Francis Bacon Rubbish to be Auctioned From the photos that I have seen of Francis Bacon's studio, I thought he never threw anything away. But an electrician that did some work for the artist in 1978 was lucky enough to rescue some Bacon junk from a skip.

After keeping the Bacon stuff for thirty years, Mac Robertson has decided to sell them. The things that Robertson collected from Bacon are expected to sell for up to five hundred thousand pounds.

They include slashed paintings with no faces, a canvas with writing and paint spatter by Bacon, letters, journals, photos, and unused checks (cheques).

Here's why he threw the things away..
"Mr Robertson first met Bacon, then 69, in 1978 when he agreed to install a heating system in his studio in Kensington, West London..
Bacon was angry that workmen had been trampling over a pile of junk in his flat. He decided to throw it all out in a fit of petulance.
Mr Robertson managed to calm the painter down and persuaded him to let him take some of the rubbish home." Daily Mail UK

Most stories about rubbish in the art world usually end up with people mistakenly throwing away the junk of artists, so it's nice to see rubbish being kept for a change.
>> Famous Artists, Art Auctions  ¶ 11:47 PM 7 comments

  Bootlegs by Eric Doeringer One of the things that I find most interesting about this blog is the comments posted by people. I like seeing different opinions, people often add to or complete a story, and I sometimes find interesting links to other art sites.

Jafabrit recently left a link to a guy called Eric Doeringer. Eric creates "bootlegs", which is another way of saying he creates copies of famous paintings. Painted reproductions are generally pretty boring, but he tries harder than the usual factory of Chinese painters pumping out Van Goghs and Monets by the dozen.

He reproduces the work of contemporary artists and sets up a stall out the front art fairs, like the Whitney Biennial, selling works by the artists exhibiting inside.

"Like the vendors of bootleg CDs and handbags, I sell my pieces at a fraction of the prices charged by "legitimate" galleries. I originally thought most people buying the work would be people who couldn't afford to buy the real work. To my surprise, many of my clients have been art collectors who own work by the artists I'm copying." Eric Doeringer

Also, unlike many Chinese factories pumping out reproductions by the dozen, Eric does some original art. His Toy series and Self portrait series are quite funny..
>> Contemporary Artists  ¶ 11:50 PM 13 comments

  World Art Boom - Art Market Trends ArtPrice puts out an annual "Art Market Trends" paper that looks into the works that are being sold at auction each year. 2006 has been a BOOM year for auction houses around the world. Here's the ArtPrice paper in PDF format.

Among other things, Art Price ranks artists by the value of the total work they have sold at auction for the year. Pablo Picasso has topped the list for the past ten years and remains there for the year of 2006. The little Spanish master sold an impressive $339,245,929 at auction last year. Pablo sells more work (2087 pieces in 2006) than other artists at auction, but he also sells single paintings for record prices, which crushes the theory that saturating the market brings prices down.

Here's the top ten artists..

1. Pablo Picasso sold $339,245,929 worth of art.
2. Andy Warhol sold $199,392,442 at auction in 2006.
3. Gustav Klimt sold $175,143,589 for 06.
4. Willem de Kooning sold $107,373,446.
5. Amedeo Modigliani sold $90,713,845 for the year.
6. Marc Chagall sold $89,038,897 worth of art.
7. Egon Schiele sold $79,081,455
8. Paul Gauguin sold $62,312,914 worth.
9. Henri Matisse sold $59,723,249 at auction.
10. Roy Lichtenstein sold $59,670,946 worth of art at auction.

The full list can be seen here.
>> Art Auction News

  ¶ 7:40 PM 1 comments

  Damien Hirst Butterflies Controversy Anonymous posted a comment on the Damien Hirst exhibition post recently, accusing Hirst of stealing the butterfly/stained glass idea from another artist.

