thoughtful response to my question. These two sentences sum it up perfectly. “It (Good art) resides entirely in the relationship of the (handling of the) physical material we choose to that more insubstantial content of our uniquely personal visions. These two components form a partnership that enables them to rise or fall together.” The brackets are my additions.
Chris, strong perspective and a good pushback against fashion being art. I read another too long article yesterday about Gagosian and his pre Oscar show in LA. Although he certainly has been a strong force for the trajectory of many great contemporary artists, the trappings are all like fashion, seasonal and fleeting.
Today I’m working on a submission for Antiques Roadshow Producers invitations, I’m submitting 2 pieces of art. One is a beautifully rendered oil painting by French artist Cesar Isidore Henri Cros, 1840-1907. I found this painting around 12 years ago in a small antique shop . It was the first day of opening for this charming place. I saw the painting from across the room and although my taste is normally contemporary work this painting drew me in . It was so beautiful and I couldn’t look away. As I saw it up close and then looked at the tag with the price of $150 and I pulled it off the wall. The artist has work in museums around the world . This is my 1 of 2 submissions. The other is a very large painting of 3 old, salvaged wood painted boards that is iconic Basquiat . When I was living and working in Miami 20 years ago I would go to the huge Lincoln Road antique fair on the Sundays it set up. I got there very early and was walking down a side street all filled with booths selling all manner of things . I wandered into a few booths and mistakenly walked into one that sold seashell “art”. I made small talk with the young woman and her rough looking boyfriend sitting on his Harley. On the pavement next to him I saw the corner of a painted wooden thing with a blanket covering most of it. I asked him if I could move the blanket and he said, “yeah, it’s just a piece of crap..”Heart racing, I said “ it’s cool. What do you want for it?” He said “ how’s. 200.? “ I managed to be very casual , paid for it and picked it up. It is tall and very heavy and I lifted it under my arm. I asked the woman where she had found it and she said it was from a garage sale just outside on nyc. She said there was a lot of what the homeowner said were NY paintings from her son who died of an overdose in the 80’s. Neither the seashell art maker or her boyfriend had a clue about art, Basquiat or much of anything else. She did offer to hold it for the day and I declined. I put it in my car and went home, took photos and called close friends, Fay Gold ( Gallery) in Atlanta and Vincent Vallerino in nyc.
The chance of my painting being authentic is 50/50. When I bought it Gerard Basquiat was still alive and running the foundation. I submitted slides to them and was invited to meet with them and they would look at my piece. I asked Fay Gold who I was dining with during Art Basel and she said that Gerard was not a fan of “ found “ pieces with no real provenance. I decided to wait. He died not long after and the foundation was disbanded by the sisters who had their own ( bad) ideas about how to monetize their brother’s work. If my 2 pieces of art make it to the Producers Pick I will know if it’s authentic or not. If it’s not I just need to remember not to cry on camera! If it’s authentic then I will cry. Either way I love this and if it’s authentic I won’t own it any longer. If not so be it, it is beautiful and alive.
I apologize for this meandering mess but what prompted it is that as a lifelong art lover it’s possible to have very divergent taste. The thing they have in common is the skill and execution that tells a story and stirs the heart.
That's quite a story Maggie. I have a little oil painting of a pair of fur trappers in the snow by a log cabin. It was probably made in the 19-teens. But there's no signature or other trail of provenance. I got it from a fellow WCS alum in Vermont. His dad picked it up at an antiques and art gallery in Chadd's Ford, PA in the mid 1980s, but the picture has an early luggage label from Grand Central Station in New York on the back, so at least we know that it was in NYC early in its life. Anyway I saw this thing on a Facebook post that my pal put up and knew instantly that it was by an Ashcan School painter, and in my opinion, painted by George Bellows. I did a lot of research on it, including by doing an elaborate handwriting analysis on the brushwork by comparing the marks at scale to identical passages in known Bellows pictures. I even wrote a book about it. But when I tried to show it to various "experts" nobody would talk to me about the thing because it's unsigned, doesn't look like a typical Bellows scene, has no provenance, and doesn't exist in the catalogues Raisonné. I believe it to be a spec illustration that Bellows did when he was young and hungry in New York and looking for work as an illustrator. I did much the same at the same age and in the same city. I made a couple illustrations in paint hoping to get some work like that after college and they looked nothing like my more typical city scenes at the time. This is not a typical Bellows subject at all, but it does look like an illustration for some contemporary writer, like maybe in a Jack London story. Bellows illustrated with drawings for various magazines at the time but at the time, the more lucrative jobs that actually involved painting were for color illustrations in kids' books like the Scribner's Classics which folks like N.C. Wyeth, Howard Pyle and Maxfield Parrish painted for. This looks to me like Bellows trying to land one of those gigs. It's a tough racket trying to get the establishment to look at, much less accept a story like that about a painting with no track record though. I feel for ya!!
