The American Scene; The Sale of Art

Good morning. This is Howard Vincent doing the arts for the American scene and the Illinois Institute of Technology. We haven't had very much on the plastic arts. We've had one show as I recall. Yes, very fine show with Miche -Cone on the prints. But we will have other shows time to time on the plastic arts. And we haven't forgotten them. And there is a great development in the plastic arts in Chicago, a boom perhaps. Not only among the artists and their productions, because it goes along with this other thing, but also the sale of art. And today, I want to consider for a little while the sale of art. Art is a commercial thing as well as a spiritual matter. And to discuss this question, which is uppermost in many men's minds throughout the world, because as you know, auction pictures and objects of art are selling a fantastic price. It's all around the world in London and Paris and New York. And I hope

in Chicago the are selling the reasons for this. How art is sold, the function of the dealer and all this. We're going to consider in the next 25 minutes. And to discuss this, I've asked Alan Frumpkin, who has one of the fine galleries here in Chicago and has one in New York to talk about this very problem. Alan, where should we start? Suppose about the general wave of buying that is in the world today. You can tell us something about that, of course. It's a little bit like describing a wave that's breaking over your head because the enormous reaction to the visual arts is worldwide. And it's almost a tidal wave in its proportions. I mean, we think of New York and Chicago, perhaps, and Paris and maybe London as great centers for the appreciation of art. But today, Caracas is spoken of Buenos Aires, the Near East, Germany, particularly Western Germany. And so much of the world is active and interested today that it's gotten to be a worldwide phenomenon. Well, it's related. It's related,

isn't it, to a prosperity, an economic prosperity for one thing, certainly in these spots. I mean, they have money and they've got to do something with it. It's a pressure. Well, also, and it's a reaction as well. I always felt that the interest in the visual arts is a reaction against the increasing mechanization of our society. It's very difficult to get a unique man -made thing anymore, you know, when you're in mass production, entering more and more areas and processing and all kinds of techniques, you know, of fabrication, the uniqueness of the work of art is suddenly very attracted. Well, I'm glad to have you say that because I was putting a very mean and low view of it that they were doing this as a kind of tax dodge and a lot of them are, aren't they? We'll have to recognize that element there somewhere. Yeah, surely. But they aren't doing it just for that. There are other ways they could do tax dodges. But this is something they can have a tax dodge or they can put their money into something which will be more rewarding to them in spiritual, in aesthetic and emotional ways. And so, I haven't thought of that as a reaction to the machine age. It's a good

way. As it's, it's both a reaction, you know, and accommodation in a sense, too, because you have the, there's a parallel involvement, you might say, with mechanical procedures. We were just remarking the other day, the fact that welding has suddenly become a critical means in sculpture. And it's, of course, connected with our technology. And artists never ultimately separated, too far from technology. Oh, no, can't do that. So, you have that element as well. In fact, artists every day, literally, are exploring with, exploring new technical means. I mean, painters are trying new plastic paints, and not only plastic paints, but plastic themselves. Exactly. My friends, artists here in Chicago, are doing very interesting work with plastics and materials. The Lilian Garrett, for instance, I was looking at a picture of her the other day that they had the Honorable mention in the show last year, Chicago Show. It's very fascinating working with plastic materials. And the problems, of course, are

interesting to the artist. But it's always been regarded as a dead town in the tale of I, but that's no longer true with it. Infatically not. It's, I think, in certain circles, it's considered one of the liveliest cities in America. For my view, I think it's just one of the really liveliest places, both in the production and the sale of works of art. And there's an extremely active, interested public here, which is source of both the gratification and amazement, considering what the situation was all, say, 10 years ago. Would you say that you're a gallery, which is one of the finest, and the three or four other, I better not put a number here, but the several other galleries, which are very fine too, are an answer to a problem, or have helped to create the situation. Are they worked together? It's a little bit of both, but I think in a strange way, galleries create a market, whether aren't galleries, you find the interest in art, usually somewhat ill -formed,

