Safety in Good Taste: Amazing Prices for Old Masters in 2009

It’s been exciting to see this season some great Old Master paintings come out of the woodwork and to see traditional values returning to the marketplace - one only wishes that there were more great mid-level paintings.  Today Christie’s offered three impressive lots – although none of them grabbed me to the point where I could say that I would buy them if I had the money - their success continues to illustrate the trend that buyers want to put their money into safe objects of enduring value and quality.

The crazy money went for a small black chalk study of a head of a muse in Raphael’s Vatican fresco.  It had a low estimate of 12 million pounds and has been described as the finest old master drawing to come to auction in a generation.  It sold for an astonishing 29.2 million pounds – or $48 million.  A record for an Old Master drawing, and probably for any work on paper.  For comparison, a large and opulent portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici II sold in July, 2007 at a Christie’s auction for $37 million.  But, at least the portrait one could display.  The sensitivity of the drawing requires a responsible owner to only show it sparingly. 

The expected star of the sale was a Rembrandt portrait with the cumbersome title “Portrait of a man, half-length, with his arms akimbo.”  Christie’s didn’t do it any favors by its photograph, which made it look morbid, flat, and dead (see Left image).  Photos taken by several British newspapers more accurately capture the glow that it likely has (see Right image), consistent with Rembrandt’s late works, as well as its scale.  Notwithstanding the hand, which looks terribly awkward (or perhaps that’s akimbo), it’s a fantastic painting - although it looks somewhat cropped.  Christie's does not make the condition reports for this available online.  It had an estimate of 18 to 25 million pounds and found a buyer at $33.2 million - right at the low end of the estimate.  Fair for a picture that will outlast any trends in the marketplace, and with few replacements.  For comparison, Rembrandt’s “Saint James the Greater,” a rather clunky and sentimental religious scene, sold for $25 million in 2007 after being shopped around for several years. 

Finally, the first star lot Christie’s announced was a huge painting by Domenichino – an artist that has fallen out of favor and unlike Rembrandt and Raphael, will not impress people by name alone – titled “Saint John the Evangelist.”  Estimated at 7 to 10 million, found a buyer at $15 million.  Huge money for a painting with more historical than aesthetic interest with little to appeal to modern sensibilities.

Christie’s combined its Old Master auctions with the 19^th Century paintings department (my area of focus) in late 2008.  It’s tough for the majority of the traditionalist paintings in the latter category to compete with the fantastic old masters that they copied.  More on this later this week.

20x200 – a good idea killed by accessibility?

I was a big fan of the concept of the website 20x200 upon its introduction in 2007. It is based on making art accessible: (limited editions x low prices) + the internet = art for everyone. New editions are posted twice a week - usually one photograph and one work on paper.

Initially, the smallest sized format was 8”x10”, in an edition of 200, sold for a reasonable $20. A middle size, typically 17”x22” was $200 in an edition of 20. Two large format 30”x40” prints were available at $2,000 each. Sometime in the last year, a new in-between size, 11”x14” edition of 500 prints was made available at $50 each. That’s when 20x200 lost me.

Part of the fun of the website was, much like Gilt group – which I love - was the idea that one had to act fast. Yes, it was cheap(ish), but you had to be quick in your decision-making for fear that an edition would sell out quickly.

Lately I’ve thought that the editing of images has not been as tight as in the past. But more irritating is that there are so many of the 11”x14” prints available, an edition very rarely ever sells out in totality. A few recent editions, such as “Penguin, Memphis, TN” by Geoffrey Ellis have had fewer than 10 prints sell from ALL sizes at the time I write this.

Much like a gallery is judged by the quality of artists in its stable, at 20x200, one is purchasing Jen Bekman’s expertise and “eye” – she also has a brick and mortar gallery – along with the actual print.

I’ve purchased several great images from 20x200, notably the fantastic Brian Ulrich “Thrift” in 2007 and Luke Stephenson’s “Yellow Canary #1.” Both of these sold out very quickly and the quality of printing was great.

There are some images that I still love. For example, Michelle Arcila’s “Kind Intruder” (illustrated above) is charming, and I’m sure that it would look fantastic in the mid-size format. But to spend $200 on a photograph, of which 730 original prints are available, kind of takes the edge off of purchasing original art. Why not just go to Ikea? Knowing that the edition will likely never close and sell out makes me think that I can always buy it tomorrow.

Once one takes off the urgency, the concept of 20x200 becomes a lot less compelling. Ikea has accessibility – a gallery should provide at least a bit of exclusivity, whether it come from price or access.

What do you think?

Your Holiday Shopping is Done? New Art Production Fund Towels - Peter Doig and Yoshitomo Nara

The 2010 New Art Production Fund towel designs have just been released and they're fun!  It's the 4th year that the organization has been doing this.  One is by current art market darling Peter Doig and features a man (who looks a bit like Barack Obama) cavorting in nature and the other by Yoshitomo Nara features a self-satisfied little girl.  Buy them here! 

