The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-05-12
BY MICHAEL WEBB.

MODERN painting is organized on
M a commercial basis, like the
production and sale Of pictures" ac-
cording to Louis Lozowick, the well
known left wing artist, who has just
returned from Paris. Lozowick
stopped off in Paris on his way home
from the Soviet Union, where he ex-
hibited some thirty of his drawings
and collected considerable material
on the Soviet theatre and cinema.
He reports that the workers and
peasants government gives the art
list every encouragement, and that
Moscow publications pay well for the
drawings they use. Art in the Soviet
Union, he said, has social function,
and is not subject to speculation by
private dealers. In Paris the level
of talent among painters is higher,
but the artist is a wage slave" in
huge commercial machine that has
its art factories, advertising agents,
middle-men, and speculation like any
other commodity under capitalist
methods of production.
A young artist in Paris, Lozowick
reports, begins his career by turning
his paintings over to a "marchand"
or dealer whose business it is to
create market for the artists work
By exhibitions, critical articles, wire
pulling gossip and other methods
Of publicity the artists work gains
a reputation and his pictures go up
in price; and the art dealer cashes
in. Meantime, the artist works on
assignment. He must furnish a spe-
Gifted quantity of pictures a month
Painting has become so robotized
that pictures are referred to in the
trade as numbers" The artist I'M
dertakes to supply 10 or Is numbers
within a given period of time. AS
his market widens, the money he re-
ceives for his numbers" increases.
Ditto for the "marchand's" profits.
The dealer is in the position of
capitalist who obtains a concession
in an undeveloped country for next
to nothing; as his sales increase, his
profits, dividends and shares go up.
People who buy paintings may or
may not get aesthetic" pleasures
out of them; but what is most in
tense is the speculation. They Gin
vest" in a young artist as they would
in new plant; and the little invest
ors follow the big investors, just like
the lambs on the New York stock
exchange trail the bears and bulls.
Some time ago the American million
aire Barnes (of PHILADELPHIA pur-
chased score of paintings by the
Russian painter Soutine, who works
in Paris. Up to that time Soutine
was not figure; his art was curb
stock; Barnes purchase landed him
on the Exchange; people said if an
American millionaire invests in Sou
tine he must be good thing. Others
also invested.
Soutine is now kind of General
Motors on the Paris art exchange.
A successful artist enjoys the usual
privileges of success; he is pointed
out like a Rockefeller or Baron Won
Huenefeld; American tourists are
taken to his Paris studio as if it was
Niagara Falls or the Woolworth
Building. He may or may not have
great talent; who can tell, when what
we consider talent depends so much
on tastes determined by critics, pub
licity, and American millionaire.
Thus for instance, art exchange spe-
cialists predict that Picasso's stock
is bound for flop. Just now the
Eiffel tower and Picasso share hon
ors as the chief sites of Paris; and
Picasso (being a financial success as
well as great ARTIST disregards
the sale Of numbers" as Ford scorns
Wall Street. He is an independent"
artist in more than one sense; tour
lists can't get into his studio. But
the best of stocks has been known
to flop, and the art connoiseurs are
nosing the tape.