"Before it has even opened, there’s a growing controversy in Los Angeles regarding the pending exhibition by Damien Hirst at Gagosian Gallery, and the the similarities between Hirst’s work (supertouchblog.com/?p=2431) and that of L.A.-based artist Lori Precious(http://www.loriprecious.com/images/sculpture.html) almost identical pieces have been in museums and galleries from London to New York to L.A. for more than ten years, including a one-woman show back in the Nineties. While “appropriation” is the vogue in contemporary culture, more than almost any other recent instance this raises the question of when something stops being appropriation and becomes something more dishonest. Hirst uses the exact same material (butterfly wings), wedded to the exact same idea (recreations of stained-glass windows) and the exact same form (mandala) — all to the exact same end as Precious’ work." Anon Comment

I think the works have similarities, but show me a great artist from history that has not stolen a lot of his/her ideas from another artist and I will eat my hat.

See the butterfly works by Lori Precious here..
See the butterfly works by Damien Hirst here..

I like this quote by one of the greatest thieves that ever picked up a paint brush..
"Good artists copy. Great artists steal." Pablo Picasso

Daniel of Life by Design goes into more detail about the butterfly controversy here and there's a bit of a debate going on here.
>> Art Controversies, Damien Hirst News  ¶ 7:25 PM 27 comments

  Anish Kapoor Art in the Bin An art collector of the Indian born British sculptor Anish Kapoor was recently awarded £350,000 in damages after an art storage company mistook a work for rubbish and threw it away.

Ofir Scheps left the 1984 sculpture "Hole and Vessel II" with Fine Art Logistics Ltd of London. Scheps paid £20,000 for the Anish Kapoor work in 2004, but the value of the artist's work has increased dramatically in recent years.

£350,000 damages for 'binned' art
"It's an important work in terms of what I was up to then. I only made seven or eight works that year and it's a shame to lose one of them," said the Indian-born artist, who won the Turner Prize in 1991. BBC

Art and rubbish seem have a lot in common. Tomoko Takahashi uses junk to make art, cleaners have mistaken art as rubbish, and art experts can mistake a plinth for a work of art.
>> Famous Artists, Strange News, Sculpture News  ¶ 5:57 PM 8 comments

  Clyfford Still Museum in Denver Over at Art and Perception I found this post about the abstract expressionist artist Clyfford Still. It points to an article in the New York Times about the life of the elusive artist and a museum in Denver that will be dedicated to the work of Still.

Clyfford Still did what most artists have wanted to do at some stage in their career, when he left behind the gallery scene and the art world, and just painted. He only sold or gave away about 150 works during his lifetime, but that's not because he didn't paint much. In a warehouse in a "nondescript suburb" experts are sifting through 2,393 works by the artist. The works are said to be worth more than $1 billion if they were ever sold.

"The works in question make up the entire estate of this artist. He left behind a one-page will, nearly 95 percent of the work he ever made and a widow determined to follow his final testament to the letter. The demands were these: His estate could be bequeathed only to an American city, one that would build a museum to serve as a temple to his art and to nothing else. No works could ever be sold. No other artist could ever show a single piece alongside his. All Clyfford Still, all the time." NY Times

Correction: I had previously said that David Anfam is the director of the Clyfford Still Museum, but the director is actually Dean Sobel. David Anfam is a British art historian that specializes in the work of Clyfford Still. There's more information on the planned Still museum at the official website here.
Thanks for pointing that out Fred.
>> Famous Artists  ¶ 7:45 PM 3 comments

  Damien Hirst Interview Damien Hirst is currently exhibiting at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills and London. Superstition is a more contemplative, inward looking Hirst than usual. He is looking to poetry and religion for inspiration rather than the usual death, medicine, and shock that has made the artist who he is.

"Each painting in Damien Hirst: Superstition has two titles, the first taken from the poems in Philip Larkin's collection High Windows. Larkin was an English poet whose fatalistic, colloquial writings speak to a seemingly shared extinguished faith. The second title makes direct reference to religious iconography." Gagosian Gallery

ArtInfo caught up with the aging artist that seems to be taking a break from Shock. Here's a few Damien Hirst quotes from the interview at ArtInfo.