  I've purchased a few of these in the past.  They're well made, and at 60 x 70 inches - large.  They're a bit more expensive than in the past at $95, but they're quite a fun and artsy gift!  Some have even gone up in value.  I recall seeing the Cindy Sherman towel sell for $200 on eBay a bit ago.  The Art Production Fund is a non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating ambitious projects by contemporary artists.

eBay Buy of the Week: Marilyn Minter Photo - $26.60!

I like shopping on eBay because, if you know what you're looking for (and even if you don't) there are some great deals to be found.  A few days ago I picked up a fantastic Marilyn Minter poster - printed on high quality photographic paper and large at 16 x 20 inches - for her campaign for MAC cosmetics. Minter and Richard Phillips (perhaps now best known for his "Prop Art" as seen on Gossip Girl!) were commissioned by MAC to create images to promote its Fall, 2009 cosmetics line.  

Minter has a great show right now at the Contemporary ARts Center in Cincinnati, "Marilyn Minter: Chewing Color" where some of the decadent enamel photo-realistic paintings, smudged with fingers to avoid brush strokes were hung next to a large video projection.  She's all about sexy glamour...

Now, I'd argue that these posters nearly as authentic an image as one of her editioned photographs - especially as one could crop out the advertising message and be left with a strong image on super-glossy paper with high production qualities.  Plus, there don't seem to be too many of them out there in new condition as they were sent to stores in very limited quantities for advertising purposes.  From the press release, " Marilyn Minter, equally at home in art and fashion, has a penchant for iridescence that made her a perfect candidate for M·A·C’s glitter pigments, putting them to utterly seductive use. Minter’s erotic imagery zooms in on a succulently wet, red lip, a dappled, sequined eye, or a silverized stiletto splashing in the mud. The Whitney Biennial Artist says she’s “Never met a model who actually thinks she’s beautiful,” and that observation goes a long way to explain how she connects to what M·A·C wants to say about all-inclusiveness – we’re ALL beautiful sometimes. Pigments in Push the Edge and Copper or Gold Glitter have the power to make anyone feel like they WILL be seen – and desired."

A bargain, indeed, and proof that one doesn't need the big bucks to buy great art - as long as one expands his or her reach beyond traditional mediums and purchasing venues.

Great art, reasonable prices: Amy Stein "Hillside"

The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago has a great print program as well as a fantastic exhibition program. In its 2009 fine art prints program, MOCP has a great Amy Stein photograph titled Hillside from her series Domesticated. Brian Clamp at ClampArt in New York represents the artist, and just recently hosted a fantastic show. She's been a blogger favorite for a while, but this relatively large photo - at least for a benefit edition - is a relative steal at $300.  I called and checked - there are a handful still available. Buy it here.  The Rachel Papo is charming, too.  Two great Michael Wolf photos from his Transparent Cities series are already sold out!

From the MOCP website: "In her series Domesticated, Amy Stein recreates real encounters between people and wildlife in small town Pennsylvania, based on newspaper reports and personal stories. In her meticulously staged photographs wild animals appear at the threshold of the backyard, where they take on the character of voyeurs or prowlers. The borders of the backyard ostensibly separate public and private realms, but Stein’s work accentuates the fact that these boundaries are unstable and vulnerable to intrusion or outside scrutiny."  FN4GPGMANMRN

Detroit Industry

I grew up in Detroit and my dad spent his entire working life at General Motors, so watching the auto industry on life support is something very personal to me. My first museum trip was to the Detroit Institute of Arts, and my strongest memory of the visit was the incomparable Diego Rivera murals celebrating Detroit Industry (see DIA lesson plan).

Dr. William Valentiner, the visionary director of the DIA from 1924 to 1945 who was responsible for building its collection more than anyone else (besides Robert Tannihill perhaps), conceived of the murals and encouraged their creation.

Rivera spent 8 months working on these murals that glorified Detroit's industries, its engineering capibilities, and the richness of Michigan's resources. It is the type of resource that should make anyone from Detroit proud. The individual images are amazingly powerful and when taken as a whole, there are few spaces that I have ever been to that are as uniformly overwhelming (in a positive way).

The picture at right is a composite portrait of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, who were close friends. Man is so much smaller than Machine; yet it is Man who controls the industry.

As the DIA suffers from catastrophic money troubles, caused by a near total-removal of public funds combined with the huge loss of wealth in Detroit over the past several years, these murals take on a new meaning for me. They're a reminder of the promise that Detroit once had, and the huge breakthroughs that occurred in technology and manufacturing that allowed them. They're a reminder of reinvention and renewal, of possibility and greatness. And, most of all, there's a certain optimism in them about the things that can happen when one thinks big.

