Risk + Reward When Buying Art
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Raise your hand if you decorate with neon.
Hallmarks of a professionally designed space reveal themselves in the unexpected details—pops of shocking color in an otherwise neutral living room, loud art on top of wallpaper, a tiny painting on a large wall or an oversized painting squeezed into a smaller space, an eclectic mix of furniture styles, juxtapositions of architectural styles and decor eras, etc… When you don’t really know what you are doing, you tend to play it safe, but when you hire a professional or feel comfortable in your decision-making capability, you will often swing for the fences. I love it when clients swing for the fences because a sophisticated art collection is often one in which the collector has taken some risks.
In one recent example, a client replaced a dark and tonal abstract work she had collected on her travels to Bali with a bold choice by Sarah Ann Weber. This was our first purchase together and the result was nothing short of transformational. Here are the before and after photos.
The colored pencil on paper drawing by Sarah Ann Weber practically glows against her very traditional lavender sofa. I had really always envisioned something bright coral or neon yellow in this space but did not think this first-time-art-buyer would follow me down the neon yellow brick road. Knowing what an impact such a choice would have here, I went out on a limb one day and sort of side-texted her, “Hey, what about this…” and showed her some examples of SAW’s work, which I had seen and loved many times over. To my shock and surprise and very much to my client’s credit, she immediately went nuts for it. She was planning to be in LA so I arranged for her to meet Sarah in person (thanks to the wonderful Amanda McMorran at Anat Ebgi) and see several available options. Of course they knocked her socks off in person and here we are!
Beyond the visual impact the new work has on the space, the client reports that its presence has actually transformed the way they live in their home as well. Now, she loves to sit in this room while her oldest daughter practices piano. Her two younger daughters often join her because they love looking at this work with its endless array of details to discover and discuss. Her life insurance agent even said to her, “This is not my style at all but I love this work of art!”
The family still discovers new details every day and the journey of living with this piece has helped them understand how deeply rewarding it is to visit and revisit a work of art over and over by living with it.
Bright, bold, and nontraditional colors are one way to take a risk with your art and develop a more sophisticated collection. Here are some others…
The bottom line here is that variety is the spice of life. And here are three ways to add variety to your collection that may seem risky but will ultimately yield exciting visual reward.
3-Dimensional Art or Sculpture
Just because you have a flat wall, it does not mean you have to have flat art. I love to put sculpture or three-dimensional wall-dependent art in a single space to add visual interest. Here is an example of a rendering I did for a client who is exploring her risk profile, shall we say:
I chose these three works because first and foremost they tell the story of the family who lives in this home, but secondly, because they look awesome in this beautiful, historic Cleveland home. Se Yoon’s sculpture is all about the balance and importance of giving children a solid foundation while also nurturing their ambition and confidence to achieve their goals. Hildur Jonsson is a Cleveland-based artist and this family are native-Clevelanders so it is fitting to have her represented in their collection. And finally, Stephanie’s Join is made out of mattress quilting and I love that it encapsulates the spirit of this massive dining room where the family routinely hosts dozens of people. She describes her home as wanting it to be the place where her children and their friends want to hang out, a soft place to land, so to speak! She is still deciding how daring she wants to be in this room, particularly against the very traditional decor, but we shall see…
Juxtaposition of styles or media
This one is not terribly different from the one above but I want to highlight one particular aspect, and that is that you should not put a painting on every wall. It is really important to mix in a variety of media. If you can’t get there on hanging a sculpture on a wall, think about drawings, pastels, watercolors, or prints as alternative 2-dimensional media to add to a space. I recently worked on a project in which every wall has a painting on it. The client and I felt it was really important to add variety in terms of both subject matter and media with the final acquisition. She has paintings on 4 walls, a photograph on one, a sculpture (!!) on the floor, and so we added a series of watercolors that lead up the stairs. They are being installed next week, but here is a rendering:
And this leads me to my final point:
Scale
There is a rule of thumb that the art should be 57-75% of the width of wall on which it hangs. This is really helpful when you are just starting to consider a space. But it is also really fun to throw it in the garbage and think differently! In the example above, to some degree we chunked the rule book out the window. These little water colors are small. Like 11×8” and 8×5”…on a massive double height foyer wall. We played with doing a salon-style hang and covering the wall ceiling to tread with art. We played with a large single piece hung front and center. But we ultimately settled on these small, intimate watercolors because they resonated so deeply with the client and her love of travel. By going small, we are giving each object its moment, and in a way, recreating the experience of exploring far away lands. As the viewer progresses up the stairs, they will be invited to pause and ponder and then move on. It will be a slow, contemplative experience rather than a loud, overwhelming one.
As always, thanks for being here and for reading my newsletter. I have really enjoyed this new platform and am looking forward to continuing. Have a great weekend everybody!