• I did a load of medicine cabinets a long time ago and I named them after Sex Pistols songs. I suppose I must be getting old if I’m naming work after Philip Larkin poems.
  Damien Hirst Quote
• I was brought up a Catholic, but I don’t believe in God. I think I’m an atheist. Hardcore atheist. I’m trying to be a hardcore atheist, and then I keep making work like this.
  Damien Hirst Quote
• As an artist you’re looking for universal triggers. You want it both ways. You want it to have an immediate impact, and you want it to have deep meanings as well. I’m striving for both. But I hate it when people write things that sound like they’ve swallowed a fucking dictionary.
  Damien Hirst Quote

>> Damien Hirst News, Art Exhibitions

  ¶ 6:24 PM 6 comments

  Artist Documentaries Online - Gabriel Shaffer Art Scene Asheville is a series of artist documentaries by Ursula Gullow, profiling working artists in Asheville. They're put together really well too, which can be refreshing after watching a bunch of artist videos on YouTube.com.

I started with the raw artist Gabriel Shaffer as I already knew his work from a profile I did on him at artquotes.net. They go for about 30 minutes and show the artist working in the studio and talking about their art and life. Gabriel's documentary also stars his dog Ginger. Ginger seems to really enjoy watching the artist at work (see the picture of Ginger to the left).

Watch the Gabriel Shaffer documentary here at Google video, and see the other Art Scene Asheville artist documentaries on the same page.
>> Contemporary Artists, Artist Videos  ¶ 11:06 PM 3 comments

  Creative Children - Creative Adults In one of Robert Genn's recent newsletters he talks about a study of creative children that grow into creative adults. The psychologist Ellen Winner found that creative people choose their path very early in life and they often have similarities like; scholastic boredom, difficulty making friends, and social problems.

Here's some more characteristics of creative people from Robert's article..

• Visual perceptions that transcend everyday life
• Heightened responses to natural surroundings
• Sustained high standards of work ethic
• Early presence of mentor(s)
• Early formation of personal identity
• Tendency to do things in unique ways
• Preference to work autonomously
• Defiance or suspicion of conventional thinking

I think I suffer from (or am blessed with?) all of the characteristics above. Another funny observation that I have made over the years is that artists generally like other artists. It's almost like we have joined some special club where the members are connected on a lot of different levels.

Perhaps it is the same connection that firemen, plumbers, or accountants feel when they get together, but I think it's something more.
>> Being an Artist

  ¶ 4:09 PM 4 comments

  Five Dollars Auction on eBay A single digit painting from the Money Series by Anthony White is currently being auctioned on eBay. The $5 painting is from the US dollars series. It was originally sold by Anthony for 5 US dollars, but the highest bid is $385 at the moment (with 6 days of bidding left).

"For an emerging artist I think that I have more secondary sales than any other artist I know about. Starting out I knew that I had to cultivate a strong secondary market to have a strong primary market but I think I may have taken it too far. After this action the painting will have had three different owners in less than 3 months and four different owners in the last 15 months since I sold the painting. All four owners have made a profit from owning and selling my artwork." Anthony White

I interviewed Anthony White last year and asked him about his money paintings. I also became the owner of 7 Euros!
>> Contemporary Artists, Art Auctions  ¶ 7:32 PM 4 comments

  Most Expensive Paintings in the World While wandering around Wikipedia I discovered a list of the most expensive paintings in the world. Their prices have been adjusted for inflation too, which is quite interesting.

• No. 5, 1948 - Jackson Pollock - $140 ($140), sold in November 2006.
• Woman III - Willem deKooning - $137.5 ($137.5), sold in November 2006
• Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I - Gustav Klimt - $135 ($135), sold in January 2006
• Portrait of Dr. Gachet - Vincent van Gogh - $82.5 ($127.3), sold in May 1990
• Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre - Pierre-Auguste Renoir - $78.1 ($120.5), sold in May 1990
• Garçon à la pipe - Pablo Picasso - $104.2 ($111.2), sold in May 2004
• Irises - Vincent van Gogh - $53.9 ($95.7), sold in November 1997
• Dora Maar au Chat - Pablo Picasso - $95.2 ($95.2), sold in May 2006
• Portrait de l'artiste sans barbe - Vincent van Gogh - $71.5 ($88.5), sold in November 1998
• Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II - Gustav Klimt - $87.9 ($87.9), Sold in November 2006

The Wikipedia list takes inflation into account, but I wonder how the list would look if the above paintings were all sold this year. I doubt that the Pollock, deKooning or Klimt paintings would top the list.

