To See As Artists See: American Art from The Phillips Collection

The current exhibition at the Amon Carter Museum, “To See As Artists See, American Art from The Phillips Collection” is one of the best shows to come to Texas this year.  With over 100 fantastic works of American art, the exhibition investigates the progress of modern art in the United States from 1850 through the 1960’s.  Divided into ten sections the spectator is taken through a showcase of exceptional works from artists who, as the Amon aptly put it, “found their own voices and created deeply personal work born out of the great traditions of the past.”

Duncan Phillips, whose father was a Pittsburg businessman and grandfather was co-founder of Jones and Laughlin steelworks, graduated from Yale in 1908 along with his brother, Jim, with whom he was very close.  The two brothers shared a love for the art world and collected together for many years, eventually they were even given a collecting allowance from their parents.  Duncan studied and wrote about art, publishing his first book, "The Enchantment of Art", in 1914.  The death of his father in 1917 and Jim's death from influenza in 1918, shocked and overwhelmed Duncan.  As a response to the family's loss Duncan and his mother founded The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. in 1918, originally called The Phillips Memorial Art Gallery, and in 1921 opened it to the public, effectively making it the first museum of modern art in America.

"To See as Artists See,"  is the first international touring exhibition by The Phillips Collection to showcase the museum's distinguished collection of prominent American works.  Amon G. Carter Sr., like Phillips, was a passionate collector.  This is evidenced through the many canvases and bronzes within the walls of the Amon that express Carter's enthusiasm for American art, particularly art of the American West.  There is no better museum to exhibit these extraordinary works from the Phillips Collection than the Amon Carter, a museum devoted soley to American Art, and this outstanding collection of our nation’s art history is here through January.

Beginning with the section titled “Romanticism and Realism”, the exhibition presents the viewer with realistic, moving landscapes and narrative scenes by artists such as George Innes and Thomas Eakins.  This sets the tone for the timeline-driven show as the 18th century American artists melded realism with the romantic in the years following the Civil War.  As a progression away from the everyday scenes of common American genre painting, working artists in the states sought to portray another level within their work that gave insight to man’s interaction with nature.  Instead of intense realism that distinguished landscape painting historically, the movement set out to impact the individual by expressing a new vision which targeted emotion and the thought process of the viewer.

Winslow Homer’s oil on canvas “To the Rescue,” executed in 1886, is a great example on display in this section as the work gives sparse narrative and direction, avoiding the painting’s unseen subject of a shipwreck rescue mission and, instead, focuses on three figures hurrying to the scene of the tragedy.  There is an intense drama and urgency of the event expressed only by the troubled movement of a man in the lower foreground as he approaches two women along a stretch of beach.  The canvas is rendered with a limited color scheme of tonal values and is concerned with sketchy and simplified aesthetics meant more to evoke and impact the viewer rather than tell a story.  In a later painting, Homer returns to this shipwreck subject and gives the figures on the beach context; the tragic accident is displayed for the viewer.

In the second section “Impressionism” American art collides with the French impressionist style.  This new analysis of the city and countryside brought forth bright depictions of relaxing scenes and cityscapes that were the favorite subject matter of artists like Childe Hassam and John Henry Twachtman.  With a light color pallete and quick brushstrokes to give a sense of reflection and atmosphere, American artists with training from the art academies of Europe transformed French impressionism into a decidedly American movement.

Maurice Prendergast's 1917 oil on canvas, "Fantasy," with thick brushstrokes and splotches of color, presents the viewer with a space of imagination as a crowd of faceless people gather in a forested landscape near a bay with a singular moored sailboat.  Prendergast's approach to the canvas with subdued colors and intricate patterns that run along the surface has great allure, pulling the viewer in, inviting the viewer to investigate the arrangement of dots and patches of varied hues that enliven the quiet, leisurely composition.

In the section "Forces of Nature" with works by John Martin, Marsden Hartley and Harold Weston, the audience is given warm depictions and a soft visual language of the landscape as the artists found an escape from the everyday civilization where they sought to experience the intensity of nature, particularly in the landscapes and climate of northern New England.  The American landscape painters after the turn of the century were dissatisfied, or even bored, with Impressionism’s focus on the intimate landscape views rendered in soft, bright tones.  Instead they chose to depict the modernist impulse.

Two works by Rockwell Kent stood out in this section, "The Road Roller" and "Azopardo River."  In "The Road Roller," a drama builds between the artist's fluid brushstroke and thick impasto as he depicts a crew from the Dublin Township packing down the snow of his driveway.  With long shadows reaching out across the snow towards the viewer and thick clouds crowding the sky, there is more happening than snow being packed for ease of travel.  There is a boldness which transcends the scene.

"Azopardo River" is a view across the undulating waters of the Azopardo River in Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, Chile at the southern tip of South America that displays rocky mountains beneath a blue and clouded sky.

These two pieces by Kent have great, intentional conversation as they are situated very close to one another within the exhibition.  They communicate and correspond, at times in agreement with one another as they work together with a similar overall color scheme of white, blues and grays and a drama obtained through shadow and scale.  Conversely, they disagree and compete as the Azopardo landscape is serene and calm, almost overwhelmingly still.  It has browns, reds, oranges and pastel greens that smooth over a range of mountains retreating into the distance.  The river encompasses the foreground and is tranquil with subtle ripples and small waves spreading across its surface as it sits under soft white clouds.  "Azopardo River" has a warmth, while "The Road Roller" is sharp and has a biting cold with silhouetted horses toiling at the reigns of men oblivious to the viewer.

