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...
Shooting Yourself in the Foot
Katherine Dreier was frantic. The opening of a one-person exhibition at The Art Center, her exhibition space in New York, had just begun. Attendees included some of the most notable names of the American avant-garde art world in 1926: Alexander Archipenko, James...
Location, Please
Art dealers know that there are three cities you can sell to anyone – New York, Paris, and Venice. London is not as easy as you might think, and if you have a painting of, say, Cincinnati, you can sell it only in Southern Ohio. Someone in Atlanta won’t buy it....
Beach Reading
If you asked a dealer in 19th and 20th century art to rate subjects in terms of popularity, he or she would undoubtedly put still life paintings of dead fish or game down at the bottom of the list (along with portraits) and put beach scenes at the top. Beach scenes...