The Veteran Collector's Secret to Owning Art by the Masters and Prints are Not Posters
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It's easier than you think.
Have you ever wondered how a semi-regular ol’ Joe has a Lichtenstein hanging in his living room or a Matisse in her master bedroom or a Katz in the kitchen or a Banksy in the bathroom? Friends, they are called prints. And no, they are not posters.
Many of the greatest painters from Rembrandt to Ruscha made fine art prints alongside their painting practice. A fine art print, in contrast to a poster, is a reproducible image made in a limited edition. A lot of collectors just call them prints or editions or multiples. To make it a little confusing, because we are art people after all, the term edition also refers to the number of prints struck from a single plate. So if you go to Phillips’ website, for example, you will see a category called “Editions.” This refers to the works the auction house sells that are not unique. Some houses call their print departments “Prints and Multiples.” They all mean the same thing.
I get so many questions about prints and print collecting, so I’m going to do a little FAQ:
Q: How is a print different than a poster?
A: A poster does not have a set edition number. It can and usually is produced in an unknown quantity, it is probably not using high quality or archival materials, and often the artist has nothing to do with its design or production. A poster is temporary and a print is made to last. Artists have been making prints since forever, like the Han Dynasty in China, and the reasons for printmaking have remained largely unchanged. Printmaking is a relatively fast and inexpensive way to more widely disseminate information, images, and text.
Q: Why would I want to buy a print? There are dozens of copies of it.
A: If a big time artist really resonates with you, owning a print by that artist may be the only way you will ever be able to acquire a work by that person. Take Rembrandt. Rembrandt was a PROLIFIC printmaker. Alexander Hamilton : writing :: Rembrandt : printmaking. I think we all know that there are very few Rembrandt paintings still held in private hands. Translation: Almost all of his paintings are in museums. But Rembrandt prints hit the auction block every single season. Some people only collect Rembrandt prints. The catalogue raisonné of his work is vast and the quality of the objects themselves varies significantly. But if you love Rembrandt and only have a few hundred bucks to spend, you could acquire a print made by the master’s own hand. It may not be unique but it surely demonstrates the artist’s process, technical prowess, experimental spirit, and artists genius.
However, when it comes to contemporary printmaking, someone might acquire a print rather than original, unique work because maybe the artist has a really long waiting list or the price of a unique work has already skyrocketed beyond their budget or they are really drawn to this particular medium or art form.
Q: What is a monoprint and a monotype?
A: They sound synonymous but they are not. A monoprint is when an artist uses the same plate or block to produce the same image but makes changes to the final print either directly on the plate between each impression or to the printed image itself. Here is an example of a series of monoprints called Point Reyes by Guimi You. The printed image is the same and then she went back in and hand-finished each one with acrylic overpaint. This is an edition of 25, but here are just 2 examples. I love Guimi’s work but her paintings are usually very large and they have gotten quite expensive. I bought one of these wonderful monoprints instead!
Dream of growing up by Benedict Sheuer demonstrates why it is sometimes difficult to discern monotype versus monoprint. You can see that the images are largely the same but the colors are different and the compositions have some variation. Were they struck from the same plate?Who knows…and honestly who cares. He made 4 monoprints in this series. I own one and a client owns the other and I LOVE it!
A monotype is an image made using printmaking techniques but is totally a one-off, like Cleveland-based artist Corrie Slawson’s work. She is the consummate printmaker and her technique is off the charts, but all of her images are totally unique. A monotype is usually considered a unique work rather than an edition but I imagine there have been heated discussions in some very erudite circles on this topic.
In the image above, Corrie has layered printmaking technique over acrylic painting, spray paint, stenciling, all sorts of media to create this finished work on paper. Is it a painting? Yes. Is it a print? You could probably argue as much. Check out more of her work here.
Q: Ok, cool, but how do I buy a Warhol? And why are the prices all over the board?
A: The short answer is at auction. Decide on the image you like and want to acquire and then watch the auctions for one to come up. You could also buy them from print dealers but the print dealers probably bought them at auction so you might as well go straight to the source. Prices vary based on rarity, condition and desirability. Obviously, low editions make a particular print more rare. Condition refers to the state or quality of the object. Does it have creases or tears or light damage? And of course desirability is how many other people want to acquire this same image. Some prints are more iconic than others and thus, more expensive. You know willing seller, willing buyer, and all that jazz. If you don’t know how to buy at auction or want to better understand the print market for major, iconic artists, feel free to drop a comment below or send me a message.
That feels like enough info for you to digest at the moment.
Key takeaways:
Buying prints is a fantastic way to quickly and easily build your art collection and add some variation to your collection. If you look around at great design, you will likely observe that variation is the key. When every single piece of art is a painting on canvas, it gets boring. Framed prints (almost always behind glass or plexi) change it up a bit. I always like to put prints in high traffic areas where I want art but do not want that unintentional shoulder bump against my unprotected painting or in a child’s room where an errant ball might hit the art.