This section transitions into "Nature and Abstraction".  The 20th century American artists in this section sought to deconstruct nature in such a way to obtain a connection, to portray a sensory experience that would evoke a personal response with the viewer.  Works like Georgia O'Keefe's "Ranchos Church" and Arthur Dove's "Morning Sun" explore the notion that the natural world's emotional impact and spiritual 'feel' could be rendered and communicated through color, line and form without the crutch of representationalism.

O'Keefe's oil on canvas "Large Dark Red Leaves on White" (1925) depicts red leaves that are magnified and slightly cropped to fill the canvas. By limiting the viewer’s focus to the form of one leaf  and enlarging that to fill the image, O’Keefe takes us away from our pre-conceived notions of landscape and forces us to focus on just the folds and turns of one leaf.  This allows us to see the sensual beauty of the individual.  This work is a glimpse of the dramatic and sexually-charged paintings O'Keefe is best known for.  She uses abstraction as a way to express intense emotion by transforming the lines and colors of the objective form, the red leaves, into an abstract composition.  The bright white tones and silver hues of the background contrast with the dark reds of the main leaf, creating an unclear sense of space. O'Keefe's paintings exemplify the expressive symbolism artists wrestled with as they continued to define American modernity.

American Impressionists avoided depictions of the urbanization that occurred at the end of the 19th century.  As industry and the rise of the modern city challenged the identity of the nation that was established and time-honored as an agrarian society, artists like Walt Kuhn, Edward Hopper and Robert Henri combated the mannerly social world of uptown New York.  Instead they set out to depict subjects of everyday life in the working-class, they wanted to show the grit.  These urban realists were coined the "Ashcan School" due to the subjects they painted - poor neighborhoods, fortune tellers, slum dwellers, alleyways and the like.

At the end of World War I, the city had become a powerful symbol for America.  Skyscrapers shot up into the skyline, bridges reached across rivers and the new construction and energy of urban America stood firm as a sign of the nation's growth.  With culture embracing advanced technology and engineering, the city began to replace the countryside and artists began to explore America's industrial landscape.  Edward Hopper, John Sloan, Charles Sheeler and others approached the city as something alive, an entity with a thriving pulse of its own.

In the sections "Modern Life" and "The City", the works of Edward Hopper and Ralston Crawford encapsulate this period in American Art.  The works "Sunday" and "Approaching the City" by Hopper are sharp and tough; they are truthful.  The artist gives you the essentials of the scene.

In "Sunday" a solitary man sits on a sun-washed curb completely oblivious to the viewer.  It is a flat portrayal with no drama, no energy.  The audience is in question, What is the man waiting for? Who is he? Does he own one of the shops? Is business closed on Sunday? The 29 x 34" oil on canvas has the smooth, solitary feel characteristic of Hopper's mature style.  It is a blend of pleasure and depression.

"Approaching the City" is an almost stoic moment of the commonplace.  It shows a wide angle view of train tracks and an underpass.  A thick concrete wall runs parallel with the tracks and separates the foreground from apartment buildings in the distance, lending a sense of isolation.

In this modern city, Hopper has used a dull color scheme.  As with "Sunday", there are no bursts of color to illicit excitement or convey energy.  Instead, tan, sanguine, gray and white are used to create a space of curiosity and uncertainty.  Amongst all the buildings in the background filled with windows, there is not a soul in sight.  "Approaching a City" is Hopper painting the loneliness of the modern city, he is commenting on the sense of being on our own in the world, being on our own in the human condition.  It is the vantage point of the stranger.

It posits the question of the railroad's role in contemporary life.  The railroad made travel possible and shrunk the world, it made distant destinations accessible to the commoner, but it also made those places less distinctive.

Ralston Crawford's 20 x 16" oil on canvas "Boat and Grain Elevators, No. 2" idealized the industrial landscape.  It is a view of three grain elevators side by side with a merchant steamer in the background.  The work is very two-dimensional.  Crawford has simplified most of the elements in the painting down to wide, clean geometric blocks of color.  This flat handling of both architecture and nature continued to progress throughout the artists career, his later works grew fragmented and disorganized.  Like the works of Hopper, there is a connection with the viewer, a commentary happening, but it is not dramatic or of passion.  It is stagnant and anonymous.

The “Memory and Identity” section of the show explores America in the early part of the 20^th century as it began to acknowledge and celebrate the cultural differences of various regions and ethnicities.  The great northward migration of African-Americans seeking work after the Civil War created large urban black populations in a few northeastern cities such as New York and Chicago. This was the era of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City.  This show includes paintings by Horace Pippin and Jacob Lawrence which explore the day-to-day lives of their own African-American communities.  These artists dealt head-on with the complexities, hardships and joys of life in their communities.   Jacob Lawrence’s tempera painting series “The Great Migration” was an intensely personal subject for Lawrence as his own family migrated from North Carolina, through Virginia, to New York City.  The works in this series are dynamic and angular, flattened and graphic in keeping with a more modern approach to figure painting.  The figures in Lawrence’s paintings are less representations of individuals than depictions of the struggles of the collective, the “every-man.”  The show also includes paintings by Grandma Moses, the self-taught regionalist artist who felt compelled to do paintings of her life in rural America.   This is a view of rural, white America that stands in direct contrast to the depictions of urban black America hanging in the same room.  The Phillips viewed these pieces as essential reflections of the country’s growth and ethnic diversity.

