I’ve belatedly considered that it might be useful to indicate here when I’ve updated any of the Collecting Guides. Well, perhaps you might like to know that I’ve just expanded the discussion on the fading of prints, which you could find in the “Collecting Pitfalls” chapter of The Guide to Collecting Picasso’s Prints, just a little ways down from the top….
“The more I see, the less I know.” – Michael Franti Weeks have passed, but I still can’t seem to get my mind around Giacometti’s 100 million dollar man. A 104.3, to be exact. (As you may have guessed, I didn’t have the same mental block when it came to Picasso’s 100 million dollar boy.) I thought I liked Alberto Giacometti as much as the next guy, but I guess I was wrong. He made some wonderful sculptures, but, at 100 million dollars, not to mention his other recent stratospheric prices, I am forced to conclude that he is an amazingly overrated artist. And this sculpture was not even close to one of his best, as far as I’m concerned.
The 100 Million Dollar Man Read More »
This lovely Picasso, Femme au chapeau (circa 1955), is courtesy of a Picasso lover and aspiring collector, who writes, “Just to give you a bit more background from my end, my wife is a sculptor and we obviously have a shared interest in art. I’ve become fascinated by Picasso over the years, and owning a print has been a longstanding ambition. “There’s also a family connection – my father and a friend spent a week with Picasso in the south of France in (I believe) 1955. As I understand it, the friend (Ernest Asher) knew Picasso – he may have been his dentist. As my father told it, they got on very well; my father (then and later) didn’t
A PICASSO LOVER’S DILEMMA Read More »
In view of the chap who just pled guilty to selling fake Picassos on eBay (see, for example, yesterday’s NY Times online article, “Chicago Man Admits He Sold Bogus Picassos on eBay”, which begins as follows, “A suburban Chicago man pleaded guilty Tuesday to swindling at least 250 people out of more than $1 million through the sale of counterfeit prints advertised as the work of Pablo Picasso and other major contemporary artists”), I thought I’d post an exchange I had with another eBay seller some time ago, as follows, beginning with the email that first drew me in. (This is a long exchange rife with more detail than you might wish. But, if you don’t mind my saying so,
Anatomy of an Art Fraud on eBay Read More »
Last week my six-year-old came home from school loaded up with books from the school book fair but nonetheless wanting to Amazon another, How to Read People’s Minds. Now, among other considerations, I try to evaluate my kids’ “needs” (they always classify their wants as such) through the prism of educational merit. From that perspective, this request was an easy one to accept. Much of one’s success in life is supposed to be related to EQ (emotional intelligence), of which understanding other people plays a large part. (Dubya is supposed to have had it in spades, though, personally, I’d rather have a beer with Barack any day of the week. And, anyway, if I were imbibing with Dubya, I’d request
THE DOCTORS, THE DENTISTS, & THE DIRTY DEALS: PiCostco, A Slight Return Read More »
There are those collectors who love the art no matter how small, and there are those who won’t look at a piece if it doesn’t reach a certain size. This “column” is for the former. Having addressed the merits of collecting small art works before, I would now like to further the discussion by drawing your attention to two highlights of this spring auction season. They demonstrate both the highs and lows of collecting miniature Picassos. Well, just the current high, not the real highs—some of those were most recently sold a couple of years ago (see Does Size Matter?). First the low: the 1919 gouache and pencil, Nature morte à la guitare that went for a giveaway 60,000 Euro
THE MINIATURE PICASSO COLLECTOR’S CORNER Read More »
A collector on whose behalf I am about to bid at auction just posed the following question: how many years back has the art market now retreated? To provide a satisfactory answer, one would have to do a formal statistical analysis, for which I have neither the tools, time, nor inclination. Shooting from the hip, most people last November were saying 2006, and the market has certainly improved and partially stabilized since then, at least for the time being. Having just perused representative auction catalogues from years past, I fear that 2005 is closer to the mark on average for Picasso prints. But, mostly, I find it impossible to generalize in any meaningful way, because Picassos of different media and
Looks like we won’t have a chance to see the blockbuster Gagosian show. By now I’ve however looked through the catalogue a couple of times and am deeply impressed by the assortment of wonderful paintings he amassed for it. (I’m not so big on late Picasso prints, with a few notable exceptions.) John Richardson’s essay was of course also quite gratifying, as usual. This is not at all a criticism, for as Richardson somewhere says, including drawings would have of necessity greatly broadened the scope of the show. It would, I imagine, have been difficult to assemble a suitably representative cross-section of his late works on paper, since his output in the last few years was both vast and varied.
Never Too Late Picasso Read More »
Here’s what’s been going on in the Picasso market, in broad brushstrokes, and as I see it. A number of collectors have sat on the sidelines while waiting for the art market to crash and compelling bargains to appear. Well, many prices have come down, and there have been occasional bargains. But the bottom hasn’t yet fallen out of the market. Instead, the major change that has occurred has been on the seller’s side. Sellers with whom I regularly jawbone have held their prices steady or have modestly reduced them, on the theory that it would be a mistake to let wonderful things go for nothing when the economy is sure to turn around. The effect of the market upon
THE ART MARKET, REDUX Read More »
After talking with a prospective client yesterday, it occurred to me that he was nearing a decision between three or more Picasso linocuts and aquatints without the benefit of viewing any of them in the flesh. And that, despite the fact that all or nearly all of the art was in the inventory of dealers (myself included) within several miles of his home. Mulling this over after our conversation, I felt that I should encourage him, and, while I’m at it, the rest of you Picasso lovers and collectors out there to actually see the art. It tends to be much more powerful when seen in person than when viewing photographs of it. I shop at a distance all the