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 […]
savvy collector
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 […]
Know When to Hold Them !!!
Over 25 years ago a young man brought an impression of Edward Hopper’s Evening Wind (1921) etching to learn its value. Research supported a retail price of roughly $10,000. This […]
Size isn’t Everything
The second painting by Cliff Bahnimptewa is physically smaller, but its composition is more commanding. Implied action coupled with greater detail in the figure’s costume renders the second painting more […]
Dead or Alive, the Art Market May Not Care
Almost daily someone expresses the belief that once an artist dies, his or her work will accelerate in value. Almost daily I get to be the grinch who says “Only if […]