The famous Armory Show came to New York in 1913 and introduced American audiences to the cubist works of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Marcel Duchamp and other European artists for the first time.  While many critics ridiculed cubism, a group of American artists were gripped by the elements of it and embraced the style.  By the 1920's the multiple viewpoints, fractured forms, bold line and flattened spaces that exemplified cubism began to surface in the works of numerous American artists.

These American modernists, such as John Graham, Karl Knaths and Niles Spencer set out to interpret and personalize cubism by filtering it through a decidedly American lens.  They integrated the elements of cubism into their own unique abstract styles.  This can be clearly seen in the landscape depictions by Stuart Davis.  The 18 x 21" oil on canvas "Blue Cafe"  is rendered in flat simplicity with bright, vibrant colors.  The streets are flattened and the buildings are reduced into geometric blocks within the two-dimensional plane.  Even the puffs of smoke exiting a chimney are reduced to stiff squiggly lines.

As Davis took the cubist approach to the landscape, Alfred Maurer took it to the still life in his 17 x 21" oil on hardboard "Still life with Doily".  This work, though dark and muddy with deep reds and browns, has a whimsical feel added by the detailed white doily.  This is an American modernist embracing European modernism as he allows cubist influences to interpret his environment, in this case a still life with strawberries and an orange on a white doily.

The last two sections of the exhibition cover the 1940-50's move into abstraction.  The abstract expressionist works held in the Phillips collection are some of the earliest glimpses into the visual language and avant-garde artistic activity that made New York the capital of the art world in the 1940s and 50s.  Whether taken from the shapes within nature or the influences of the psyche, American artists pushed abstraction to obtain a language of unadulterated color and form.  In the section "Transition to Abstract Expressionism" works by Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder and Arthur Dove show the movement as is finds its bearing and begins to take shape.  The early works by Pollock and Gottlieb show great insight to the viewer as they see the artists experimenting on the canvas.

The 17 x 25" oil on canvas "Composition" by Pollock is not one of the drip paintings for which he is best known for.  It is a tangible display of Pollock transforming his previous figurative language into one comprised wholly of non-representational forms and gestures.  He believed that emotion and abstraction were connected, and this belief fueled his progress to large scale action paintings.

Likewise, the massive 59 x 71" oil on canvas "The Seer" by Adolph Gottlieb is an early work for the artist. Gottlieb painted a large number of works utilizing cryptic symbols which resembled the pictograph writing of ancient cultures.  This use of semiotics was his solution to show meaning through abstraction without referencing actual objects, moments in time or places.

In the final section, "Abstract Impressionism" the viewer encounters works by the big hitters of the movement; Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Helen Frankenthaler and others.  These works are presented as firm examples of the Abstract Expressionist movement by artists who solved, as they described it, the "crisis of subject matter".  The search for subject matter led to the questioning of meaning.  This led to an intense internal dialog as the abstract expressionists looked within and explored their psyches of inspiration to transfer to the canvas.  Painting became a means of expressing emotions and ideas onto the canvas; to give feelings and thoughts tangibility.

Robert Motherwell's massive 82 x 141 oil on canvas "Chi Ama, Crede" shows for the viewer how the artist sought to create imagery which communicated emotional truths.  The painting's imposing size contributes greatly to its emotional impact.

There is an early work by Richard Diebenkorn on display titled "Girl with Plant."  This piece  is from Diebenkorn's figurative period and gives the audience a preview of the later, and more well known works by the artist; the pieces from his Ocean Park Series.  In the 80 x 69" oil on canvas, it really isn't a portrayal of a girl in a room with a plant.  Instead, the sitter, who faces away from the spectator, is absorbed into the composition, she becomes a part of it.  The space seems to be transitioning, slowly becoming more and more flat.  On the right side of the canvas is an area dominated by three rectangles.  This layering of simplified shape and blocks of color points to the artist's development of expression later seen in his Ocean Park pieces.

This last section also includes two Alexander Calder mobiles.

"To See as Artists See: American Art from The Phillips Collection" is a great opportunity to see highlights of the Phillips Collection while building is underway at the Washington, D.C. facility.  The Amon Carter is one of only three U.S. museums that will be hosting the exhibition; the show has already been to Italy, Tokyo and Madrid.  The show opened October 6th and will be running through January 6th of 2013.

Incredible show, great museum, absolutely free. You officially have no excuses.

-M.P.Callender Signet Art

"Caveat Emptor:" Don't buy the book on Perenyi's art forgery Career

It is Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend. I sent the rest of the family off to the opening day of dove season so that I could have a few quiet hours to read and catch up on the load of appraisals piled up on my desk. Rather than launch into the appraisal work, I decided to complete the necessary task of finishing the latest book on art fraud to be released, Caveat Emptor-The Secret Life of an American Forger. Note that this is a necessary task, not a pleasurable, enthralling, or entertaining one. This memoir which lists Ken Perenyi as its author but was very likely largely written by the Denis Donavan, the man credited on the acknowledgement page for his “indefatigable work on the computer,” covers the long and astoundingly perverse career of Perenyi as a forger of paintings. The book opens with 1993 scene of Perenyi withdrawing the cash proceeds from a sale of a pair of Martin Johnson Heade hummingbirds that he had consigned to Christies-London from his Harrods bank account, the equivalent of $90,000. The reader is then treated to an account of where it all began, the late 60’s in Bergen County, NJ, with Perenyi as an socially inept high school flunkie who had no interest in learning anything that would lead to an honest living in the trade school that he attended. By happenstance, this pimply-faced teenager crossed paths with a group of twenty-somethings that were part of the art scene in New York City at the time and had rented an old, mysterious house nearby. They quickly took him in and introduced him to the free-love, drug-induced, hard partying lifestyle prevalent in the “mind-expanding” youth culture of the time. His new friends got him laid and gave him free drugs. They introduced him to minor celebrities in the worlds of fashion and art. They took him to clubs and gallery openings. What teenager without a moral compass wouldn’t have been excited to be accepted into the sophisticated adult world? This was his first exposure to art. He did not grow up taking painting lessons and visiting museums. His new friends also taught him the importance of avoiding the draft at all costs. Better to convince the military psychiatrists that you are a degenerate and get a I-Y deferral than be required to do military service.

