Too Much and Not Enough
As part of a group from the Appraisers Association of America, I visited the studio last week of sculptor Chaim Gross (1902-1991). The building in Greenwich Village now houses the Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation. It’s definitely worth a visit – the ground floor...
You Can’t Take It With You
My two-year-old granddaughter, Veronica, was sitting at my dining room table last week, having some strained pears and admiring Water Garden #1, a painting by the late Paul Gardere. It’s a large, complicated piece by an artist who was also large and complicated. Paul...
The End of an Era
In 1981 I arrived in New York, jobless and with a wife and a baby daughter to support. I had worked in art publishing in Chicago and hoped to find something similar in New York, but a professor I had known at the University of Chicago called me and made a suggestion...
The Art of the Appraisal
Branding is everything these days, and lately I’ve been wondering if I should change the name of my business from Reagan Upshaw Fine Art to Reagan Upshaw Appraisals and Fine Art. It’s not that I don’t have fine works of art to sell – I do. But appraising art has been...
Déjà Vu All Over Again
Well, the 19th and 20th century American sales have come again and gone. Any new trends? Not really. Sotheby’s sale began with modernist paintings which initially sold well, with several works by Milton Avery exceeding their high estimates. Then things turned ominous....
Instilling Desire
As a private dealer, I sell works of art for clients, but if a client has a painting that isn’t a 19th or 20th century American work, my list of prospective collectors for the painting will be limited, and in such cases I often recommend that the client send the work...
Black Power!
If you enjoy the sound of a broken record, try calling a score of curators of American art at museums around the country and ask them what art they’re seeking for their collections these days. I guarantee you’ll hear the same thing over and over – “works by artists of...
Oz, The Great and Terrible
Netflix recently released a movie called Velvet Buzzsaw that can’t decide quite what it wants to be. It begins as a spoof of the contemporary art world, with its high-powered dealers, mega-galleries that dwarf museums, and art consultants on the take. Then...
Taking a Haircut (or, How ‘Bout Them Apples?)
In the course of my day, I often speak with collectors who assembled their collections 30 or 40 years ago and ask them if they might consider selling something. Much of the time, they are still enjoying the lovely things on their walls and have no need to sell....
They Both Hopped
Two weeks ago, I was looking over the catalogues for the upcoming American auctions. I knew that this blog would be concerned with the auctions’ results, and I had already picked out a title for the post: “One Hopped, The Other Didn’t.” The paintings to be discussed...