I think if any of the Van Gogh paintings sold now, they would have to make more than the current top three paintings.
>> Art Collecting, Art Auctions

  ¶ 11:42 PM 5 comments

  Louvre Abu Dhabi The Louvre is selling the use of its name to Abu Dhabi for $520 million. The building will cost a mere $108 million to build, but to slap the Louvre name on it, Abu Dhabi will have to part with more than half a billion dollars!

Is a name really worth that much? I can understand a cola maker wanting to use the Coke name or a shoe maker wanting to use the Nike name, but how does a museum justify paying $520 million to use the Louvre name?

For an extra $747 million the Louvre is throwing in management advice, art loans, and special exhibitions. This brings the deal to almost $1.3 billion.

NYTimes says there may be more to the deal than just art.. "For France the agreement signals a new willingness to exploit its culture for political and economic ends. In this case, it also represents something of a payback: the United Arab Emirates has ordered 40 Airbus 380 aircraft and has bought about $10.4 billion worth of armaments from France during the last decade." NY Times (may require free registration)

Louvre Abu Dhabi and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates are expected to open around 2012.
>> Art Museums  ¶ 5:55 PM 3 comments

  Archibald Prize Winner for 2007 John Beard has won the Archibald Prize in Sydney. My prediction was wrong, so I'm glad I'm not a gambling man.

The subject of the portrait is the installation artist Janet Laurence.

"From this collaboration of artist and artist-as-subject, a kind of double portraiture emerges. If a viewer knows the work of the artist portrayed, another visual layer resonates. Without the use of colour – that might highlight the differences or similarities between his subjects – Beard focuses the viewer's attention not just on the individual sitter but on the structure of the painting itself. Light plays an important role in the visual dynamic of the image as we literally move around these sculptural works to fully appreciate their form and making." Archibald Prize Winner

The winner of the Wynne prize was the landscape painter Philip Wolfhagen for his "Winter Nocturne IV", Graham Fransella won the Trustees' Watercolour Prize with his "Burnt Landscape with Figures", and David Disher won the Sulman Prize for his "Axis of Elvis" painting.

>> Art Prizes, Australia  ¶ 10:45 PM 2 comments

  Photoshop Videos For those that are yet to discover what you can do with digital software like Adobe Photoshop, here's a timelapse video of a portrait being created.



Here's a good one of Thom Yorke from Radiohead too.

Update: I just found out that the artist is Nico Di Mattia from Argentina and he has a bunch of other videos online at his YouTube profile page.
>> Online Videos, Digital Art  ¶ 11:05 PM 2 comments

  Two Pablo Picasso Paintings Stolen At least two Pablo Picasso paintings have been stolen from the Paris apartment of the grand-daughter of Picasso, Diana Widmaier-Picasso. The works are estimated to be worth more than $60 million US dollars.

They include a 1938 portrait of Pablo's daughter Maya holding a doll and a portrait of his second wife Jacqueline Roque.

Mainstream news has picked up the story, so there's plenty of reports out there. Here's what they are saying..

The BBC says.. "There was no evidence of a break-in at the home of Diana Widmaier-Picasso, in Paris's chic seventh arrondissement. The organised crime squad of the Paris police force is investigating."

The Sydney Morning Herald says.. "Police said they were examining a door lock to see if it was broken, and that they were unsure if the alarm system was turned on at the time.
Once inside, the burglars cut the edges of one painting, "Maya and the Doll," to take it out of its frame, a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing."

NY Times says.. "Ms. Widmaier-Picasso and her mother, Maya, the daughter of Picasso’s longtime mistress Marie-Therese Walter, were asleep in the house when the theft occurred. "They heard a noise, went downstairs and saw nothing," Ms. Astolfe said. "They went to bed and the following morning they saw that two paintings were missing."

And CBC says.. "Art experts have said that stolen works — like Maya with Doll and Portrait of Jacqueline — could never be sold on the open market because the canvases, and the theft of them, are too well known around the globe."

That pretty much sums up every report on the stolen Picasso that I read online!
>> Pablo Picasso News, Stolen Paintings  ¶ 1:55 AM 3 comments