Richard Gerstl Goes Into The Wild

Last night my friend Karen and I went to go see “Into the Wild,” which is the most interesting move that I’ve seen in a long time and the first thing that has inspired me enough recently to write a blog entry. It’s based on a 1996 book by Jon Krakauer about the life of Christopher McCandless (which in turn is based on his 1993 essay in Outside Magazine) and stars Emile Hirsch (who was so much fun in “The Girl Next Door”) and as an added bonus has Catherine Keener (who rocked “Being John Malkovich”).

Christopher (pictured left in his final self-portrait) grew up in a prosperous suburb of Washington DC, graduated from Emory, and after getting rid of all of his things and being a hobo for a few years, decided to go live off the land in Alaska. He survived for about 112 days before succumbing to either hunger or toxic plants.

Especially near the end, I couldn't help but compare Chris and his story to Richard Gerstl, the Austrian painter who committed suicide at 25 in 1908, but in the meantime created some daring and uncompromising pictures including several haunting self-portraits. His disenchantment with life lead him to hang himself in front of his studio mirror in addition to stabbing himself. Both Gerstl and Sean Penn (the director) use Christ analogies (Gerstl in an almost Biblical self-portrait (pictured left) and Penn when he shows Chris floating down the river in the form of the crucifix). The painting that is presumed to be his final self-portrait (pictured right) is among the most harrowing images in art; look at this painting and the final self-portrait from Christopher McCandless and there is a similar expression, a similar confidence, and an almost knowing smile that says “I know what I’ve done, I know what the next stop is going to be, and I know that the decision is the way that the universe intended.”

The movie is gorgeous, and has one of the most real-feeling depictions of death and loneliness that I’ve ever seen by an actor. I think that everyone can relate at least in part to the disenchantment that the main character feels, the desire for a fresh start and to make due with less, the power of being uncompromising and unwavering in your beliefs, damn the sensibilities.

I’ve read that those in Alaska resent his story, and how people adopt it as brave, when in certain respects it is just the actions of a boy who caused his family a lot of pain and didn’t equip himself for a journey.. They point out that he didn’t even bring a map which would have shown that the river which he thought prevented his return home had a crossing just a quarter mile downstream; that anyone who dies of starvation 20 miles from a major highway had a death wish.

Regardless, it is a beautiful, quiet movie that really deserves to be seen and thought about. The New York Times critiqued how the movie confuses the concept of American self-reliance and greeting-card sentiments, “if you want something reach out and grab it”, but I didn’t see that confusion. Christopher’s concept of self-reliance, as a 24 year old, had to have a bit of cheese; the hang in there cat poster is in classrooms is how a lot of people view motivation and the movie reflects the inability of a 24 year old, despite his ambitions, to be able to transcend that way of thinking.

Detroit’s Big Move and Moving a Big Tintoretto

I’m looking forward to returning home to Detroit over Thanksgiving and Christmas, obviously to see my mom and dad, but also to see the new and improved Detroit Institute of Arts which is opening a $158-million renovation that is updating everything. Growing up at the DIA means that I have a soft spot in my heart for it!

Some elements are bound to be spectacular, such as the huge Tintoretto that is going to be hung from the ceiling as was originally intended by the artist around 1550. Apparently the DIA will be the only museum in the country that displays a major Tintoretto this way.

There are also some new pictures, including the 2006 Ford bequest that included a wonderful Picasso among other less stellar pictures by big names like Matisse, Degas, Modigliani, Renoir, a new tiny Whistler that got press when it was purchased for around $1 million, et al. Nothing like the amazing St. Louis Degas acquisition coup of the Degas oil or Seattle’s unveiling of hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts. But, for a museum like the DIA to be so ambitious when its local base keeps dwindling is commendable.

One of the more controversial points is that the glorious permanent collection has been reinterpreteted and reorganized to focus not on traditional art history that is based on geography and chronology, but on “thematic exhibits designed to connect the art to everyday life.” If it’s anything like the “Remixed” collection that was displayed in the temporary galleries during the renovation, where the curators grouped all the portraits together in one room and all the landscapes in another (admittedly is not was not that basic, but I did not enjoy it), then it may disappoint. Especially with a collection as rich as the DIA, resorting to these tricks seems somewhat unnecessary.

Tyler Green responds by asking, “Is Smell-o-vision next? The Detroit Free Press' Mark Stryker describes a feature of the re-opening-this-fall DIA: "[T]he 18th-Century French decorative arts galleries -- furniture, ceramics, etc. -- are organized to reflect a day in the life of an aristocrat, including a video projection of a virtual meal using objects similar to those in the gallery." (To be fair, I hear it looks better than you'd expect.)” Mark Stryker concludes his article by asking: “Can a more user-friendly DIA become a populist hub and lure donors – without offending connoisseurs and sacrificing its integrity?” I don’t think so, but it will be great to see!

