Thoughts on the Art market.

I am writing this on the day before The Affordable Art fair opens in Hampstead. London, not Battersea, that one was slightly earlier in the year. Affordable means less than £10k which seems a sensible limit which will discourage the plethora of dreadful Galleries whose owners are trying to present their pictures (mostly prints) as investments, with implied auction potential and which appeal to those more interested in money than Art. It’s only a matter of time before we read about one of these in Private Eye.

Here my work and that of Howard Milton also from our Society of Artists will be offered for sale, courtesy of The Patricia Christie Gallery. They tell me that the Affordable Art fairs are aimed at young Art collectors who are in turn are often looking for “ Up and coming Artists of merit “. We have to hope that there will still be those who will appreciate work by more experienced Artists. If I haven’t upped and come by now, maybe I never shall?

This brings me back to the investment Galleries which are mostly chains and specialise in bright and very often derivative work, influenced by Jean Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol or Banksey and co. I admire all these three, even more so for their early disdain for the Art world’s marketing and money whilst taking full advantage of it, each in their own way.

Basquiat was an obsessive Artist who was subsequently exploited and some would say led to an early grave by the dealers in his life. Warhol’s factory was not the first big Art business on a grand scale, nor is Damien Hirst’s conveyor belt approach at all original. Rubens had workers and studios going full pelt in several different locations at once. (I endeavoured, years ago, to make this point at the Royal Cornwall museum, now simply the Cornwall museum, whilst doing a talk on Rubens. This went down very badly at the time.) And then there is Banksy. How original, how clever and how imitated by others who haven’t his skill or ideas. He does directly appeal to the young and had until the shredded picture at auction not obviously played the Art market.

It is against this backdrop of hype, fashion and vulgarity that two of us oldies who have quietly learnt some things from our favourite Artists are showing paintings at reasonable prices. People see Picasso and Braque in my work. This pleases me. Howard Milton’s admiration for Ruskin Spear and John Bratby is clear and all the better for that.

So, please go and see our work on the Patricia Christie stand and enjoy the venue as well as the pictures on show from May 7 th.

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