetic or conceptual ideas. The examples highlighted here reveal the versatility of these artists while also offering a more human view of figures often reduced to a handful of masterpieces.

When Minor is Major

The term ‘minor works’ can itself be misleading. Often used by gallerists or curators to differentiate these examples from record-setting compositions, it might suggest that this art is of lesser quality or importance. But minor works can be revelatory. They can showcase:

Experimental approaches, in which artists test unfamiliar media or techniques;

Compositional evolutions, visible through preparatory studies that reveal how an artwork develops over time; or

Innovative subjects, reflecting the diverse interests of an artist that might deviate from the subjects for which they are renowned.

Exploring these works, then, offers space to better understand these makers’ inspirations. These lesser-known works often reveal aspects of an artist’s personality and creative process that can disappear behind canonical masterpieces.  Let’s look at some examples from different categories of what we might call “minor” aspects.

Major “Minor” Multiples: Rembrandt and Kollwitz

Print-based artists can often find facets of their careers pushed to the periphery. A prime example is the work of Rembrandt van Rijn, a renowned figure of the Dutch Baroque era who is most often associated with theatrical oil on canvas compositions like the colossal The Night Watch (1642) in which his dramatic use of tenebrism illuminated the animated network of militia members as if they were performing on a stage. Savvy connoisseurs of Rembrandt’s oeuvre will also know that he created numerous prints as well, and it is these prints more than his paintings that reveal the intricacies of his working process. For example, Rembrandt’s print series The Three Crosses reflects five separate editions created between 1651 and 1661 (an “edition” refers to a print run of a plate before it was reworked by the artist) that convey an evolution of Rembrandt’s experimentation with the role of light and shadow in his composition. Between each edition, or reworking, one can see how Rembrandt pushes the bounds of etched lines to reveal Rembrandt’s evolving manipulation of light and shadow as he repeatedly reworked the composition to heighten its emotional intensity.

The same could be said of Käthe Kollwitz’s work. Although Kollwitz is best known for her printmaking, monumental works such as Mothers (1919) can sometimes overshadow the emotional immediacy of her smaller prints and drawings. Typically casting her lens on somber themes like poverty or grief, the intensity of her works is tempered by their small format as if to give the viewer an intimate peek at an emotionally evocative moment. This can be seen in works like Woman with Dead Child (1909), wherein the raw emotion – which could be overwhelming at a larger scale – confronts viewers with an intimate meditation on grief and human vulnerability. So, while not significant in scale, Kollwitz’s smaller prints are monumental in their emotional valence.

Major “Minor” Subject Matter: Marginalized Themes by Degas and Matisse

Another “minor” category to consider is the work of artists that study subjects different from their most celebrated. Take, for instance, the name “Edgar Degas”, which probably recalls scenes of dancers in frilly costumes as they performed against the gas lamp-lit stage lights or prepared choreography in the studio. These paintings, like Dancer at Rest (circa 1879) or Three Dancers in Pink (1886), are captivating and showcase Degas’ fascination with the illusion of spontaneous movement in his works that he also translated into fans and bronze sculptures.

Beyond the ballet stage, though, Degas also pursued this interest in the immediacy of his compositions at a rather unusual destination: the horse racing track. Though strikingly different from the tulle-filled, atmospheric scenes from the Paris Opera House, Degas’ paintings of horse racing offered Degas another opportunity to explore fleeting movement and unstable compositions. From compositions like Before the Race (1882-1888) that captured the anticipatory calm between jockeys and their horses to the dramatic energy of a jockey thrown from his steed in The Injured Jockey (1896-1898), Degas’ paintings of this subject exuded the same – if not greater – energy that his dancer-focused works.  Moreover, similar to his dancers, Degas also explored the dynamics of the horse in sculptural form.

Henri Matisse also fits into this category with his later prolific collage career. Better known for his earlier paintings, like Woman with a Hat (1905), that were electrified with the arbitrary colours of Fauvism, Matisse turned to collaging cutouts in the 1940s as his health declined and he could no longer stand in front of his easel to paint. Experimenting with organic forms and the play of positive and negative compositional space, Matisse married in many of these collages, like Forms (1947), his enduring love of colour with a minimalist aesthetic.

Long considered secondary to his Fauvist paintings, these cut-outs are now widely recognized as a radical culmination of Matisse’s lifelong exploration of colour and form.

Major “Minor” Innovation: Experimental Freud and Bourgeois

A final category to consider is that which includes artists whose “lesser” works exhibit some of their most edgy creations. At times artists can use the space of their work to experiment with new ideas, materials and techniques. While these “test run” compositions might attract the same enthusiasm at auction as their larger works, they nevertheless reveal the creative genius of each artist clearly. 

A compelling example is Lucian Freud, whose evocative and often exaggerated portraits have garnered incredible acclaim for their psychological impact on the viewer. Often thickly painted with significant patches of impasto, or built-up layers of paint, on the surface, these paintings like Large Interior, W11 (After Watteau) are both discomforting yet captivating. Outside of these works, however, Freud’s smaller-scale drawings and etchings document the steps taken to achieve this universally renowned style. Early career drawings, for example, like Flyda and Arvid (1947) showcase an unexpected level of precision in Freud’s figural execution, a reminder of his capacities as a draftsman that underpin his later, more gestural works. Others, like Able Seaman (1941) capture subtle washes of colour as Freud played with the potential of his palette. These elements come fully into focus in rare gems like Self-Portrait, where the partially finished painting reveals the preparatory stages of the artist’s likeness below. 

Louise Bourgeois’ works on paper also reflect this experimental quality that complements and yet expands upon her more recognized installations. Known mostly for her large-scale sculptures, such as Maman (multiple versions), her drawings reveal even more of her experimental play with form. Her Femme Maison drawings, for instance, from the 1940s explore the psychologically charged intersection between female identity and domestic space with an almost Surrealist air. Meanwhile, Black Arcs reveals Bourgeois’ musings on geometric patterning, a distant exploration from her typically more organic sculpture. 

Making the Most of these “Minor” Works

These examples demonstrate that so-called ‘minor’ works are often essential to understanding an artist’s evolving practice and contribution to the art world. While celebrating certain facets of their career might be merited, these artists remind us of the value of reviewing an entire oeuvre, not just to better understand the artist’s psychology but also to potentially uncover new modes of expression collectors find even more captivating. Beyond the brilliance of these “minor” works from a creative perspective, another advantage to exploring them is that they can be acquired at times at major discounts relative to the sales prices of blockbuster compositions. To engage with these works is to encounter artists in the midst of experimentation, revision, and reinvention rather than only through the polished masterpieces that history has canonized.