Look What Happened to the Art Market

“Without Wall Street many forms of books, incunables, high spots of modern literature, are already unobtainable by the average collector or even fairly well-to-do collectors. Think Great Gatsby at over a $100k…Look what happened in the art market, where paintings that used to cost thousands are now hundreds of thousands, and paintings that used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars are now millions of dollars…. 

If Wall Street gets hold of books and turns them into high priced investment widgets, then look out. No one will be able to afford them any more and some of the joy of collecting will be gone.”

This quote from The Man who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession came from a book dealer upon hearing that book collections were being characterized in Worth magazine as good investments. It certainly hard to imagine people like to Vogels collecting in todays market, which bounced back from the financial crisis without losing much of the gains it has made over the past 20 years.

Does the rare book market share the same future? If so, I’d better scrounge up my first editions. It’s interesting that this book dealer, who would profit for this more than the average collector potentially, doesn’t like the idea of pricing people out of their collecting hobby. The dealers arguably benefit more than the collectors or artists, because many collectors are priced out and because fewer contemporary artists make the cut for the higher prices being paid at auction. But on the other hand, perhaps it is a sign of the health of the art market than it can command such record high prices.

By the way, the book itself is proving quite enjoyable. It’s the true story of a book thief who stole rare books and hoarded them in the modest apartment he shared with his father, not unlike the art thief of my novel who steals to create his own personal collection that he keeps at his mother’s house.

Ravels in Review

This week will no doubt go down in your minds and blogger history as being that of my birthday. Good–please remember that next May 26.

  • As I learned in doing historical research, historically few great things have happened on May 26 aside from my birth.
  • I wrote about my experience buying art (none) and some of the difficulties of buying art on a budget. Just a note: the gallery called my boyfriend back yesterday to say that the work in particular that I had liked was available.
  • The Hernan Bas show at Lehman Maupin predicts the future to be lush and lonely, and that says a small part of how much one could say about the artist’s most recent paintings.
  • Lastly, I was so struck by an old book that accidentally came into my hands that I had to share the artist/author Eugene Fromentin’s extremely dated travel book of Dutch painters with you. He is in rapture over Rubens and Rembrandt. Hero worship like his doesn’t exist anymore in criticism, maybe to our loss.

On the other hand, Fromentin is not so kind to his contemporary (1870s) art scene in France. The Impressionists, apparently, have no sense of value or line or color, and only Corot and Delacroix are worthy of respect. In fact, let me leave you with a few more of his words;

Landscapes make every day more proselytes than progress. Those who practise it exclusively are not more skillfull in that account, but there are more painters who try it. Open air, diffused light, the real sunlight, take today in painting, and in all paintings, an importance which has never before been recognized, and which, let us say it frankly, they do not deserve.

Photographic studies as to the effects of light have changed the greater proportion of ways of seeing, feeling, and painting. At the present time, painting is never sufficiently clear, sharp, formal, and crude.

The abuse of useless roundness has driven into excess flat surface, and bodies without thickness. Modelling disappeared the very day when the means of expression seemed best, and ought to have rendered it more intelligent, so that what was progress among the Hollanders is for us a step backward; and after issuing from archaic art, under pretext of new innovation, we return thither.

Buying Affordable Art: Go Small or Not at All?


When I walked by Heist Gallery up the block from me yesterday, I noticed a thin row of Polaroids lining the walls, and this started a long train of thought. It was a group show entitled “12 Instances,” and interestingly the last exhibition I saw there, Papercut, was an assortment of affordable works on paper. Both exhibitions were put together with an eye to being reasonably-priced. Affordable, small-scale works seem sensible given the big “R” word (Recession) and they suit my budget. Affordable art might just be a case of buying small, but I find it interesting, perhaps telling, that given my enthusiasm for art, I’ve opted for not at all over small.

Polaroid by Braden King

Here’s the thing: I love art and I’m no Rockerfeller. I’m democratic and think art should be accessible to all. I like the idea of being able to afford art. YET I don’t want to buy the relatively reasonable Polaroid. I just wasn’t that impressed, and I felt the same way with a lot of the lower end works at the Affordable Art Fair. There were some nice enough postcard-size sketches, but I didn’t fall hundreds-of-dollars in love with them. Maybe my eyes are just bigger than my budget.

I’m more impressed with the website 20X200, which offers limited editions of new works each week beginning at $20. They go up through $2,00o dollars, depending on the size of the print. They have an impressive quality and some really nice images, and I’ll likely buy from there in the near future.

I’m even more impressed with my boyfriend, even if his plans for my birthday didn’t quite work out; he wanted to buy a (smaller, more affordable if possible) painting from an artist in Chelsea that I raved about. So he contacted the gallery, saying he was interested in this artist’s work. Nobody ever responded to his message. (Can you not leave a voicemail saying that you are interested in a certain artists work and expect to be called back?) I’m fairly certain said artist is 10 times above our price range anyhow, but I do find it odd that he didn’t hear back.

Buying affordable art seems to involve shrinking it on cheaper mediums. That’s ok, but I’m going to have to do a lot more scouring to find works that I love. As I have blank wall syndrome, I’ve filled my apartment with paintings of my own as a temporary (and not particularly impressive) solution. Suggestions welcome, both for blank wall syndrome and buying art.

To prove it’s not impossible to buy great art on a budget, check out the Vogels below.