Underrated overrated

Sometimes their work is hard to collect. Other times, it's hard to categorize. Sometimes artists are under-appreciated because they belong to long-overlooked constituencies. And other times, as Claudia Gould, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, delicately puts it, "the personalities of the artists themselves are counterproductive to their careers." According to the curators, museum directors, art historians, and artists we surveyed, some of the most underrated artists include women, documentary photographers, and the painters and sculptors who created the Baroque masterpieces of Latin America. As for overrated artists, those cited here will likely be quite familiar to our readers. But, as artist Kiki Smith points out, reputations are rarely static. "People whom you think of as overrated at one moment can fade away very quickly," she notes, "or will sometimes be seen later in a different light that makes their work more appealing.".