Is Great Art Worth The Price?

[PeterRS]

I was talking to friends last night about the James Bond movies and who might be taking over from Daniel Craig. It reminded me of "Dr. No" which had an 'in' joke in which Sean Connery is about to go up a staircase when he spots a famous painting. The Duke of Wellington by Goya had been stolen a year earlier and disappeared. It eventually was recovered 3 years later.

Photo: United Artists

It started us discussing not merely art theft but stolen art (of which the Nazi hierarchy were probably the best) and art which is kept from public view in the homes of the mega-rich. Many major stolen artworks have never been recovered. These include works by Picasso, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Van Gogh, Raphael, Cezanne and Monet. Indeed the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 and lost for 2 years before turning up in Florence.

From there the discussion became complicated over what constitutes great art. The work of so many artists which fetch tens of millions of $$ at auction nowadays was worth cirtually nothing when it was created. Indeed, some was given away as a means of paying off debts.

And the provenance of some is not even absolutely certain. The world's most expensive painting is the Salvador Mundi which sold to an anonymous buyer for over US$450 million in 2017. It's currently displayed in the Louvre Gallery in Abu Dhabi. It reached that price because it was one of the only available paintings by Leonardo da Vinci. But did he paint it? Experts are split. Most seem to agree that his students painted much of the work with Leonardo adding in only certain parts. 

The second most expensive painting is Willem de Kooning's Interchange. It cost US$300 at auction in 2015. When finished in 1955, de Kooning sold it for $4,000!

What makes this worth such a monstrous amount, I have not the faintest idea. A child could surely have painted it. Although owned by a private individual, the public can at least view it as it is loaned to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Artefacts are similarly in private hands, only some available for viewing. I remember my first visit to New York in 1978. On my list of things to do was a visit to the Forbes Building (since 2015 part of New York University) where 9 of the exquisite Faberge Eggs were displayed behind glass in the lobby. Faberge was one of the most lauded jewellers of his or any time. The last 2 Tsars had commissioned him to make a special Egg as an Easter gift for their wives. Many contained other jewelled trinkets, one including a working tiny train. Anyone could go in to the Forbes Building to see them. I have been fascinated by these creations since I first became aware of them and have seen several others, including the 3 in the British Royal Collection. I always wondered why the Soviet Union allowed these treasures to leave the country. It turned out that about 10 years after the Revolution Stalin was desperate for foreign currency. So he raided the country's treasures which had been crated up after the Revolution. One of his friends was the oil billionaire Armand Hammer. Thus Hammer came into possession of many of the Eggs along with a large number of other treasures at virtually knock-down prices.

Originally the Eggs were regarded as little more than mere trinkets. One sold for just US$500. As the value of the Eggs plummeted further during the Great Depression, one of Hammer's friends rather ironically observed that whilst indisuptably beautiful, you could not eat them! I have no idea where Forbes got his Eggs but it is known that Stalln's thugs sold 14 of them.

Photos: wikipedia

By the time of Forbes' death, he had added another 3 to his collection, But his sons did not want them and put the Eggs up for auction. Before the sale, a Russian oligarch purchased the lot for US$100 million. In 2013 he opened a Museum in St. Petersburg where they are now displayed. It boasts more than the 10 which remain in the Kremlin Museum in Moscow.

Our discussion had been started as a result of an article in yesterday's Guardian newspaper about a squillianaire Stefan Soloviev  who finally opened the door to the private New York art collection mainly purchased by his late father. At 9 West 57th Street, a small group waited to be ushered in to see a treasure trove that includes masterpieces by Picasso, Matisse, four by Cezanne, three by Miro, a Henry Moore statue and other paintings by Giacometti and Van Gogh. Many of the artworks are owned by a non-profit Foundation which means they are suppposed to be exhibited publicly. Until yesterday, they could only be seen through thick windows, unlike the Forbes Faberge Eggs which were very tastefully lit behind almost invisible glass. Many more existing private collections avoided tax through the Foundation route. Hopefully more of their artworks wil be displayed publicly sooner rather than later. 

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jul/11/soloviev-collection-billionaire-private-art-museum-new-york

[caeron]

I have always found the art market to be incomprehensible. The modern art market at least seems to be entirely made up of mad trend chasers. A few lucky artists get named the "in crowd" and people flock to pay ridiculous amounts for their work.

Watched a good documentary "The Price of Everything" about it. Not sure it gave me any more insight into the madness. I was less than impressed with many of the pieces that were selling for huge amounts.

