Previous Posts: March 2015

Depicting the couple on the English countryside estate, the accentuated colours of the blue in Mrs Andrews dress and the stormy skies contrast with the fresh green of the fields. The colours are replicated in this splendid bouquet with deep blue Agapanthus and pale blue Eryngium against a perfect backdrop of fresh yellow Roses and wispy sprays of Solidaster.

One task I don’t envy him is dealing with what many perceive to be a culture of negativity and complaint among curatorial staff in a gallery that is, after all, amply staffed and reasonably well funded – at least by comparison to other national museums. Last month, Gallery staff also went on strike, twice, in a row over the privitisation of visitor services, with a further strike expected next week.

However, I presume that someone who has just been through a trial by fire such as the Spanish economy will be well prepared for what look like very difficult years ahead for our National Museums.

M. Rykner is absolutely right to be outraged at the granting of an export permit — not simply artistically, because these are a pair of Rembrandts, but because the French authorities are clearly violating the rule of law: their own law which, as M. Rykner says, must surely require this pair of paintings be designated a “national treasure”.  Then, and only then, the question arises of whether or not the paintings can be afforded by the state; if not, they might be exported.  But for the authorities to argue that these paintings are not a “national treasure”, motivated by financial grounds, is unlawful, untruthful, and apparently an underhanded attempt to obscure their financial cowardice —  or if it is truly financial “prudence”, if this national treasure can’t be afforded, say so, face up, honestly, don’t try to hide behind a false refusal to designate them properly.

The French rules on 'national treasures' are very similar to those of the British government on the Waverley criteria, viz. a strictly impartial judgement on whether a work of art fulfils certain criteria of pre-eminence. In both cases, they should be completely irrespective of whether a national institution can afford to buy the work of art in question.  In failing to object to the export of the Rothschild Rembrandts, the Director of the Louvre has signally failed to observe the spirit (and probably the letter) of the legislation, and [is in danger of laying] himself open to charges of incompetence or corruption.

In addition, it is extremely unfortunate that the European Commission has no effective mechanism for protecting European heritage, which might enable it to supersede national governments in this, as in so many other areas of policy.

[...] several Old Master dealers at Tefaf are saying they will not be returning to Frieze Masters this October.

Bosses suspended PCS union rep Candy Udwin on the eve of the strike in an attempt to undermine the action.

But it’s made workers more determined to fight back. 

Candy addressed a public meeting attended by some 100 supporters including PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka and left wing Labour MP John McDonnell in parliament on Tuesday of last week. [...]

Serwotka said that workers could win, and that gallery bosses’ attacks on Candy were “trumped up charges of the worst order”.

Guardian newspaper columnist Polly Toynbee said, “I think you will win. I have had a bigger response from readers to this than many other issues.”

Support is pouring in for Candy from trade unionists and campaigners—with thousands signing a petition calling for her reinstatement.

Workers at the Ritzy cinema and the Dulwich Picture Gallery were among those at the public rally in parliament, as were artists Bob and Roberta Smith.

Workers are having pictures taken with “Reinstate Candy” posters to demonstrate their support.

Members of the firefighters’ FBU union posed with the signs at their recall conference last week. 

And Candy was warmly received when she spoke at a rally in London last Sunday in solidarity with Greece. [...]

As Candy said, “The nationwide solidarity makes us believe we can win. 

“But it should also give everyone heart to see how much backing there is for anyone who stands up against privatisation, cuts and the austerity policies of this government.”

I am not a historian, a critic or a writer. I am a fan, an artist myself and I suppose a collector. I collect a lot of different kinds of art, contemporary, ancient, Japanese and 17th and 18th century European. I get interested in things because they seem to jump out at me. It can be because the thing relates to what I am making or  because it shows me what I could make. The object can be from anywhere and from any time, I recently bought a painting on buffalo hide by mid 19th C Pawnee Native Americans.

Having noticed British painting some years back I moved from the early 17th Century forwards and eventually arrived at Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney and Ramsay. They were the giants of the late 18th Century each with their own style and particular brilliance. All artists learn from previous art and refer to previous art. I may be high up on that particular scale. 

Walking down Dover street in Mayfair my wife and I spotted a small, dark painting leaning against the wall in my favourite Old Master gallery. Sometimes I see an art work and the day seems to stop. Other things, normal things are forgotten and there is only the fact of looking at the thing. I love the feeling, of being totally focused and engaged and enthusiastic. Other paintings remain paintings but I seem to enter the space of some works. I don't care really when the work was made or by whom. I don't care what or who it is of. Well, I do read about the period and learn all I can finding out about other artists in the process. I want to stare at the artwork and if possible to have it. After some negotiations ( the painting was reserved by someone else) I bought Mr Bradyll [above] and have looked at it almost every day since then. It is particularly vivid as it’s painted thickly and fast on a wooden board and thus has faded less than much of Reynold’s work.