and let us say not in all these drives or not, channelized. And with the emergence of a series, you see this all around the world, actually, when a series of active galleries, active dealers enter the scene, the sort of latent energies that you will are utilized, and you get some extraordinary results. I feel that it's been in Chicago, at least, it's been sort of a little bit of both. The interest has always been here, and it's gotten more and more acute, but the availability of works of art, which is the function of the gallery after all, has made a great deal of this possible. Well, there are two things here. You mentioned the interest in buying art has been here for a long time, but isn't it true that the beef barons who bought so remarkably, back in the 1880s and 1990s, were buying through New York dealers, art directly to Paris dealers. Lucas, for instance, living over there in Paris in the 1860s and 70s, was responsible for this tremendous collection, these collections we have in America, channeled through the wealthy people, a corrows of the barberson school, et cetera,

et cetera. Well, now that wasn't the great men here in Chicago in the 1880s and 90s. We're not dealing so much with local galleries at that time, but now they have the chance, the opportunity, the means. Well, the local galleries, after all, function to a considerable extent in a little different straight, because the people who have instant access to the continent and to New York, I think find it much more romantic to buy the works of art there, but although they've increasingly taken heat of the situation in Chicago, there's been a development of, let us say, younger people, people of actually more limited means or more limited mobility have found their way into the art market, as it were, and have discovered that they can not only seek good works of art, but they can buy them, and they can afford them. Some people buy things they can't afford, which is one of the interesting things about the art market is you have interest that's so keen in certain

levels, that great many other things are put by the board so that artworks are required. Well, do you in dealing with a number of these people who are collecting, do you feel that you have a role in helping to direct or guide their taste sometimes? Well, every dealer has a fantasy along those lines, yes, and I think that every dealer has the belief, belief, hyphen fantasy, if you will, that he's forming taste, and I think it's his job to do so, that he's an incipient, barren -eyed, barren, and some, well, that's maybe a little glamorous, but he's, well, I mean, take, I mean, maybe he's an incipient Lord DuVine, in that he, by making accessible, certain kinds of experience, I mean, he permits the people to have them, I mean, if the mutes, if taste waited for the museums, is it where, it would, it probably wouldn't evolve as quickly as it does, and the dealer brings forward things that, generally, he believes in,

I think a good dealer does that in exclusively, things that he has confidence in, things are not only serious, but have permanent value, and exposes them with all the enthusiasm that he can muster, and creates the public in the process, and that's maybe a little more attractive, or maybe a little more glorious than it is, in effect, but because you always have to keep in some view the public taste, how should we say the public has certain limits, always, but the dealer being part of the public in my sense can't, I mean, it doesn't know, it's hard for him to just go completely beyond the limits of his public, and you get, I should say, dealers who sort of try to find dead center of the market and are extremely cautious, and those who try to push the extensions of the public taste farther and farther. You have to keep in mind as you go out in your buying

and to different levels of purse, this for instance, and curiously, you may have different levels of purse, but you may have something that is less expensive sometimes, which is just as aesthetically absolutely fine as something which has become fattish rare, or for instance, a Toulouse Low Trek 40 years ago in London was very inexpensive, now a Toulouse Low Trek anywhere is out of most people's range. Very true. Well, that's the, I think perhaps the most exciting thing of being a dealer is that you get a chance not only to discover young people's work, but to actively promote it, and in a sense, sometimes you make possible little movements in the history of art that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. I mean, some artists encourage that the key moment by dealer produce and are encouraged to produce, or whereas in difference in neglect, they just might not have that. Oh, there's so many cases of this, aren't they, go down with, well, he didn't get very much encouragement, but some, of course, theos helped to a Vincent Van Gogh, oh, many cases, but do you have, then, you do a certain amount of encouragement, and

shall we, of Chicago artists, don't you? Oh, more than a little, where I'm very interested in the Chicago scene, I think we've got some of the best younger painters in the country here, oh, yes, in fact, it's being generally, well, I've since, generally, increasingly recognized, and in New York recently there was a very big exhibition called The New Images of Man, in which several of our Chicago artists were very prominently shown in conjunction with people like Jackametti, Dubufei, some of the leading painters of Europe, and it gave a certain credence to the whole art scene here, I think. Well, I was down in Cincinnati at the great international print show down there this spring, and saw a number of Chicago printmakers down there. Well, Chicago artists are showing up in an increasingly wide circle, and I was talking to a friend of mine in London recently, who is talking very seriously about having a Chicago show over there, because the development here is quite unique, there's nothing quite like it anywhere else in the world, and maybe

