It Was From His Blue Period
link Freud, Art Star Prices May Surge 30% This Year, Survey Says – Bloomberg.com
If I painted a portrait of some flowers in a vase, it would obviously give me some pleasure. Presumably, those of my friends with any taste would agree and compliment me on my artistic genius. The really nice ones might even deign to insult me by offering money for this masterpiece. Apart from my towering reputation in the art world, the price of the painting would be determined mainly by what value the buyer would ascribe to owning this piece of timeless genius.
Value and beauty is in the eye of the beholder as the old saying goes and so it’s difficult to peg a price for any piece of art. If we extrapolate this logic to works in the art world created by the well known masters such as Van Gogh, Cezanne, da Vinci etc etc, then the price of art should reflect the genuine desire of the purchaser to enjoy the particular piece of work. Since the artists named are long dead, scarcity comes into the calculation of price since Vinny can’t just whip off another Sunflowers by the weekend.
What has happened in the art world is that enjoyment of art is completely removed from the value and pricing of art. It’s highly doubtful that any purchaser can sit in a chair, gaze intently at Sunflowers by Van Gogh and derive $60 million dollars worth of pleasure from it. After 30 minutes or so, anyone would be tempted to see what’s happening in the football game on TV.
No, the value, or more correctly, the pricing of art is controlled by a small cabal of Dealers such as Sotheby’s, Christie’s and others who determine thus on behalf of clients with money to spend. So, think about this, not only do they set the price for art work, they also get a commission for selling them at auctions or galleries. That’s a nice gig. Imagine sending the husband out to get something to fill the wall in the east foyer and he comes back with a $25 million dollar Cezanne, which is a heck of a deal because the dealer assured him that the price will appreciate by 30 percent over the next 18 months or so. As discussed earlier, one can arguably justify the price based on scarcity value.
In most modern galleries however, it’s unlikely that original works of the great masters will be available for such purchase. More likely they will be the works of someone a little more pedestrian but whom the dealer assures shows great promise. In reality, the money changes hands not because the blue in the artwork happens to complement the periwinkle in the foyer, but because the dealer has blessed the piece as a good investment. The enjoyment factor has almost nothing to do with it. The job of the dealer is to describe the piece with eloquent prose in order to assuage the purchaser of his good judgement, but really, the art is only bought…to be sold, sometime down the road.
Post the Bernie Madoff ponzi scandal, it’s absolutely fascinating that money will bid up the price of ‘art’ solely based on the say so of a very small band of people on the inside. As the article opines, when a dealer says that prices will rise by 30 percent, it’s very believable because they are on both sides of the market. It’s the ultimate game of musical chairs.