From: mike@cc.gatech.edu (Mike McCracken)
Subject: Resort Art
Organization: Software Research Center, Georgia Tech.
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 21:06:24 GMT


I recevied enough responses to motivate the paraphrasing of the article in 
Forbes.  For your reference it appeared in the January 18. 1993 issue.
Title "Resort Art", by Christie Brown

The basic theme of the article is that buying what they call Resort Art is a 
good way to burn money (literally).
What I'll do is select items from the article, avoid specifically stating 
gallery names (who sell the stuff) and give you an idea of what they are saying.
I'll first quote from the finale of the story.
"Gilbert Edelson, legal counsel to the Art Dealers Association of America
has these pointers to determine the quality of a gallery and the art offered
for sale:
	1) Run if you hear "investment".
	2) Keep running if the dealer says a painting is worth x, but he 
	   will sell it to you for half x.
	3) Beware artwork sold with papers of authenticity.  A fine arts 
	   gallery will give you an invoice, which is the legal proof needed
	   for a painting or artist.
	4) Ignore appraisers chosen by the gallery.

Questions to ask a salesman about a supposedly well-known artist.
	1) Which museum has the artist shown in?
	2) Have the artist's works ever sold at auction at Christie's or
	   Sotheby's, and if so, when and at what price.
	3) Are there any books or reviews of the artist's works in 
	  publications like Art-Forum or Art in America?
	
De gustibus non disputandum est - if you like something and can afford it,
why not buy it?  But don't buy on the word of a salesperson you don't know."

Now for the meat of the article.
One gallery sells dreamy, pastel-colored scenes by Constantine Kluge for
$30,000, with the comment he is in his 80's and is about to die.
Another gallery sells a limited edition (300) print by Judith Bledsoe
called Odalisque for $1200.  Bledsoe is very well known, said the salesman,
her paintings are priced up to $20,000.
In checking with an appraiser, formerly of Sotheby's, it was found that 
Judith Bledsoe's works would fetch about 10% of their retail prices if sold
at auction, and of the few Kluge paintings that had been sold recently, they
maxed out at $7500.  
Another quote.
"We get hundreds of calls from people who say they bought a print by 
Salvador Dali, Leroy Neiman, Peter Max, Vasarely, and they want to know
what can they get for those pieces, says Leslie Hindman, owner of Chicago's
Leslie Hindman Auctioneers.  We say under $1,000, and the person flips out,
and says, I paid $7,000 for it and have a certificate of authenticity, and
I was told it was going to appreciate in value".

"Welcome to the world of commercial art.  The originality, esthetics, and 
historical significance of some works deem them fine art in the eyes of 
museum curators, art critics, certain dealers and collectors.  Commercial
art lacks that consensus.  But if you want to decorate a wall or match
your decor, there's nothing wrong with it.  Just don't think its value
will hold, let alone increase.  Think of it rather as fairly expensive 
wallpaper."

Leroy Neiman is another example of a commercial artist.
His bold works feature male oriented scenes of gamblers, girls and sporting
events.  His paintings sell at retail for $5,000 to $300,000.  His limited 
edition prints sell from $2,000 to $20,000.  Yet when the author consulted
Butterfield and Butterfield (a major California Auction house), they stated 
that Neiman's paintings can be estimated in the $2,000 to $4,000 range 
(5 to 20 cents on the dollar is shown in Gordon's Print Price Annual for 
Neiman's prints).

Other commercial money losers they mention are paintings by Red Skelton,
Tony Curtis, and other entertainers turned artists.  

Get the gist?  One glaring (to me anyway) missing artist was Erte.  The 
problem with his work (currently as commercial as you can get), is that
some of his earilier work is truly valuable.  The question is where does 
the line get drawn?  

The other point to be made is, this is also relevant to the collectibles 
market place.  If you buy contemporary "collectibles" because you like them
and enjoy them, fine.  If you buy them as investments, you are probably 
making a mistake.  There was an article by Harry Rinker in one of the 
antiques rags recently about a person who had asked him about the value of 
some sort of collectible plate the person had just inherited.  The person 
figured it must be worth something.  It turns out, it was worth 10% over 
the purchase price.  Not a good way to get rich quick or slow.

If you're interested in learning more about how to avoid these types of 
problems in the art world, a good book is Buy Art Smart, by Alan Bamberger.

Mike


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