it has a little bit of a hot house flower, you know, look to it from certain viewpoints, but it's really very interesting and lively development here. Can you put a circle around this? What would characterize a Chicago school if there is one? Well, it's still a temptation, I would say the so -called Chicago school is concerned with imagery, with the human figure, and with that kind of evocative human image, which is and has all kinds of curious manifestations from a very dada approach to something that, let's say, more akin to some of the things of the German expressionists, and yet, and there are all kinds of offsuits of interesting and valuable work being done in quite different areas. It's not a sort of a simple or unified little court, it's quite various, but extremely interesting, and it has a flavor quite at some, which

I think ultimately would make it significant. Well, now, can we get down to some commercial details? What's happening in prices in the market, in art? A lot of things are happening, but there's some general trends. Well, sorry. Yes, well, you know there was this, you see a modern art auction that was actually televised here to Chicago, which certainly focused a lot of attention on the state of prices, and if you want, there were some very marketable prices realized there, a French contemporary painter brought somewhere around $25 ,000 for a painting, and there were some of them, and I think the top price was for a Brock Cubist painting, a very beautiful one which brought in the neighborhood of $150 ,000, which is, that doesn't prove a great deal, but it gave us our, in Chicago at least, our first view of this side of the art market. I mean, last,

was it last year before the Goldsmith sale in London, where, oh, I think a couple of the pictures reached $400 ,000, and well, on and on like that, it's not the kind of market that we can, you know, we can discuss very intelligently, we can just look at it in gate, because it worked. I think, I saw, I think I saw almost the beginning of this, by sheer stroke of luck, I was in Paris in 1954, 55, and the cognac sale, remember, when that says on, went, soaring and soaring, Toledo by that, I think it came in finally, you know, I think it went to a Swiss private collective, my memory. Well, that picture went up and up and up, and the gasps in the crowd, and today, that would have become, and that's how long ago, six years ago, today, that would have been considered a very poor price, because in different, less interesting workspices on, have already brought more money than that, and that was an exceptionally nice picture, as I recall. Hasn't, this happened that the impressionists and the painters, say, of the last 70 years, are now fetching prices to the, to the, not decline, but to the,

slightly neglected the old masters. Well, you tried by a fine old master painting today, and you'll see that it isn't all that neglected. There are areas among the old masters, which, let us say, haven't had much vogue, and, and yet, the, there's certainly not the activity there, because there isn't the supply, either. Well, I kind of imagine people in, in Pac -Man and Galleries, for instance, in an auction sale, going all out for a layly now, or now, or maybe they're not important, great artists, they are important artists, but there are a number of, there are so many artists, some have to be neglected at some time. Well, that's one of the excitement of collecting, incidentally, is the fact that, no matter how great the vogue is, and how much certain people are in vogue, they're always very good artists who are very available, and if, if a person has a certain amount of individual flair, he can always find marvelous pictures, and, usually, within this pocket book, almost regardless of how limited, and, if the, in other words,

if the wheel is there, there is a way, and the intelligence, I might add, you can't do this sort of blind thing. Well, there's not the fun of it, that you really got to collect your sensitivity, your intelligence, all of yourself together, if you're going to not lose your shirt on it too, and it develops you as a person, curiously, if you're going to collect. Absolutely. Well, that's, I think, is one of the great challenges, is that buying pictures and living with them is a very enriching act, you know, aside from all the commercial considerations, and people who do it seriously, you know, find it one of the most engrossing things, well, applications that, in some cases, turn out to be vocations, because they're so, you know, so compelling. Well, how do you go about getting an artist to encourage your help to have, and your stable, let us say, and the, as your, you'll be his agent? How do you go around the galleries, you'll see shows, and you'll keep your eyes open. We'll keep very much so, but the final arrangement, it's, it's a little bit like a love affair, if you'll, now we'll be romantic, because there has to be an interest on both parts. The artist has to feel that the dealer's sympathetic and interested,