When one of his art friends, Tom Daly, suggested that he follow the example of many generations of art students before him and start learning to paint by copying the works of old master painters, he was surprised with Perenyi’s facility with a brush. He copied Rembrandt, Hironymous Bosch and many others. Perenyi began to pay attention to the details of these pieces, what elements made up an artist’s style, what made a painting look old, the importance attached by experts to the age and make-up of the supporting canvas or panel. He worked in a restoration studio for a few years, learning all the tricks of the trade to restore older paintings and seeing the older pieces intimately. He saw firsthand the structure of older stretchers, the effects of honest aging on canvas, panel and paint. And, he began to experiment with faking these older paintings.

He drifted through life with a strong interest in the lifestyle afforded by lots of cash but no interest in developing honest skills to make a living. He also learned that a quick theft would net piles of money, while long days at any office were never going to make the kind of money he liked to spend. After reading a book on Han Van Meegeren, the Dutch art forger of the 1930s-40s who introduced whole new genre to Vermeers’ work and became a lavishly successful art forger, Perenyi was hooked. He began to try his hand at forgery.

At first, his efforts were slow. He sold a painting here or there to a dealer when he was hard-up for cash. He started with Dutch and Flemish-style unsigned paintings. When he progressed to copying known artists, he signed the paintings with the copied-artist’s signature but did not provide fake provenance or make any claims of attribution. He just showed up at various galleries with paintings in tow and let the dealers take a look. Acting as an unknowledgeable heir or unwitting garage-sale purchaser of a valuable painting and playing into the dealers’ greed to get what they considered very valuable paintings from the hands of rube was part of the ploy. Perenyi got special joy from beating the dealers at their own game. He justified his crimes with the knowledge that they were trying to strip the paintings cheaply from an unsophisticated owner and deserved what they got. He often added to this ruse by pretended coyness when a first purchase offer was made. This usually drove the offer price up.

Over the years, Perenyi honed his skills at fraudulent copies as well as his methodology of delivery to the market. He developed several fences who were aware that the paintings were fakes and were more than willing to sell them into the market and split the profits. He also developed extensive systems for living off the efforts of others and stealing whatever he wanted or needed. He developed expensive tastes for antique furniture and decorations. He proudly recounts the many times he and cohorts showed up with moving vans and loaded them up with expensive furnishings, from a small museum, a failed auction house, a boarding house in which he had resided. There is no sense of shame in these tales. Do not read this book thinking that it will end with any understanding of the moral depravity of the activities. These tales are told with the gleeful boastfulness of a megalomaniac who knows that the statute of limitations has expired and he has skirted the law.

In the 1970’s, about the time the marketplace was glutted with his “ Dutch and Flemish-school” paintings, Perenyi met an eccentric collector of American paintings, Jimmy Ricau. Ricau had acquired a large mansion in Piermont, NY and had filled it, basement to attic with Empire furniture, American paintings and Greco-Roman sculpture. Ricau became aware of Perenyi’s abilities to paint fakes. Ricau had a deep disdain for dealers of art and decided that his revenge would be to encourage Perenyi to branch into this field. Using his own collection of authentic American paintings, he tutored Perenyi in important connoisseurship points of late 19th C. American School paintings. He showed Perenyi the various supports favored by these artists, talked with him about the finer style points favored by collectors. He introduced such artists as John F. Peto, Raphaelle Peale, John F. Francis, Levi W. Prentice, James F. Butterworth, Antonio Jacobsen, William A. Walker, George Catlin, Henry Inman, Charles Bird King and Martin Johnson Heade to Perenyi. This field of art was quite hot at the time, and Perenyi’s fakes sold well. Although Perenyi himself was not yet approaching auction houses to sell his paintings, many of the paintings found their way to auction.

Perenyi and his partner Jose had moved to Tampa, Florida. They bought a complex of buildings and set up a restoration facility on one side and an antique furniture store on the other side. They became quite popular as restorers. Ken would restore paintings in the morning and paint fake ones in the afternoons. He met many influential people and sold them fakes as well as supplying a growing number of fences. At the prompting of one fence who said that Alexander Calder was “hot” and could be easily faked, Perenyi did a suite of large gouache paintings in his style. After an extended trip to London and Bath, Perenyi began to add 19th C. British School sporting paintings to his repertoire. He copied John F. Herring, James Seymour, Sartorious and many others of the era. The fact that his paintings kept showing up at auction and selling well emboldened him to start consigning the pieces for auction himself. He offered paintings in London and at smaller auction houses in the outlying counties. He eventually offered some pieces at Sotheby’s and Christies in New York. His biggest scores were both “Martin Johnson Heade” hummingbird and orchid paintings. The first he consigned to Christies-London and it was shipped to New York for sale. That is the sale that netted the $ 90,000 pay-day discussed in the opening pages. The second was consigned to Sotheby’s in 1994 and brought over $ 700,000 at auction.

