General

Picasso in Exile

General

Why bother visiting Paris, you might ask, as long as the Picasso Museum remains closed?  Good question.  But my family and I decided to go anyway, unwilling to wait another year.  Our Picasso treasure hunt therefore required a little extra work, since you couldn’t very well go to just one place and be greeted by Picasso’s many persons and things.  Our first Picasso sighting was just a fortunate accident–while strolling near our flat, my wife Casey spotted this wonderful, if bird-stained, bronze of Dora Maar (Tête de femme, aka Monument à Guillaume Apollinaire) in a small garden in the shadow of the gothic Church of St. Germain des Prés (located at its eponymous square).  This wartime sculpture (1941) was chosen by committee to […]

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Scam, or Not? You be the judge….

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To add to the ever-increasing list of art scams comes this story, which distinguishes itself with its novel, dramatic flair.  I should say “possible” art scams, since this one remains unproved.  As you know, usually I write only about Picasso, but this tale seemed so unusual that it grabbed my attention.  How about I lay bare the story and you could be the judge? About a month ago, on a fine spring morning, two friends of mine, a well-heeled Bay Area couple on a jaunt to NY, stumbled into a Chelsea gallery, where an installation of works on paper by a Japanese artist was being hung.  They fell in love with two of the artworks, each measuring around 2 x

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WHAT’S NOT THERE

General

The Picasso Museum on wheels, currently at the de Young in San Francisco, is such a wonderful show (see “Picasso by the Bay” below) that it’s almost easier to discuss what’s not there than what is.  Well not quite, though each great Picasso, in addition to being loved and understood on its own merits, must be seen in the context of his entire oeuvre for full appreciation, given the added dimensions that the context inevitably provides.  I won’t again trot out the by now overused Picasso-ism about the movement of his thought interesting him (in his later years) more than the thought itself–there, I said it anyway. But nowhere is that movement better preserved, with the exception of the successive

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Picasso by the Bay

General

  San Francisco is so awash in Picasso this summer that I feel like I never left New York.  First the Steins’ Picassos, then the de Young, last night Woody Alan (pleasant fluff, but what a one-dimensional Picasso; though I suppose Woody may not have needed any more dimensions in the service of his film), and we haven’t yet even gotten to the ceramics show at the Legion of Honor.  The Steins Collect show at the SFMOMA is quite wonderful (ending Sept. 6; see above), but since it trails off near the beginning of Synthetic Cubism (when Picassos grew too dear for the Steins’ budget), it is good preparation for the de Young Museum exhibit: Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National

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THE STEINS COLLECT

General

Among the ways the Stein collection (currently on view at the SFMOMA) can be viewed is as one family’s referendum on the time-honored debate among art lovers: Picasso versus Matisse.  Those two artists contributed most of the significant pieces to the collection. Yet in addition to her brother Leo’s objection to  Gertrude’s sapphic relationship, the disagreement that developed between these siblings as to who was the better artist, Matisse or Picasso, tore them apart, drove Leo out of their shared apartment, and caused each of them to divest most of his or her holdings of the artist who had lost favor.  They’re presumably not the first couple to have suffered such a fate (though they may have been the first).  The poet

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Dachshund Alert!

General

I think I’ve finally met my match.  Last week we were visited by an intellectual, race car driver, entrepreneur,  and art collector, who I’m happy to report is just as quirky as I am.  Only the object of his obsession is not Picassos in general, but just portraits of Picasso’s dachshund Lump.  Now, I love my dog as much as my next child, but this guy’s got me beat.  His dachshund is five, and he says that’s the longest relationship he’s had with any woman.  He dotes on his girl, and wants to hang her portrait.  But it’s gotta be by Picasso! Problem is, there are no available Picassos of Lump, or at least none that I know of.  There

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Wuzzon on da Block?

General

1932 was a great year for Picasso.  He had just turned 50, which must have made him want to take stock.  He was also commemorating that birthday by personally curating his first museum show, which took place that year in Zurich and which has now been largely reassembled in an exhibit at the same museum, Kunsthaus Zürich, ending January 30–as far as I know the only artist’s show ever to be revived (a nice catalogue accompanies the show entitled Picasso by Picasso: His First Museum Exhibition 1932).  Picasso had long since emerged as the preeminent artist of his time, but this year, as if to underscore his supremacy, he had revved up into high gear and was cranking out one masterpiece

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The State of the Art: The Picasso Market as of September, 2010

Collecting, General

The Picasso print sale of the millennium just came and went (Sotheby’s London), so one would think it might deserve comment, not least of all because it was such a strong auction.   Yeah, I know that’s a pretty bold statement, given that the millennium isn’t even half over.   OK, so it was at least one of the two sales of the millennium.  Depending on which prints you’re most interested in, you might prefer to nominate the Mourlot estate sale at Christie’s NY in 2003 for that honor.   But the auction last week included Picasso’s two most expensive prints, and quite a number of other great works.  It also set some world’s records, especially for the most valuable pieces.

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He’s Back!

Collecting, General

  He’s back!  Four years and one lawsuit later, the angel has descended again.  This portrait is, I’m convinced, the best Blue Period painting not yet in a museum, and one of the best of all.   If I had a cool hundred mil to blow, I would have held my fire when the Marie-Therese was up last month and would have set my sights on him.  She’s not the best Marie-Therese by a long shot, but she was available, and I suppose you gotta love the one you’re with.  Or not. The Portrait de Angel Fernandez de Soto is such a powerful work.  I stood transfixed before it  for quite a while four years ago and regret that I won’t be

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Art as Investment: The Mei Moses® Fine Art Index

Collecting, General

I’m often asked about my opinion of art as investment.  My opinion, whatever it is, is presumably clouded by my love for Picasso.  Better to direct such inquiries to the Mei Moses® Fine Art Index  (artasanasset.com), a statistical database and analysis compiled by two NYU economists.  Quite sensibly, they limit their statistics only to auctioned works (so that the facts of the sale are in the public domain and known beyond any doubt) and further limit their stats to those works that have sold at auction more than once.  That is, they compare only the prices achieved at auction for two or more sales of the same artwork.  The advantage is immediately evident: they’re comparing only like commodities.  More than

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