Swann’s African American Fine Art Sale February 17, 2009
To gain perspective, I compared Swann’s Feb 2008 catalogue for their African-American sale to the upcoming sale. · Fewer lots in 2009 (169 versus 263) · Fewer examples by Bearden, Catlett, […]
January 2009
Identify Your Art Expectations
As a college student I visited swap meets as a study breaks. Once I thought I saw a round metal medallion, bas relief sculpture by Charles Russell in an individual’s […]
The Other Side of “Famous Artist” is Illegible
Volunteering to help a charity price art locally, I worked shoulder to shoulder with Anita, a savvy woman who commented every art appraiser’s lament “If only artists would sign their […]
African American Art
If the 44th President of the United States had been a woman, we might witness an upsurge of focus on art by women artists. 2009 does not mark the first […]
The Pecking Order of Artist’s Medium
Looking back at the blog titled “Appraiser to the Rescue” where a small dark etching by Martin Lewis sold for approximately twice what this large and entirely delicious watercolor is priced […]
An Artist’s Fame Can’t Compensate for Bad Art
An appraiser generally is excited to learn that the subject property was painted by Jackson Pollock or by Pablo Picasso. An early career painting by Pollock is not automatically desirable in the […]
Appraiser to the Rescue !!!
Appraisers can be immensely useful when invited by paralegals, estate sale personnel or by family members to conduct a “walk through”. Mistakes can be avoided when a trained personal property appraiser […]
How Art Savvy is the Art Whisperer?
At the age of 16, I bought my first Alexander Calder at auction. Later that year I was spellbound at The Prado museum having viewed my first few Hieronymus Bosch and […]
No time for an art history degree . . .
Over breakfast, an intense, relatively young ER physician expressed the notion “I want to buy art intelligently, but I don’t have time to earn an art history degree or to […]