In the 1990’s, James Wynne and the special agents of the FBI’s art squad did open a five-year long investigation of Perenyi. Many of his fake paintings had begun to surface at auction and the bureau had ample evidence that traced the paintings back to their source. However, it is not illegal to sell reproductions of an artist’s work. It is only illegal to misrepresent them as by the hand of the artist. Ever the wily fox, Perenyi was very suspicious of any cronies from the past who showed up wanting to talk about their exploits. He correctly assumed that they had been sent to him wearing recording devices in order to get him to admit knowledge that the paintings were being sold as fakes. Perenyi got himself a good lawyer and just waited out the investigation. He was never indicted. He speculates openly in the book that this very likely had to do with the fact that the duped auction houses did not want public attention drawn to his exploits since there would be public humiliation and likely financial liability for them when purchasers heard the news. He states that the auction houses likely did all they could to scuttle or delay the investigation until the statute of limitations expired.

I added this book to a growing subset of books in my library that cover the subject of fakes and frauds. Most are written long after the events by a historian who has spent the time to research all the shenanigans of a particular artiste-de-la-fraud. Most of these books also have some moral redemption in them because they recount the fatal flaws that lead to the unmasking of the lies and report on the legal trouble encountered by all who participated. There always does seem to be an element of glee in fooling the art world’s so-called experts woven into the motivations of the copyist. I collect and read this type of book for many reasons. First, as an art advisor and appraiser, I read them defensively. If I have in my knowledge base that fact that certain artists were successfully faked for long periods of time, it makes my antennae that much more sensitive as I examine the next painting. If I am aware of some of the many methodologies employed by the crooks, I can be aware of the limitations of examination while being aware that even the best in the field are sometimes fooled. I stated up front that reading this book was a necessary task. I found myself cringing at every page turn. I find it appalling that Perenyi duped people for so many years with his fake paintings with no legal consequences and doubly insulting that this book is his venue to brag about it. While I had to read it, and feel like I had to report on it in this blog, my greatest wish would be that the book would flop, that it would be given no press coverage and that Perenyi would die in oblivion. It is not a likely scenario in our prurient culture that absorbs and celebrates such anti-heroes with more enthusiasm than we give to people who make real contributions to society. Perenyi will likely get the 15-minutes of fame that he seeks from publishing this book. The book’s afterward states that he continues to pump fake paintings into the marketplace from his Florida studio and that they are collected as reproductions or as “Perenyi-copies.” I get nauseated just thinking about it.

Added to this Post on February 15, 2014

Hello Readers of this Blog Post, When I first posted this article and started getting replies, I determined to post all that came in, regardless of viewpoint...with only two stipulations, the reply had to be cogently written and without profanity. You should know that today I am changing that policy. I have suspected all along that Perenyi himself, under the guise of a fake internet persona (of course) was offering up many of the justifications of his actions and defenses for this book. Why? Well to stir the pot and keep the book sales going.... duh. I am now getting replies from his ghost writer and the friend who suggested the name for the book. Sorry. I have played into the marketing role for this book long enough. Even my participation in the "CBS Sunday Morning" show is something I have grown to regret since the show gave many minutes of air time to a sentimentalized interview with Perenyi and about 15 seconds to the rebuttal. There will be no more posts on this topic. Write me privately if you wish. I will always read them.

Tire Kickers: An Ode

Four years to earn my Bachelor's in Art History plus a year and a half under the tutelage of our certified appraiser of fine art, who herself also has a degree in the arts and has been appraising for over 26 years . . . and a large portion of our time is utilized handling the tire kickers.  What is a tire kicker?  You know them; they are indecisive about purchasing a product or service, and never feel satisfied with what they are offered.The calls usually start like this:

"Hi, I have an original Bill of Rights.  What's that worth?"

"I have a Declaration of Independence I found in a house we just purchased.  Can you tell me its value?

One of my all-time favorites, "I have one of the Last Suppers, how much can I sell it for?"

You think I'm kidding; these come in at extreme regularity.

"I know it's expensive 'cause I just saw it in a museum."

"I have a painting by 'Insert Name of Well-known Artist Here'.  Can you tell me how much that's worth?"

Once we get past the initial issues- "No, ma'am.  I promise you don't have one of the Last Suppers." - and talk about their need for an appraisal and the services we can provide, it only gets worse.

"You mean there's a charge?"

This is where my brain does its best to keep me from kicking the tire kicker right back through the phone.  I want to reply that, "No, I was only kidding, there's no charge.  We do this as a hobby, you know, just to pass the time."

By their nature the tire kicker is a persistent beast, and explaining our services and how we can help does not dissuade them.  In fact it only makes them squint their eyes and change tactics.

"Well, can I just e-mail you a picture and then you can tell me if it's worth getting a consult?"

I say "No" and explain to them when you transfer a piece from one medium to another, i.e. from an oil on canvas to a JPEG image, it only hinders the inspection.  There are reasons an appraiser needs to physically view and inspect your artwork.  But, again, explanation only bounces off their thick rubbery skin; they are after free information, and will stop at nothing to try and get it.

"Yes ma'am.  Our appraiser charges for her time." "Well I don't want to pay for an appraisal or a verbal consult if the art isn't worth anything, do you know any place I can call that doesn't charge?" (Seriously . . . I get asked this almost every day) "No ma'am.  Any appraiser out there worth their salt is going to charge you for their time."

Again, I have to suppress my inner monologue that wants to wish them the best of luck searching Google for three hours, having no idea what they are actually looking for.  But, I try to remain polite and professional and usually manage to do so . . . usually . . . at least 90/10 . . . ok, maybe 80/20.