I had always admired Reynolds even as a student when I only knew of him in a general sense as an old master. There is a melancholic and gentle quality to his work. The slightly deathly mood ( enhanced by the tendency of his skin colours to fade to pale) is offset by a vivid, powerful sense of presence. Like many 18th Century works the compositions are elegant and balanced and there is a piercing sincerity and fresh energy and optimism to the paintings. 

These days we usually see good paintings in museums and museums tend to focus on the interesting and the grand. It's hard for them to write about yet another portrait of an aristocrat done in oil paint. There are thousands of them, all the same set size and although I can tell a lot of them apart they look remarkably similar on the surface. In the case of Reynolds this bias is a shame. His best works are the workaday portraits commissioned to be hung in people's homes. There is an energetic modesty and sense of sureness and purpose to these works. Reynolds helped to set up and then directed the first public English gallery where artists could exhibit their work, the Royal Academy. This was part of a whole move away from artist as commissioned portraitist, the end of a golden age and the end of my interest in English painting really. The mythological later works of Reynolds are pompous and stiff and dated but a huge number of his hundreds of commissioned portraits are still glowingly intense and alive. 

Like most British portrait painters Reynolds came from the tradition of Dutch portraiture introduced by Van Dyke, Cornelius Johnson and others in the early 17th Century. Reynolds travelled to Italy to learn from earlier Italian late Renaissance painters like Raphael and Titian. He then applied the techniques and compositions to his busy London studio practice. Daily sessions of portrait sittings undertaken to order. Paintings then often sent by cart to drapery painters such as the brilliant Van Aken who did all the top artist’s drapery. For a set price and at a set size you could have a head or a three quarter length or a fabulous full length portrait. You could get more than one copy. It was a service and artists knew what their job was. 

Reynolds experimented and borrowed and imitated. He played with props and poses and above all lighting and painting technique. Dappled light and shadows falling across complicated drapery gave glamour and depth and life. He often used gracious garden settings or exciting wild skies as backdrops as did his contemporaries, to add a sense of depth, place, narrative and an almost cinematic realism. Towards the end of his career these became somewhat overblown or sentimental with young girls hugging smiling sheep and young men dashing through arcadian woods with bows and arrows - by this stage I have lost interest.

A lot of emphasis is often put on the fame or glamour of the sitter and although there can be amusing stories to be told and although the whole complex system of portraiture, wealth, propaganda, society and patronage is important it’s not really what interests me.I do like to know about the role of art and artists and understand the changing way in which artists can work and exhibit but in the end I love to gaze at paintings and see what they do to my eyes and mind. Art can open up the past and bring you directly into the minds and views of other periods almost like time travel. 

The amazing sense of presence in the best of the artists of this time was a pinnacle of a shared purpose and set of techniques. Now we have no idea what we are supposed to be doing as artists, which is a freedom and of course confusing. Reynolds holds all this richness at the end of the golden Age of Enlightenment in late 18th Century London just before most British art fell into the sentimentality, corruption and slick academic tedium of the 19th C.

Gerhard Richter, the world-famous German painter, has expressed his incredulity at the astronomical sums paid for his works, calling the art market “hopelessly excessive” and saying that prices are rarely a reflection on quality.

Richter, 83, told the German daily Die Zeit he had watched the outcome of a recent auction at Sotheby’s in London with horror after an anonymous buyer paid £30.4m (€41m, $46.5m) for his 1986 oil-on-canvas, Abstraktes Bild.

We artists get next to nothing from such an auction. Except for a small morsel, all the profit goes to the seller

“The records keep being broken and every time my initial reaction is one of horror even if it’s actually welcome news. But there is something really shocking about the amount,” Richter said.

He said he believed people who paid so much money for his paintings were foolish and foresaw that prices for his art would crash “when the art market corrects itself”, as he was convinced it would.

Seen as the leader of the New European Painting movement which emerged in the second half of the 20th century, Richter made a name for himself with “photo-paintings” that replicate photographs and are then “blurred” with a squeegee or a brush.

The price paid for Abstraktes Bild amounted to a staggering 5,000-fold increase on the price he had originally sold it for, he said.

He told the weekly newspaper that he understood as much about the art market as he did “about Chinese or physics”, and said contrary to a common perception he hardly benefited at all from such sales.

“We artists get next to nothing from such an auction. Except for a small morsel, all the profit goes to the seller,” he said.

The British art historian, broadcaster and former dealer Bendor Grosvenor strongly disagrees that the Old Master market is in retreat. He puts the blame for its supposed decline on the dealers and the ease with which collectors can access prices online. “The old retail-style operation, which is how many of the ‘established’ dealers began, is finished,” he says. Dealers can no longer buy a work at auction, then turn around and sell it with a nice mark-up. “Within 30 seconds, a potential buyer can walk out of your gallery and find out what you paid for a picture and often won’t come back,” he says. “The new collectors—for they indeed exist—aren’t going into those upstairs galleries you have to press a buzzer to get into, or visiting faraway Maastricht or browsing dealers’ websites to buy art any more. Like it or not, to these collectors, direct buying at auction offers an excitement and a belief that what one is buying is good value, and very few dealers can compete with that.”