and can help him, and the dealer has to feel that this artist has good work, and has a future, as a creative person. And today, with the competition, as keen as it is, both around the world, for outstanding young people, you have to be on your toes. And we, we dealers, really keep a, whether I open for, for good talent. And, as I say, sometimes, I mean, jokingly, you, you look, sometimes as early as the art school, just to see what's going on, and sort of keep a, whether I open for outstanding young talent, but it doesn't, it doesn't mature that quickly, I mean, a painter hardly begins to settle down to serious work until he's 30, I mean, you can't expect a great deal. He's finding his style, his acreature, or the, you feel, it deal, then hopes that he will be a, we are, and discover a group of, say, sounds, and so on, and, and, obviously, the, the good dealers do, the, the, the, the, the, they're there to be found. We don't know, for instance, how our time is actually going to stack up in history. I mean, we may be in a terrific, renaissance,

that we may be in a, in a desert, like epic. We're not absolutely sure. I, I'm fairly confident that there's, there's permanently significant work being done today, but I wouldn't care to bet just at this moment, so how it's going to stack up with, say, a moment like the late 19th century, which was just, was fantastic. Yeah. Or for the 16th century, if you like. It's, of course, it's very hard in literature to bet on, you could say certain names, you can bet on a literature today, you can bet on Faulkner and Hammy Way, just as you can bet on Picasso and Matisse and, and Brock, but there are a lot of others, can you bet on them? And yet they, for instance, the way people bet in the 1870s and 80s on the Barbizon school, let's say Dobini, and now Dobini, I imagine pictures of his are way down, you know, comparatively speaking to Mark. And yet I insist that Dobini has a very great quality, and that he's coming back in, and wouldn't it be a fun for, wouldn't it be fun for a collector to buy two or three Dobini canvases? Can he get them fairly reasonably now? You have to scout around, because when someone is a little, you'd be surprised, not as cheap as you might think, because there's

also a connoisseurship there, and in a different Dobini, for example, one could pick up at Sir Wat. Yes. A really first class picture, well, there's a beauty, a sort of beauty in the frick. Just now very prominently shown, and he's not ignored. No, no, no, no. And he's put your points well taken, but the Barbizon's in general have suffered a certain amount of neglect. For instance, you can acquire these days absolutely first -rate Barbizon drawings, which are as fine as anything in the century, and usually for just a small fraction of what the, let's say the big names of the 19th century. You can acquire a good Mi -A drawing, can you, that's a really reasonable price. Oh, yes, in fact, if you have one, let me know. Well, it was one on the London market that went in a sale not very long ago for, it may sound like a lot of money, it was $500, which isn't, but it was absolutely top drawing of his, and a comparable drawing by, let's say, who do you like, you know, DeGa -la, to say, who would be at least $5 ,000. So, it's, or 10 or 15, in fact, it's, you know, it's hard to say. I mean, comparable quality in these other people just doesn't come out of the market, so, you know,

it's hard to make. Do you have to, do you have to keep some kind of balance between your patronage or encouragement of Chicago artists, and you're getting the outside group you should have balance your displays, your shows, and your purchases that way, do you? Well, there's a little of that, certainly, but I'm always attracted by what I, I guess, we call quality, you know, and at the moment, it's more and more difficult to get, let us say, good European art of the 20th century. And so, inevitably, my attention is being increasingly focused on other areas. One of them is certainly the local scene where we have, as I say, some absolutely marvelous artists. Also, the 19th century has become very interesting, because people like the Barbazans are available, and in fact, many of the romantic artists of the 19th century can be had for very modest prices. One of the best things I've had, for instance, in the drawing line was a fantastic and magnificent Gustav Dory, for example. Oh, he's neglected.