By this time if the conversation has yet to penetrate and they persist . . .  "It's a landscape with a small boat and it has a signature at the bottom and its beautiful, I can just tell it's valuable.  I have good taste."   . . . we politely draw the analogy to the doctor they happily visit when they are sick, who has years of training and valuable knowledge and also refuses to diagnose them over the phone.

We have a love/hate relationship with the popularity of shows like "The Antiques Road Show", "Pawn Stars" and "Storage Wars".  We love them because they are entertaining shows that have spurred an increased fascination with the value of personal property and we all benefit from that.  We enjoy the shows and like seeing treasures found in Grandma's cellar just like anyone else, but these shows give the impression and reinforce the idea that expertise should be free.  The viewers don't understand when they see an expert on "Pawn Stars" tell someone all they would ever and could ever need to know about their piece, that they are appearing as a marketing tool.  They are advertising themselves as an expert in their field, and are advertising their business.  Which, as a note to the magic of television, these experts are often portrayed as having their frontal lobe packed full of answers on any and all items in their field they just can't wait to get out.  This isn't a bad thing, it's good T.V. in fact, but in actuality the expert is given ample time to see, inspect, examine and research the items he or she will be commenting on.  It's true.  We've done it here at Signet and many of our colleagues within the art world have as well.  The tire kicker does not understand this and expects the floodgates of information to come bursting open when they describe their item.  "Have you heard of the artist? It is signed at the bottom, I think it says G I C L E E . . ."

The rise in popularity of shows like these are why Signet Art started offering quick, professional verbal consultation appointments many years ago. "Well, what's a verbal consultation?" The verbal consult is a quick, in-office examination and advise session with the appraiser.  We recommend the verbals for clients who need a professionally trained eye to give them expert advice and direction with their artwork, but who do not need a written appraisal report.

The era of Wikipedia, Yahoo and Google has too many convinced that if you just spend enough time online, you're an expert.  The tire kickers are certainly under this impression, and it's not entirely their fault.  Technology has been advertised for years as able to give you access to all the information you could ever need, right at your fingertips.  This, as anyone who has spent time out in the light of the real world would tell you, is false.  There is training for a reason and there are experts for a reason.

It comes down to virtual images versus actual hands-on inspection.  If you do not know the "what" of what you have and you search online, you end up comparing JPEGs with JPEGs.  Thousands of online images with other images that, probably, are in no way related.  This isn't even close to comparing apples with apples, it's more like comparing windsocks with helicopters- they both are outside, sure, but one costs a hundred bucks and one costs a few hundred thousand.  The online search to get real answers to your fine art can be very misleading and dangerous when you don't know what you are, or should be, really looking for.

Just because you send us a picture of a Salvador Dali piece, for example, does not mean that is what you have.  Dali, like most artists, worked in many mediums and styles; oil on canvas, wood cuts, etchings, pen and pencil sketches, sculpture in both wood and metals. . . and you may just have a poster, but you are looking online at his oils on canvas going for millions at auction and you are already dreaming of your new two-story by the lake. "But I thought prints were still valuable?  It's numbered at the bottom and is signed.  Did I mention it was signed?  It has a signature. . ."  The type of a print needs to be determined.  Color lithograph, offset-lithograph, serigraph, woodcut, etching, mezzotint, engraving, a monotype . . . all are printmaking methods, and each vary in value and collectability, multiple factors must be considered.

Expertise in the art world is built upon years of handling and looking at actual artworks, and years of research and investigation within the field.  Actually recognizing surface quality and textures, being able to determine the medium, condition, age and whether or not items are authentic.

So, once I've held firm for the entire conversation and have explained thoroughly what we can offer them, the tire kicker gives and decides they, "will think about it and will call back to schedule an appointment."  I hang up the phone, then go wash the tread marks off my face before the next one comes.

-M.P. Callender

Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties

The New York Times called the current exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art "expansive and exhilarating".  With over 130 sculptures, photographs and paintings to view from sixty-seven artists, each piece is from the decade that followed the conclusion of World War I and came to an abrupt end with the 1929 Bank Crash- The Twenties. Whether they are referred to as the Roaring Twenties, The Golden Twenties, The Jazz Age, The Machine Age or something of the like, this period was one of social, artistic, and cultural dynamism.  The changes were first felt in major metropolitan centers across the globe, such as Paris, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Berlin.  There was unprecedented industrial growth which led to significant and historical changes in lifestyle and culture.  It was a boom of technology, urbanization and industrialization; with motion pictures, telephones, electricity and the automobile rooting and spreading rapidly across the world.  The spirit of the Twenties was one of breaking traditions and fueling modernity.  It was a time when everything seemed attainable with the use of modern technology.  If man could dream it, he could build it.  If there was a dilemma, mankind and machinery could solve it.

Views shifted and roles changed.  The 19th Amendment, passed in 1920, gave women the right to vote.  Women attained political equality that gave rise to a new mentality towards a woman's role.  The woman of the Twenties was in tune with the capitalistic spirit of the time.  Many began to desire success in the wider world and looked to careers outside the home.  Fashion became a way for the young and rebellious to express themselves, this was immortalized in movies and on the covers of magazines.  Labeled "flappers" by the older generations, young women threw out the corset and wore loose dresses that exposed their arms and legs; scandalous.  They cut their hair short and wore makeup.  Until that time, the use of cosmetics was usually associated with prostitution.

Many formerly unquestioned societal values began to shift. Tolerance grew towards "outsider" groups and minorities.  On the stage and in movies blacks and whites appeared together for the first time.  Homosexuality gained a strong foothold of social acceptance.  Dance clubs became extremely popular.  It was an era of great change; there is no doubt about it.

