ABOVE: Henry Moore’s ‘Draped Reclining Figure 1978. Reproduced by permission of The Henry Moore Foundation.

ART IS MANY THINGS TO MANY PEOPLE

Robert Hughes said, “the purpose of art is to sit on the wall and get more expensive”

Although I enjoy studying the work of artists, I have always been more of a player, that is doing art. Likewise there are those who talk or have a financial interest only in art and artists. And while hundreds of thousands of people make or enjoy art, it is a very few people who dominate the art ‘money industry’ – those who shape what art is, and consequently its place in our civilisation.

Since the Paris Salon Committee reluctantly finally approved the emergence of Impressionism as worthy art, it appears dealers with the same attitude as the Salon still exist and have established themselves as ‘the authority’.

Recently when a work of a believed famous artist lacked a signature, a major Parisian art dealership would not accept it into their collection as an original, even when 99% proven by others. Without their approval, they were happy to deny the public and the owner; a massive money game, a greed and control not often talked about by most who read these pages.

Television has levelled the playing field by producing fascinating exposure series that truthfully research the works themselves and the goings on by reputable dealer houses. All very strange you may say but if this sounds far-fetched, watch Fiona Bruce in the BBC series Fake or Fortune. I recommend the Monet River Seine painting, and another, Lowry’s Woman with dogs, Darby and Joan and a group street scene, both available on YouTube.

Although we artists may not fall into the exalted category of these priceless painters, let’s remember they were not priceless in their lifetimes, often not honoured or wildly popular. Perhaps not different in many ways to yourselves, Lowry especially was just doing his thing. That he was prolific was important. When I was at art school, sculptor Henry Moore was ‘of no consequence’; ‘any more for Mr Moore’ was a derogatory snide phrase. At last serious university level TV allows us all to better understand how this massive money industry called buying and selling art, works.

Before he died, Australian TIME magazine art editor Robert Hughes in his film The Mona Lisa Smile explored the reasons why she is smiling. Was Hughes suggesting she knew what a sickening and incestuous industry the professional art world can be? Hughes also said, “the purpose of art is to sit on the wall and get more expensive”. Could art investment be seen as money laundering at times, I wonder?

Why should any major international dealer arrogantly hold out against researched proof of a Monet or a Lowry in these TV cases featured, where the owners were denied recognition and consequently the value of hundreds of thousands of dollars. After a revealing and fascinating BBC hour-long programme, finally an independent expert suggested simply – jealousy between dealers! Hard to believe!

What does this have to do with the art, or the honouring or the wellbeing of artists? Obviously, nothing – it has everything to do with money and the manipulation of art. Worse, when prolific recognised artists die and can no longer speak for themselves, the potential money game is on.

It almost makes me pleased that several very highly talented but ‘dodgy’ artists, have made many forgeries, some of which even appear as originals in well-known collections, despite being known as forgeries. Consider that a dealer may even have commissioned the forger who the passes the work on at high cost to be highly valued in a new home. Evidently dealers have ‘fenced’ superb new works as originals, works never seen, or copies, according to the highly talented forgers interviewed. They openly admit that their works have successfully passed the experts’ tests simply because they the forgers know rather more about the artists they copy and the artwork they so convincingly create, that is, their life and times, and techniques. They can also convincingly replicate the aged supports or paper and appropriate paints etc.

What does this tell us about the forgers’ talent? WOW! Are they in fact better painters very often than those they copy? And like the dealer, more interested in money than their own superb skill – egotistically they are calling the shots for sure, and during their own lifetime, if one thinks about it, often enjoying a high-flying society lifestyle.

But what makes a copy a forgery? Only that it is ‘falsely signed’ to pass off as an original. Our stately homes and public collections often feature facsimiles of the original paintings locked away in bank vaults. The production of legitimate copies for this market is lucrative, highly skilled and honest. These copyist artists may be some of the best in terms of their income, but we hear little about them. It is an art skill, in its own right, and highly regarded.