Of course. This is the best Dory drawing anyone has practically ever seen. It was just fantastic, and it was sold for a very modest price to a very discerning collector, and it's a matter of fact, it's amusing. It was Vincent Price, who's passing through Chicago, graded, and he's interesting, because he's one of these collectors, just for the record, who, well, we might jokingly call him an off -beat make. I mean, if something is all a mode, he isn't interested. And he's continually searching out new areas of experience, and he's a marvelous guy, and he's a very, very real flair for the arts, and he's always interested in things that are not only not stashable, but are distinctly neglected, and he manages in these areas to find things of really outstanding quality. Well, that's a smart procedure. When you see the crowd moving this way, you turn and go the other direction, and that person in the crowd will be going around the block and coming in your place. Well, a lot of Europeans take a rather dim view of American taste, because they find us a little fadish, and I'm afraid there's a certain element of

truth. We do tend to go a little bit with the herd in our taste. But it's also true that these great practices you mentioned from Brazil and so on are also in fadish lines. But I mean, we can criticize the European taste in that it's, well, how would you characterize it? Oh, something, I would say it's a little, a little bit too hard -headed in a way. Americans are very romantic and adventurous in one sense. I mean, Americans are always interested in what's new, the new in -new people, sort of as a compliment to this fadishness, as it were. Europeans tend to be quite strict in their line and their approach, and a little less flexible to new experience. Maybe they really regard these as an investment. Well, there's a lot of that thinking in Europe, and there's investment buying as much more serious element in Europe than in the sphere. That's why they don't declare their ownership later, private collection, you know, it's under -painting because they're going to beat the income tax.

I saw several cases of that in Europe. I visited the private collection to see a painting or two I was interested in, and they would say, please don't mention where, if you mentioned this painting in any of your writing, don't mention where you saw it, to say, collection on particular air. Yes, that's a very good point. The European is, tends to be not only very investment conscious, but very secretive, and and widely, in many cases, we are, they look at us little bit like babes in that their treatment of, they've been interested longer than we have, I think they would put it, and they have all kinds of ingenious techniques for exploitation at the dealer level, which, frankly, we are, we haven't quite caught up with it, and the collectors are exceptionally cany and secretive. Now, obviously, we've taken the role, your relationship to the artist here in Chicago. You've got a very important relationship to the collector, to the people who come in here, placed and by. Are there a lot of collectors now

in Chicago? There's a very considerable number of them, and they're very active, as a sort of a good natured salute to them. I think they're, as well informed and as alert, a group of collectors as they're, practically anywhere in the world. And I'll take off my hat, because it's a very stimulating situation. Oh, a dealer responds very strongly to a lively and intelligent public, and it put keeps you on your toes, which is as it should be, I think. No, it would be, and, well, they brought some of these modern fads, have you, you see some of them going down now, right now? Before we went on the air, we mentioned that we mentioned such a person who's been afraid, and I've heard in Paris and in New York and here all kinds of pro and con attitudes that know you're, he's way overrated now, and that people are paying too much in yet. Is that so? That's when you're gambled. Well,

my position, I'm afraid, is very well known on this subject. I just do not err at him in public. I'll just say, though, that who fails, become practically a part of the French economy, he's a very important figure to French life. He represents the French notion of the young, successful painter. I think they hope that he'll be one of the people who fill the shoes of the declining modern masters. I mean, the people now in their 70s who are declining and whose place has really not been filled in French life yet. Are the young painters in France having to give way to say England and American painters? Well, it's a very funny story because it's one of the great tug of wars of the current art world. American painting, now I don't know if I speak in just Chicago, but of New York and the West Coast, is in its painters under 50, whatever you want to call it, phase

is extraordinarily dynamic now and has painters of exceptional talent. And most of us, and I'll say, I speak in the art world, feel that it's a great deal more viable at the moment than anything on the continent. And of course, to say things like that to a Frenchman causes him to bristle. And yet there's increasing recognition of the significance of the American scene. And for that matter, the now more and more Americans are being seen in Paris and in London, and their effect is really being felt. Oh, good. London, England itself is having a kind of renaissance, isn't it? A lot of lively young artists and the question of dealing there as not so these are Christy's and… It's so to be heard. It's so to be heard. It's so to be heard. It's extremely active now. Well, we could go on and on and on, but the clock won't let us, Alan, and I certainly enjoy this. Alan Fumpkin and I hope that we can maybe continue this again sometime, and there are other problems that we have in space.

The collection of art, the economics of art, the role of the dealer in all this, and the place of Chicago, the emerging distinction of Chicago, and the purchase of art, both large and small collections. And thanks a lot for coming in, Alan Fumpkin.