Anne Packard

Anne Packard paints what the shore looks like when everyone has gone home: a dory on still water, a shuttered cottage, a horizon dividing gray sea from gray sky. Radically simple and instantly recognizable, her Provincetown pictures have built one of the most devoted followings in contemporary American painting — and an unusually active resale market for a living artist.

Revere Auctions provides free auction estimates for Anne Packard’s work: send photographs of the front, back, and signature and our specialists will respond promptly.

Who Was Anne Packard?

Packard was born in Hyde Park, New York in 1933, granddaughter of the painter Max Bohm, whose canvases hung around her childhood. Art waited decades: she married, raised five children in New Jersey, and only after her marriage ended did painting move to the center of her life.

In the 1970s she settled in Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod, first selling small paintings from her porch for grocery money. The town’s painting tradition — her grandfather had been part of it — took her in, and her spare, contemplative style found its subject in the bay outside her windows.

Recognition compounded: galleries, museum placements, and a collector base that now spans the country. Well into her nineties she has remained Provincetown’s most beloved living painter, with two painting daughters, Cynthia and Leslie, carrying the family line forward.

What Did Anne Packard Paint?

The signature Packards are oils of dories, solitary boats, beach cottages, and open horizons — compositions pared to two or three elements and a weight of quiet. She paints in oil, from small panels to large canvases whose scale turns emptiness into presence.

Within the simplicity there is range: some pictures are nearly abstract weather, others carry a single red hull like a heartbeat. The strongest examples balance both.

How Much Is My Anne Packard Painting Worth?

Several things determine what a work by Anne Packard brings at auction:

• Subject — the dory and horizon subjects are the signature and lead her resale market
• Size — large canvases command decisively more than the small panels she has painted in quantity
• Period and quality — mature, resolved compositions stand above quick early work
• Condition — contemporary oils should be clean and undamaged; provenance from her galleries helps
• Authenticity — popularity has bred imitation of so simple-seeming a style — signatures and gallery history deserve a look

The honest answer is that no two are alike, and the difference between an ordinary example and an exceptional one is a conversation with a specialist, not a chart. Send us photographs through our free auction estimate form — front, back, signature, and any labels — and we will tell you what you have.

The Market for Anne Packard

Packard resells actively at auction — unusual for a living painter — with typical works in the four figures and large or exceptional canvases reaching five figures in recent years. Cape Cod and New England collectors anchor the demand, with national reach through her gallery representation.

A specialist estimate places size, subject, and period before you decide between auction and other routes.

How to Sell a Work by Anne Packard

The strongest results for an Anne Packard painting come at auction, where national and international collectors bid against each other. Revere Auctions offers free, no-obligation auction estimates: send photos and dimensions and our specialists respond with a current market valuation and a recommendation on how to sell. Consigned works are professionally photographed, cataloged, and marketed through our fine art auctions to a worldwide bidder base, and we regularly arrange shipping for consignors across the country. If you need a formal written valuation for insurance or estate purposes, our appraisal and valuation services team can help; you can also read more about how selling at auction works.

Related: American & Western paintings, our fine art department, appraisal services, free auction estimates.

Reviewed by the fine art specialists at Revere Auctions, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Anne Packard: Frequently Asked Questions

How much is an Anne Packard painting worth?

Typical works bring four figures at auction and large or exceptional canvases reach five figures. Size and subject drive the range. Revere Auctions provides free auction estimates from photographs.

What does Anne Packard paint?

Provincetown and Cape Cod distilled: dories, solitary boats, cottages, and open horizons in a radically simplified, contemplative style. Her grandfather was the painter Max Bohm.

Are Anne Packard’s daughters also painters?

Yes — Cynthia Packard and Leslie Packard both paint, and family attribution occasionally needs sorting. Send photographs of the signature and any gallery labels for a free specialist review.

Where can I sell an Anne Packard painting?

At auction, where her resale market is genuinely active. Revere Auctions offers free estimates and handles consignment through settlement.

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