At street level I remember a small Atelier gallery I passed daily between our Lisbon Agency and my home in Estoril along the coast. It was a smart little gallery stocked with the very best art book reproductions. For a price, you could order your favourite image in the size you wished, and the owner would scale and complete the oil, watercolour or drawing to order. In my opinion far more rewarding on a wall than a stock gravure or letterpress reproduction. Today printing processes have so advanced as to allow single reproductions on paper or a photo translated onto canvas. But I believe a work done by hand by a master has a quality that is special. Just don’t pass it off as anything but a copy.

So what? Well, nothing really. The art world and scene are many things and not always as pristine as some would like us to believe. Let’s enjoy art because we admire the artist, the skills, the head behind the head – not because the first purchaser was Rockefeller or a dealer on the make, gazumping the market.

It suggests to me that, other than the professional commissioned artist, the true artists of today are likely those much like many of you, who make art for themselves. Not for a specific marketplace. If prolific in your production, some of you may become useful to trade with especially after your death. As one pompous Auckland dealer told me: “We only buy dead artists!”

If prolific, you may be purposely made famous and desirable, your artwork viewed simply as a marketable range of product necessary to the concept of buying and selling – if you like, ‘fodder’ for dealers to articulate, touchy-touchy wine in hand business with a serious smile of authority to mix, ready to befriend and bleed the wealthy who wish to be seen heading the art scene. Mind you, a lot has to be said for this way of life: the beautiful people, a glamorous world of its own – but are these people morally any better than Giotto stabbing his Christ model to death? At least Giotto was honest about it and, perhaps more importantly, gave us a long-lasting popular Florentine-looking Christ that dominates the Christian religion this Easter, even today. I see Jesus Christ more as a Palestinian Jew, not an Italian.

This artist in his youth, a one time champion senior Drum Major (I come from Bushey, Hertfordshire, also home of the Royal Caledonian Schools as well as artist Herkomer), now an octogenarian who, in a special place at the perfect moment, spontaneously finalised his lesser parallel career on the Piazza Della Signoria taking a Scottish Pipe Band military parade, in front of the Medici palace on Palazzo Vecchio precisely between Michelangelo’s ‘David’ and the ‘Rape of the Sabine Women’, should perhaps keep quiet you might say? However, even then this Maggiori de Comandetori was simply asking himself the question, attempting to satisfy my own mind about my own commitment to art, and my parallel life as a serious professional creative and wondering whether it was time to quit. I about turned, saluted, commanded the Pipe Major to take charge and smartly marched off – leaving them all stunned. What a great moment for me, that moment of decision and my art.

Today, as many of you who read my editorials will know, my interest is the broader scene of how and why art exists, the interesting difference of Artist as Shaman Magician, maybe High Priest in the cave, the sincere purpose to create, working sympathetically drawn imagery in contrast to the merely pretty graphic imagery often produced today.

Art has moved through massive changes that appear always to have been dictated by ideas of human beings to work magic of a kind, even today by transmutation of use, worth or value, to monetary wealth and prestige. Greed of one kind or another today being the difference perhaps? After watching brilliantly produced television and wishing to share my thoughts with you, I am aware of the unspoiled honesty I find in the pages of this art magazine. I compliment your willingness and enthusiasm to share your images and ideas without any suggestion of money.

Self-taught L.S. Lowry, like most of you, painted for himself and his friends. What would he think today about the obscene wealth he created for a few very clever western oligarchs who promote his simple indulgence to further their own exponential curve of wealth; wealth the like of which he never anticipated in his working town background. No doubt he became aware towards the end of his life. At least he knew he was a recognised celebrity, but even so he never diverted from his working man’s ways, the corner shop, the local pub, his honest home.

When will a Lowry or Monet work be worth several times more than the Jumbo jet it goes aboard to New York for auction? It is said that had the brother of ‘prolific’ Jackson Pollock been a household plumber he would also have been a plumber. They say his brother was actually a more competent artist. But in truth and with my sincere belief in Kandinsky, Gorky or especially Joseph Beuys with his “How do you explain art to a dead hare” which is talking the problem of how impossible the task is to explain art to a maybe rather dead public.

We must have open minds. Art is many things and it’s not noble to scorn or ridicule the marks artists make – often we hardly know what we do ourselves – that colour, that mark, the composition of forms and mass pleases our eye – and my life, we know well, when it doesn’t! Enjoy for no better reason than you enjoy!