Are You Smartified?
Here is an interesting new app (the basic version is free) that will help you identify and learn more about a work of art – Smartify. According to their site, all you need to do is take a picture of … More…
Legalities & Ethics
The Berkshire Museum’s decision to sell some of its most valuable assets (40 works of art) is still a hot topic. Since the sales are scheduled to be held in November, there isn’t much time for the Attorney General to … More…
Rolling the Dice … The da Vinci Gamble!
Next month the Rybolovlev saga will continue … now he is going to sell his Leonardo da Vinci … a painting be bought just a few years ago for $127.5M. This time around, the auction room has pegged the price at … More…
Bacon Burns While Basquiat Sizzles
Christie’s had high hopes for their Francis Bacon Study of Red Pope (1962), expecting it to make at least £60M/$78M. Well, nobody wanted to take the plunge and create a new record price for a single piece by the artist — … More…
Filler Does Not Help
This past week the auction action started … and it was less than stellar. Sotheby’s was first with their Contemporary sale and as we have seen with other periods of art, the salerooms are having a difficult time getting really … More…
Berkshire Museum – WHY?
Here is a GREAT article by Felix Salmon in The New Yorker about the Berkshire Museum’s decision to sell 40 of its most prized works. If you have been following this story, you will enjoy reading the article. What is … More…
Why Would You Steal This?
Word has it that a thief walked into an auction house in Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris, and walked out with a tiny (5 x 4 inch) Renoir. “Portrait d’une jeune fille blonde” was scheduled to be sold this past weekend with an … More…
Mess With The Rhino You Might Get The Horn
Syosset resident Fengyi Zhou, an Asian art dealer, recently pleaded guilty to buying, and then trying to sell, black rhinoceros horns. Along with the horns, Zhou was given an “Endangered Species Bill of Sale,” from which Zhou was made aware that … More…
Comments on the Art Market – Volume 202
We just released Volume 202 of our Comments on the Art Market. In this issue we cover the Winnetka Show, ARC Select 2017 (opening October 28th and featuring the works of Emanuele Dascanio, Daniel Gerhartz, Vanessa Lemen, Sergio Lopez, Tim … More…
The Art World’s Dirty Side
This is a story we have all heard before, but it is important to keep it in mind when traveling through the art world … be careful. Even the biggest of galleries, Knoedler being the main one, can be fooled … More…
It Is Real!
A head study of the Duke of Buckingham, thought to be a copy of a lost Rubens painting, has now been authenticated as an original! The painting is in the collection of the Glasgow Museum and has been on display … More…
Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave!
There was talk about this many months ago and now the evidence has surfaced. According to a recent article, the French newspaper Le Monde published text messages from Philippe Narmino (the minister of justice in Monaco) that show he was … More…
So, You Want To Open A Gallery In NYC?
A very informative article, by Agnès Penot on the Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide site, discussing the expansion of the art market during the 19th century. European dealers realized that the United States was an untapped source of wealth and by the … More…
Thief or Genius? Inquiring Minds Want To Know.
Michael Kaplan’s article in the New York Post gives us a little food for thought on the ‘art’ of Richard Prince. Is he an artist or just a copyright infringer? Kaplan states that for decades, Prince has mostly been able to … More…
INVISIBLE ART – Coming To A Blank Wall Near You!
Now it seems Facebook is using augmented reality to help artists create works of art that are invisible to the naked eye … like many other things today, you will need your phone to see them. Heather Day, a San … More…
What If?
I do love these “what if” stories that compare the art market and stock market. Here are some of my – what ifs? What if I bought an Andy Warhol in the early 60s for $1,000? What if I bought … More…