Hi Chris, thankfully the Cros painting is signed! The ( maybe) Basquiat has the iconic images, poetry typical of his early work, age and style. The person who owned it died and his mother was getting rid of the art he had owned. Given Basquiat’s history we know he traded art for drugs. There is an area at the bottom of the one I have it looks like someone added a painted white section with Basquiats birth date and death date. This paint doesn’t match to anything used elsewhere and looks blatantly out of place. It’s long shot and magical thinking but it’s possible that whoever last owned this knew Basquiat … his drug dealer perhaps, and added this to the painting when Basquiat died .
The seashell sellers didn’t posses any knowledge whatsoever about the piece I bought. In fact, after I paid for it and had it in my arms I asked the woman who made the seashell “art” to write down her name and phone number. She asked why I wanted it and I told her that if the painting I bought from her turned out to be an original I would want to better compensate her. I mention the name “ Basquiat “ and she couldn’t pronounce it. Again, it’s likely not authentic since I don’t think I’m the Indiana Jones of art world rare discoveries! The odds are against this but I have studied art as my most passionate hobby for most of my life and I have a good eye and better instincts. Regardless of the outcome come I love this piece. Nothing about my love of art has ever had anything to do with making money. My practice as an Interior Designer is my income source. Luckily I don’t make art for a living or I would have starved to death !
I hope to run into you in Newport at Jessica’s this summer. Be well my friend.
Christopher, I had Lee as a teacher at Brooklyn College and she once told us that she often got her canvases (the ones used in this series of pieces) off the street. The canvases came from U.S. Postal service mail bags left at various locations for mailmen to use for transferring mail. She didn't realize that these empty bags were not trash. LOL!
On the topic of "quality" or "good" vs "bad" art, so much is a matter of taste, of course. Lee's work is a perfect example. The powerful pieces she created that got her worldwide attention turned out to be a brief period in her creative life. She stopped that series quite early, by the 1970s. After that she taught and continued to work in her studio. But nothing was shown for a long time. When the new work came out—sculptures made from stretched paper or vacuum-formed clear plastic over lightweight armatures—it was no longer abstract, but depicted fish.
One can see how they were an extension of her earlier work, in their construction. YET I was embarrassed by them. They reminded me of the blow-up puffer fish lamps you could see in Polynesian-themed restaurants. This later work wasn't anywhere NEAR what she had done earlier, which was abstract and evocative of the horror of war. The later work was, literally, "light weight," but not because of the form/materials; it was the lack of power, focus, topic. These were merely crafted objects that held nothing beyond their physical presence; nothing evoked. Perhaps that is one way to judge quality.
Christopher, thanks for your
thoughtful response to my question. These two sentences sum it up perfectly. “It (Good art) resides entirely in the relationship of the (handling of the) physical material we choose to that more insubstantial content of our uniquely personal visions. These two components form a partnership that enables them to rise or fall together.” The brackets are my additions.
“Comparison is the thief of joy.” — T. Roosevelt
Why aren’t you a professor of art in a great college?
Quality is not on everyone's mind right now but money is, alas.
Chris, strong perspective and a good pushback against fashion being art. I read another too long article yesterday about Gagosian and his pre Oscar show in LA. Although he certainly has been a strong force for the trajectory of many great contemporary artists, the trappings are all like fashion, seasonal and fleeting.
Today I’m working on a submission for Antiques Roadshow Producers invitations, I’m submitting 2 pieces of art. One is a beautifully rendered oil painting by French artist Cesar Isidore Henri Cros, 1840-1907. I found this painting around 12 years ago in a small antique shop . It was the first day of opening for this charming place. I saw the painting from across the room and although my taste is normally contemporary work this painting drew me in . It was so beautiful and I couldn’t look away. As I saw it up close and then looked at the tag with the price of $150 and I pulled it off the wall. The artist has work in museums around the world . This is my 1 of 2 submissions. The other is a very large painting of 3 old, salvaged wood painted boards that is iconic Basquiat . When I was living and working in Miami 20 years ago I would go to the huge Lincoln Road antique fair on the Sundays it set up. I got there very early and was walking down a side street all filled with booths selling all manner of things . I wandered into a few booths and mistakenly walked into one that sold seashell “art”. I made small talk with the young woman and her rough looking boyfriend sitting on his Harley. On the pavement next to him I saw the corner of a painted wooden thing with a blanket covering most of it. I asked him if I could move the blanket and he said, “yeah, it’s just a piece of crap..”Heart racing, I said “ it’s cool. What do you want for it?” He said “ how’s. 200.? “ I managed to be very casual , paid for it and picked it up. It is tall and very heavy and I lifted it under my arm. I asked the woman where she had found it and she said it was from a garage sale just outside on nyc. She said there was a lot of what the homeowner said were NY paintings from her son who died of an overdose in the 80’s. Neither the seashell art maker or her boyfriend had a clue about art, Basquiat or much of anything else. She did offer to hold it for the day and I declined. I put it in my car and went home, took photos and called close friends, Fay Gold ( Gallery) in Atlanta and Vincent Vallerino in nyc.