For example, why in the world is Rothko such an acclaimed artist for painting things like this which sold for $45M in 2014?

 

Baffling.

It feels like the rich people version of designer clothes. You buy a label to tell people you have taste instead of, you know, having taste. Art for the rich and insecure.

 

 

[PeterRS]

Some years ago i visited the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice which is acknowledged as the finest collection of 20th century American and European Art in Italy. In 1976 she sold her entire collection to the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation for US$40 million. Presumably the collection has increased in value and is now likely to be well in excess of $120 million (my guess).

Lke the Rothko in @caeron's post, I totally fail to understand why many contemporary works are worth virtually anything. Two works currently exhibited in the Venice Museum are by Severin and Bissler (never heard of either!)

I suppose at least the Severin is colourful! I tend to view contemporary art (most of which I loathe!) rather like contemporary classical music (at least a handful of works which I do like). Most surely will just not last the test of time. But then if you are a billionaire with millions to spare, I suppose purchasing a contemporary work of art may mean you hit a financial jackpot some years down the road. But then none of us will survive to know which if any do. 

I can't help comparing some contemporary art with arguably my favourite painting now hanging at London's lovely Courtauld Gallery. A Bar at the Follies Bergere was painted by Edouard Manet in 1882. It last sold for $4.4 million in 1994, a price that seems to me incomparably cheap. No doubt it is now vastly more valuable. When I first saw it 8 years ago, I spent at least 15 minutes gazing at the painting and all its quite amazing detail as well as trying to work out who the figures are and why Manet chose the background to be a reflection in a curved mirror. Interestingly the original painting was purchased by the composer Chabrier whose work Espagna is known by almost everyone!

[asdsrfr]

While speaking of great art one cannot forget the famous banana that sold for $ 120,000. A bargain compared to some of the prices discussed here.

[PeterRS]

3 hours ago, asdsrfr said:

While speaking of great art one cannot forget the famous banana that sold for $ 120,000. A bargain compared to some of the prices discussed here.

Ah, the banana! Of great interest to readers here, although not the yellow, slightly rotted ones!

That particular banana was featured in Art Basel in Miami Beach in 2019 and did indeed sell for $120,000. Only there were in fact three bananas! The conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan who came up with the idea called the work Comedian. Pretty appropriate I guess since you'd have to be something of a comedian to lash out $120K for that piece of crap . . . err.. art!  In fact, though, Comedian was so successful there were two other buyers. The second buyer paid the same price. By the time the third came along, the price had gone up to $150K. Apparently, according to some sort of connoisseur, when you buy it you are not buying a piece of art; you are buying an idea.

One visitor to the Exhibition liked the work so much, he literally ate the banana. Took it off the 'artwork', peeled it and ate it. That visitor was in fact a performance artist, David Tatuna.  “Art performance by me. I love Maurizio Cattelan artwork and I really love this installation. It’s very delicious.” Asked how it tasted, he explained, "Like $120K!"

The gallery merely replaced the now eaten banana with another, and no one seemed to know the difference. And isn't that the good thing about a work like Comedian? Once it rots, you merely replace it with another. So inexpensive. Will the three that were sold rise even further in value? Ah, now there is the question. How long is a piece of string? And how much crap in a piece of shit?

https://www.vogue.com/article/the-120000-art-basel-banana-explained-maurizio-cattelan

[caeron]

 

I do think Comedian is a very funny critique of the idiocy of the modern art world.

My favorite painting hangs in the Frick which is also my favorite museum. It doesn't show well online.

 

 

It is Antwerp: Van Goyen Looking Out for a Subject by Turner.  In person, the light streaming through the clouds is just breathtaking to me.

 

[PeterRS]

Totally agree about the Frick. Visted on my first ever visit to NYC and many times since. Its Piero della Francescas, 3 Vermeers, Rembrandt, Goya, Holbein, Renoir, Reynolds, Manet, Gainsboroughs and especially the Fragonards are perfectly lovely in that rather intimate setting. Perfect in size and with beautiful works of art which do not leave you with visual indigestion!

I cannot say I have a favourite but I do have a soft spot for Tintoretto's painting of the Venetian Ambassador.

But that is probably because when I see it I am reminded of several lovely evenings spent listening to an ensemble playing Vivaldi and other baroque composers in the Upper Hall of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice decorated entirely with so many of Tintoretto's paintings .