Artists observed and embraced the progressive changes happening around them, and then they reacted.  Artists incorporated and encapsulated the social milieu of the times in their work.  The current exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art, Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties shows what the artists who witnessed this groundbreaking era addressed.  They created images of the urban-industrial environment and liberated human forms.  They approached their subject matters with celebration and new liberation of freedoms that pushed the boundaries of the past.  Cities and landscapes were reduced to clean and smooth geometric works that are as calming and serene as they are bold and dynamic.  Portraits, done on canvas, through photography and as sculptures, became close-ups that celebrated sexuality and the intimate.  This show, organized by The Brooklyn Museum, takes the viewer and drops him into the machine culture of the 1920’s with the works of numerous well-known artists, including Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, Thomas Hart Benton, Charles Demuth and others.

I was pleasantly surprised by the exhibition.  Upon going to view the show, and reading a bit about it, I wasn’t really jumping out of my skin to attend.  But, it blew me away.  Although the artists' styles and subjects are disparate, taken together, this group of works gives a sense of the complex, diverse social context of the 20's.  Smooth, clean lines, defined shapes with heavy outline, bold and stark color palettes, the human form, sexuality, movement and dance, racial issues, women’s issues, music, modernism . . . each artist has his or her viewpoint, his own angle.  All of these diverse subjects come together to sum up the beauty, anxiety and dynamism of the jazz age.

“Night Window” by Edward Hopper stopped me mid-step as I turned the corner into one of the many rooms in the exhibition space.  This is a stunning work by Hopper.  The oil on canvas, done in 1928, is from the viewpoint of one looking in the window of an apartment at a solitary woman.  The light from the three windows glows brightly and the outdoor architecture is in deep shadow.  Lace curtains billow out of one window.  The figure is observed in a sad, voyeuristic manner, going about the mundane details of her life.  Hopper has a way of pulling his audience into his works while keeping them at bay only as the audience.  One is only permitted to observe, not interact.  In the room with her thoughts, the woman is unaware of the spectator.   Though she and the viewer exist together for a moment, they are entirely separate from each other.

The huge oil on canvas “The Birth of Venus” by Joseph Stella done in 1925 was another highlight.  The psychedelic piece is great in its vibrant colors and movement as it points back to the iconic Botticelli painting of the same name and reinterprets the subject for a modern generation.  The large nude Venus figure is standing in a blossoming flower, her hands stroking back her long dark hair with her eyes closed.  Botticelli's Venus is depicted demurely covering her nudity, about to be fully draped by an attendant, whereas Stella's model seems to languidly relish her sexuality.  The partly underwater scene full of bright pastels and sugary colors, advocates the sharpness and liberty of sexuality in flapper culture.  This piece is found in the section of the exhibition called ‘Body Language: Liberation and Restraint in Twenties Figuration’.  The works in this section are expressions of the human body in natural form, the bodies depicted as both carefree in their own skin and strikingly sensual in their natural beauty.

"Martinique Woman" done in 1928 by Malvina Hoffman was one of the sculptural pieces that stole the show.  The black metamorphic stone is an oversized portrait head of an African woman, which was the result of the artist's many travels through Africa.

Its large scale with the woman's gaze and tight expression gives her a feeling of heroism.  Hoffman's choice of subject challenges earlier depictions and use of African subjects.  The sculpture itself is stunning in execution, Hoffman's choice to work in-the-round and in a larger-than-life scale is accentuated by the sculpture's both polished and textured surfaces that lend a presence of drama and power to the piece one can experience when viewing.

Portraits played a large role in the art of the 1920's as artists responded to the advertising of magazines, movies and posters.  An iconic photograph of Gloria Swanson shot by Nickolas Muray, shows the film star's bare arms wrapped in front of her upper torso with a hand framing her face.

This pose speaks of the era's approach to the female figure as sensual and beautiful, as well as the decade's growing fascination with celebrity culture.  The twenties appreciation for the pure form of the body is again reinvigorated in the portraiture of the exhibition.

With over 130 pieces, the show just keeps going.  There are great still life pieces including Georgia O'Keeffe's "Two Calla Lilies on Pink", Henrietta Shore's "California Data", and the pre-pop and almost billboard-like works of Gerald Murphy.  There is a whole room filled with paintings of industry, skyscrapers and factories that steamed the era forward.  The great vertical by Elsie Driggs, "Queensborough Bridge" is one of my favorites in this section.

Overall, Youth and Beauty is a great exhibition showcasing a dynamic time in our history.  The audience really can experience a glimpse of the time period as they walk through the gallery space.  It was a bit kitsch that the chapter galleries have tacky titles ("Silent Pictures" for a gallery filled with paintings of industry and machine...?).  However, that is a small complaint.  The exhibition is absolutely worth catching while it is still in town.

Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties will be at the Dallas Museum of Art until May 27th, 2012.

M.P.Callender Signet Art

Fourth Annual Dallas Art Fair

The fourth annual Dallas Art Fair was in town this last weekend and was an incredible opportunity to see and purchase the latest in modern and contemporary art.  The almost 70,000 square foot space of the Fashion Industry Gallery held over 75 prominent national galleries, international galleries and art dealers, each showcasing the very best modern and contemporary pieces from their collections.  Well-known galleries from New York, California and Chicago were represented, as well as some of our best local galleries; Talley Dunn, Holly Johnson, William Campbell, Valley House and Conduit Gallery.  This fair gets better every year.  In addition to walking through the massive two-story gallery space, this year viewers we able to choose from demonstrations, panels and discussions, tours, a film festival and receptions.  This event offers a great opportunity to those interested in modern and contemporary art to see work represented from all over the world by great galleries and artists all in once space- the Dallas art community really is spoiled to host the fair every year.