Re-evaluating & Collecting Second Tier Artists

In light of the super-inflated Contemporary art market, I’ve been looking more at second tier artists; a good reminder that museums and books have limited space and that history makes edits. Some of today’s hottest artists won’t be hot forever.

It started with my visit to the Milwaukee Museum of Art where I saw a great, huge Milton Resnik that commanded the room. Every once in a while you see one of these gems on display and they hold up to the more “major” artists in the room. Re-discovering these artists is fun because they allow a collector to purchase a major work produced contemporary to a major movement for a tiny fraction of what a lower-quality work by a big name would cost.

See this museum exhibition for some other artists ripe for re-evaluation, but here are a few case studies from the upcoming Sotheby’s Contemporary Auction on September 12, 2007. These are all paintings that I would really like to own!

Fred Mitchell is described by his dealer as a “painter’s painter” which is like when they call an unattractive character actor an “actor’s actor.” The chances that he’ll ever get re-evaluated into a major figure is minor as he never really ever created a distinctive style. His paintings have a little bit of everyone working in New York in the 1950s in them. His paintings aren’t in a lot of museum collections, and even when he was working museums did not acquire his work actively. Sotheby’s (lot 454) has a large (72 x 72 in) untitled painting from 1957, when Mitchell was working hand in hand with his Ab-Ex peers. It’s like a safe De Kooning landscape of the period. I’d love to own this (estimate of $15-20000 which is near his record) and could see it in a small museum needing a representative of large Ab-Ex painting. IT SOLD WITHIN ESTIMATE FOR $18,750. An auction record for the artist!

Milton Resnick is an important artist represented in a lot of major museums and his paintings are beautiful and in a distinctive style. Unlike Mitchell, Resnick could reasonably receive a re-evaluation as museums flesh out their collections and collectors become priced out of the biggies. Sotheby’s (lot 466) has a great and happy example in a reasonable size (50 x 40 in), and from a great collection (Walter Buhl Ford II) with the same estimate as the Fred Mitchell. Here is a work that someone would get as a Milton Resnick, rather than just a representative work of a particular era as the Fred Mitchell is. It sold for $67,000!

Allan D’Archangelo is another major pop artist most known for painting highways. His main images are somewhat iconic, and I remember one being included in a collection of pop notecards from MoMA. Sotheby’s (lot 316) has an interesting painting Smoke Dream #2 that is a great size (30 x 32 in) and has an absurdly low estimate ($8-12000). It looks like a good pop painting, and smoking is a pop theme a la Tom Wesselmann, and is from 1963, right in the middle of the pop movement. It sold for an incredible $289,000! The estimate was absurdly low but that's a wow price, indeed!

I’ll update to post how these paintings did. Oh, and a final thing in favor of these paintings is that they seem to be unaffected by the turbulent art markets that may be in store. In fact, some even think that in times of art market downturns, the entire field is reevaluated and that's when paintings like this shine in that they require a certain element of scholarship to identify and appreciate them.

Finally, thanks for taking the time to read this blog. I'm at 10,000 visitors so far this year (although a good portion of them are worried Texas Bar Exam takers!). THANK YOU!

Milwaukee and its Museum!

This past weekend I went to the American Numismatic Association World’s Fair of Money in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It’s one of the biggest coin shows in a world and a great place to see friends, new and old.

But, the highlight for me was having the opportunity to visit the new-ish Milwaukee Art Museum. I read a lot about it a few years ago when it opened and the challenges that it faced in that Milwaukee is a mid-sized metropolitan area without a large fundraising base and the museum addition significantly raised the operating expenses. My reaction to the building was that I was wowed by the architecture and the experience, but disappointed at the same time.

The Santiago Calatrava designed wing is amazing, from the dramatic bridge to the huge reception hall. On Sunday when I left, they were setting it up for a wedding. The two long hallways to the galleries are fun and the views of the lake are gorgeous. There was a Pissarro show in the new galleries that was wonderful and I had a long lunch that was delicious. However, when you get to the permanent collection, it is almost like the museum forgot to update anything. It is in this severe brutalist structure with no natural light, tall unforgiving ceilings, and the instillation has a temporary feel to it. The special exhibition and contemporary galleries are a bit better with natural light, but it is quite a let down after the uplifting Calatavra wing.

The collection impressed me. Weak on old masters as expected, but with some nice paintings here and there including an exceptionally gorgeous Caillebotte from 1877 of rowers (pictured right). As discussed before, I have a soft spot for Caillebotte and his rowers. A very pretty Monet, some good American modernist paintings, lots of German Expressionist works too.

I just left wishing that the addition which cost so much and got so much attention addressed the existing building and the art more. It’s a lot like the Akron building where the public areas are wonderful, but the art is left out.