Buying at auction is now seen so differently; it’s exciting, it’s almost cool, and it’s perceived as being good value (though there’s much to be said about that aspect of it). The thing is, it’s a process very few dealers can compete against.

The market is changing, there’s no doubt about that, as indeed is taste. Taste changes all the time. But I’d wager most of the dealers you spoke to are those who aren’t aware of how the business is changing too. 

Put simply, the old retail-style operation, which is how many of the 'established’ dealers began, is bust, kaput, finished. Even in the last ten/fifteen years or so you could get away with buying a picture at Christie’s, then walking over the road to your gallery in St James or whatever snippy part of Manhattan Old Master dealers occupy, and stick in the window with mark up. But that doesn’t work any more. Now, within thirty seconds, a potential buyer can walk out of your gallery and find out what you paid for a picture. And usually, once they’ve figured out your margin, they don’t walk back… 

But still dealers keep the same gallery spaces, go to the same fairs, market themselves in the same way, and wonder what the hell happened to all their clients, and why there are no new ones. 

The ‘new’ collectors (for they indeed exist) aren’t going to go into those upstairs galleries you have to press a buzzer to get into, or those fairs in faraway Maastricht, or browse dealer’s often pretty rubbish websites, to buy art anymore. Their whole manner of buying stuff – any stuff – is very different. 

I suppose it’s true that, when it comes to the auction houses, it’s a case of ‘they would say that, wouldn’t they?’ [in regard to the auction houses saying that, in contrast to some dealers' reports, the Old Master market was actually doing very well] But there’s no denying that the auction houses have taken a sizeable, and growing chunk of the clientele that used to go to, or would be expected to go to, dealers. Buying at auction is now seen so differently; it’s exciting, it’s almost cool, and it’s perceived as being good value (though there’s much to be said about that aspect of it). The thing is, it’s a process very few dealers can compete against.  

And someone new is buying art from the auction houses. That Chinese collector who bought a Vermeer last year for £6m exists, I saw him. As I suppose does the one who paid millions for a Rembrandt, and who are the people buying Stubbs for close on £20m? They exist too. And you’ve only to look at the market for pre-Raphaelites to see how a sector of the art market can be transformed by just a handful of collectors competing for works. 

If it were the case the nobody was visiting the Louvre, or the National Gallery in London, neither of which contain much modern or contemporary art, then I’d believe people when they say ‘nobody’s interested in Old Masters’ any more. But people are queuing to get into those galleries as never before. 

There is a way of selling even middle market pictures successfully, and (thought this sounds a boast) I know how to do it. I know others that can do it too. It’s true, there’s not many of them. Often, it’s all a question of context and presentation – you’d be amazed at how few people can genuinely make an Old Master painting interesting or exciting. Then there’s the whole other question of expertise, and who collectors are willing to trust (these days, mainly the auction houses).

A landscape by Vincent van Gogh is to be exhibited for the first time in more than 100 years following the discovery of crucial evidence that firmly traces back its history directly to the artist.

The significance of two handwritten numbers scribbled almost imperceptibly on the back had been overlooked until now. They have been found to correspond precisely with those on two separate lists of Van Gogh’s works drawn up by Johanna, wife of the artist’s brother, Theo.

Johanna, who was widowed in 1891 – months after Vincent’s death – singlehandedly generated interest in his art. She brought it to the attention of critics and dealers, organising exhibitions, although she obviously could never have envisaged the millions that his works would fetch today.

Le Moulin d’Alphonse Daudet à Fontvieille, which depicts vivid green grapevines leading up to a windmill with broken wings in the distance, is a work on paper that he created with graphite, reed pen and ink and watercolour shortly after he reached Arles, in the south of France.

This exhibition offers a snapshot of Joshua Reynolds’s creative process, and reveals discoveries made during a four-year research project into the outstanding collection of his works at the Wallace Collection. We have selected not only significant portraits but lesser known ‘fancy pictures’ and a rare history painting, all of which will be shown side by side. Among the works on display will be famous pictures such as Nelly O’Brien, Mrs Abington as Miss Prue and Reynolds’s own Self Portrait Shading the Eyes.

By focusing on the themes of experimentation and innovation, we trace Reynolds’s working practice in two ways: on the material level, through his use of pigments and media; and on a conceptual level, through his development of composition and narrative.  What emerges is a vision of Reynolds as a pioneering painter, highly original in his approaches to pictorial composition. This drive to innovation is exemplified in his ambitious allusions to the great masters of the past, such as Titian and Rembrandt and his obsessive tendency to rework and revise his images as he painted.