As I spent the afternoon meandering through all the galleries, I kept my eyes open for trends and show stealers; you know, those pieces that stick with you and etch the artists name into your memory, the ones that have impact.

For trends, this year was surface play.  A huge factor in modern art is experiencing it, literally being in the same space as the piece, and this has a lot to do with the artist's use of surface.  Layering and thickly applied paint were constants amongst the galleries.  This close-up of Dennis Hollingsworth's 71 x 63" oil on canvas "Come On In" illustrates what I mean by paint being applied to obtain a quality of surface play.  The paint reaches up from the canvas, giving dimension and creating shadow, and the color still has its role within the thickness of the paint itself.

Norbert Brunner's work, shown by Claire Oliver Gallery in New York, uses digital prints, acrylic glass, acrylic mirror, Swarovski crystals, and LED lights all layered upon one another.

His 26 x 51 x 5" piece "You are Limitless"  depicts the eyes of a woman gazing directly at the viewer.  The viewer can come in close and enjoy the complexity and brilliance of the materials or step back and take in the whole effect.  The use of mirrors was a nice addition to the piece; as one looks into the large eyes and reads the moniker below, they are reflected back into the work- photos do not do this piece justice.  Standing in its presence is the only way to get the full impact.

Charlotte Smith's 54 x 54" acrylic on canvas "I Can See Forever",

represented by Cris Worley Fine Art- Dallas, had a great and almost whimsical surface quality that made me want to reach out and drag my hand across it.  Hundreds of polychromatic irregular circles cover the canvas and seem to fizz and bubble out towards the corners.

The shapes are stacked atop one another and compete in both color and form, giving the canvas a great amount of movement as the eyes jump from the bright yellow halo of a partially covered circle, to a purple drip or lime green ring.  Again, the surface play and layering of acrylic engage the viewer and draw them in close to experience.

Ok, the show stealer . . .

This piece by William Betts (from Holly Johnson Gallery - Dallas) wins the prize.  The 60 x 40" piece encompassed all the aspects I consider to make a great contemporary art piece.  Betts' "View from The Standard, NY" is listed on the artist tag as an 'acrylic paint on reverse drilled mirror acrylic'.

The image was inspired by a photograph taken by the artist, but the paint itself is embedded beneath the surface of the picture plane.  After drilling thousands of small, shallow holes into the back of the mirrored Plexiglas panel, the artist fills the holes with differing colors of acrylic paint.  Each spot of paint is a three dimensional unit encased beneath a transparent surface.

Betts won me over with this very creative approach to the mirrored glass as his surface.  It is industrial and urban in its subject matter, depicting The Standard of New York; it is engaging with its use of the mirror, once again literally bringing the viewer into the experience - making one a part of the piece; it has fantastic and highly engaging surface play with the new approach to pointillism, the artist's tweaking of the dot grid gives depth and a layering effect.

Notice in the extreme detail view that the dots optically advance and recede.  Black dots are shallow and appear flat atop the glass.

Then the dark blues appear closer as the holes for that color were drilled deeper.  Then the green, the red, the light blue, pink and then yellow in a gradual and progressive three-dimensional construction on the panel, the colors literally reaching out to you.  From afar, the piece is a somewhat nebulous scene of a building in New York.  The haze created by the dot pattern forces the viewer to explore and as one gets closer, the city scene breaks apart and a color field grid is revealed, almost a piece within a piece.  After talking with the gallery representative, I learned this was one of the artist's more colorful pieces.  He usually works in a monochromatic scale of whites and grays.  For me, this piece was a highlight of the show.

A few of my other favorites . . .

Robert Jackson's "Water Balloon Fight", is a 36 x 48" oil on linen. Jackson's pieces are colorful and whimsical, the artist's conceptual still life works usually explore deeper themes below their fun surface.  In this piece, shown by Gallery Henoch from New York, green apples and red apples battle it out in a water balloon fight.  Jackson sets up these elaborate, funky still life groupings and paints from them; one can only imagine his studio space.

"Much Clearer Down Below", 60 x 78" is an oil on canvas by Eric Zener. I knew Zener would be showing at the fair and I sought out his work.  His underwater pieces have an incredible photorealistic quality.  His use of light and reflection is beautiful.  In this piece a man and a woman swim in the clear blue water of a pool, both of them frozen in a moment as the water's surface divides the canvas in half horizontally and blurs out their faces.  Zener pieces have a calm to them, a soothing ability.  When I look at them, it is as if I hear the sound waves around me become slow and lazy from the water distorting them.

Also on my list of favorites- one of Damien Hirst's spot prints. Go ahead, roll your eyes; but I am a sucker for these and I make no excuse for it.

And of course no list of highlights would be complete without a nod to David Bates. Tally Dunn had some of the artist's early works from 2004, the paintings on paper "Water Lily" and "Southern Magnolia".  Both of these pieces employ the thickly applied paint and intense black outlining so distinctive and recognizable to Bates’ work.  There were several Bates’ paintings and prints at the fair, but these were the most interesting of the selection.

I saw several 'sold' stickers on pieces throughout the gallery on opening day.  That is a good indicator the galleries were having success with buyers.  If you missed the Dallas Art Fair this time around, don't make that mistake next year.  This is one of the best local contemporary shows of the year.

M.P. Callender