The chance of my painting being authentic is 50/50. When I bought it Gerard Basquiat was still alive and running the foundation. I submitted slides to them and was invited to meet with them and they would look at my piece. I asked Fay Gold who I was dining with during Art Basel and she said that Gerard was not a fan of “ found “ pieces with no real provenance. I decided to wait. He died not long after and the foundation was disbanded by the sisters who had their own ( bad) ideas about how to monetize their brother’s work. If my 2 pieces of art make it to the Producers Pick I will know if it’s authentic or not. If it’s not I just need to remember not to cry on camera! If it’s authentic then I will cry. Either way I love this and if it’s authentic I won’t own it any longer. If not so be it, it is beautiful and alive.
I apologize for this meandering mess but what prompted it is that as a lifelong art lover it’s possible to have very divergent taste. The thing they have in common is the skill and execution that tells a story and stirs the heart.
That's quite a story Maggie. I have a little oil painting of a pair of fur trappers in the snow by a log cabin. It was probably made in the 19-teens. But there's no signature or other trail of provenance. I got it from a fellow WCS alum in Vermont. His dad picked it up at an antiques and art gallery in Chadd's Ford, PA in the mid 1980s, but the picture has an early luggage label from Grand Central Station in New York on the back, so at least we know that it was in NYC early in its life. Anyway I saw this thing on a Facebook post that my pal put up and knew instantly that it was by an Ashcan School painter, and in my opinion, painted by George Bellows. I did a lot of research on it, including by doing an elaborate handwriting analysis on the brushwork by comparing the marks at scale to identical passages in known Bellows pictures. I even wrote a book about it. But when I tried to show it to various "experts" nobody would talk to me about the thing because it's unsigned, doesn't look like a typical Bellows scene, has no provenance, and doesn't exist in the catalogues Raisonné. I believe it to be a spec illustration that Bellows did when he was young and hungry in New York and looking for work as an illustrator. I did much the same at the same age and in the same city. I made a couple illustrations in paint hoping to get some work like that after college and they looked nothing like my more typical city scenes at the time. This is not a typical Bellows subject at all, but it does look like an illustration for some contemporary writer, like maybe in a Jack London story. Bellows illustrated with drawings for various magazines at the time but at the time, the more lucrative jobs that actually involved painting were for color illustrations in kids' books like the Scribner's Classics which folks like N.C. Wyeth, Howard Pyle and Maxfield Parrish painted for. This looks to me like Bellows trying to land one of those gigs. It's a tough racket trying to get the establishment to look at, much less accept a story like that about a painting with no track record though. I feel for ya!!
Hi Chris, thankfully the Cros painting is signed! The ( maybe) Basquiat has the iconic images, poetry typical of his early work, age and style. The person who owned it died and his mother was getting rid of the art he had owned. Given Basquiat’s history we know he traded art for drugs. There is an area at the bottom of the one I have it looks like someone added a painted white section with Basquiats birth date and death date. This paint doesn’t match to anything used elsewhere and looks blatantly out of place. It’s long shot and magical thinking but it’s possible that whoever last owned this knew Basquiat … his drug dealer perhaps, and added this to the painting when Basquiat died .
The seashell sellers didn’t posses any knowledge whatsoever about the piece I bought. In fact, after I paid for it and had it in my arms I asked the woman who made the seashell “art” to write down her name and phone number. She asked why I wanted it and I told her that if the painting I bought from her turned out to be an original I would want to better compensate her. I mention the name “ Basquiat “ and she couldn’t pronounce it. Again, it’s likely not authentic since I don’t think I’m the Indiana Jones of art world rare discoveries! The odds are against this but I have studied art as my most passionate hobby for most of my life and I have a good eye and better instincts. Regardless of the outcome come I love this piece. Nothing about my love of art has ever had anything to do with making money. My practice as an Interior Designer is my income source. Luckily I don’t make art for a living or I would have starved to death !
I hope to run into you in Newport at Jessica’s this summer. Be well my friend.
Christopher, I had Lee as a teacher at Brooklyn College and she once told us that she often got her canvases (the ones used in this series of pieces) off the street. The canvases came from U.S. Postal service mail bags left at various locations for mailmen to use for transferring mail. She didn't realize that these empty bags were not trash. LOL!
On the topic of "quality" or "good" vs "bad" art, so much is a matter of taste, of course. Lee's work is a perfect example. The powerful pieces she created that got her worldwide attention turned out to be a brief period in her creative life. She stopped that series quite early, by the 1970s. After that she taught and continued to work in her studio. But nothing was shown for a long time. When the new work came out—sculptures made from stretched paper or vacuum-formed clear plastic over lightweight armatures—it was no longer abstract, but depicted fish.
One can see how they were an extension of her earlier work, in their construction. YET I was embarrassed by them. They reminded me of the blow-up puffer fish lamps you could see in Polynesian-themed restaurants. This later work wasn't anywhere NEAR what she had done earlier, which was abstract and evocative of the horror of war. The later work was, literally, "light weight," but not because of the form/materials; it was the lack of power, focus, topic. These were merely crafted objects that held nothing beyond their physical presence; nothing evoked. Perhaps that is one way to judge quality.
oh bontecou