As always, thanks for being here and for reading what I have to say. Your support means more than you know!
Why Substack + Some Nature-Inspired Art That Is More Than Sunsets and Flowers
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I came on strong with my shift to Substack. Let me tell you why.
I have had many people ask me why the sudden and relentless shift to Substack? I don’t blame them. It happened quick and I came on strong. There are so many reasons why I dove into Substack head first and with reckless abandon and am so, so happy about it.
The most important reason why I started a Substack is because I miss long-form posts about art and the art market. I started Art I Saw and Liked with longer posts about art I saw and liked. It was really that simple. But as my business grew, we came out of Covid, and life happened, my IG became something else and IG itself became something else. Reels happened. Gah, I hate Reels. The algorithm changed, or continually changes all the time, which leads me to the second reason why I joined Substack.
IG is hard to keep up with. It is hard to build a real community. And IG is no longer about the visual. I don’t really know what it is about these days but I know it is a time suck, a mood suck, a joy suck, a productivity suck, etc… You get the gist. It sucks. But it also does not really do all that much for my business. Outside of a handful of engaged followers who are really interested in what I have to offer, I am not sure how it really moves the needle for my business. That makes me sound like a capitalist pig, but I have to be choosey about how I spend my time and a key criterion is that everything I do has to be absolutely necessary or have very high impact, and that leads me to my third reason.
I want to use Substack as platform to reach many more people than I can under my current business model. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love that I do, which is helping novice art collectors find and collect art that speaks to their soul. I love watching clients discover an artist or work that brings them closer to a fuller expression of who they are. I really want to be able to do that on a larger scale. I currently work on a one-to-one basis and I will always do that. But I would love to add a one-to-many branch to my business. My hope is that my Substack becomes a place where many novice art collectors from across the country can go to access my eye, my knowledge, my network, and my expertise. I believe there is a huge group of people out there who want to live with fantastic art from real, working artists that inspires their minds, their creativity, their families, and great conversation but they just don’t know where to go to get it and don’t feel confident in their choices. Displaying art in your home and in the spaces you occupy makes you vulnerable. I have found that people want to make choices that make them feel safe, confident, seen, and understood, even if they are visually risky. It’s a weird balance and I want to help folks find it.
That is the purpose of my Substack newsletter. Spread the word. Share it with your friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues. Please take a moment to forward this newsletter to one person who you think would enjoy reading it. And if you know of any great artists I should feature, please drop me a message!
And now on to some great art all under $10,000…
Benedict Sheuer (b. 1992, American)
I love these silk wall-dependent sculptures from Benedict Sheuer. They flutter when you walk by them. They are so gentle and graceful and vulnerable. I really want to hang a cluster, or dare I say, flock, of them asymmetrically on a large wall.
Corinne Slade (b. 1998, Montclair, NJ)
This new body of work from Corinne Slade deals with the act of deadheading—the practice of pruning flowers to encourage new growth—a powerful metaphor for personal renewal and transformation. Her new exhibition opens TODAY (!!) at COL Gallery in San Francisco. Slade is a young artist but has shown at Frieze London and Felix Art Fair, and the work is still under $5k!
Josh Callaghan (b. 1969, Doylestown, PA)
Josh Callaghan has recently come on my radar and I find his work so elegant in it engagement with the human-environment relationship. His Twig Index series takes us into the fourth dimension as it harkens to human evolution while his Root Ball asks us what future humans and future Nature might look like if we continue on our current trajectory. Callaghan’s work masterfully looks back and forward simultaneously to helps figure out what we should do in the now.
How Do I Look At Art and Some Really High Quality Surrealism
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Sometimes we end up with more questions than answers
Well, the answer to the first question is easy. Use your eyes!! JK…sort of. On the one hand, looking at art is easy. Just look at it. But on the other hand, it is hard because you really should be engaging all of your senses and your imagination. Taste? Yep. Touch? Totally (well imagined touch. Don’t actually touch the art…unless you are instructed to do so.) Sound? You betcha. Smell? Yes sir.
Using your imagination to engage all 5 senses is one of the best ways to find your way into a piece of art about which you know nothing. I always tell people that they should stand in front of a work of art long enough to be able to say five things about it. (In case you missed it, that is the key takeaway from today’s lesson. Well that and don’t touch the art.) If after that, you are still not feeling it, then you can move on. But, a good way to get to 5 things other than listing the colors you see is to imagine what the scene might feel, taste, smell, and sound like. This even works with abstract art and takes you on a little non-substance-fueled acid trip. You should try it.
Another strategy is to imagine why an artist made the decisions that they did. If you think about it, every mark, brushstroke, line, swoosh, splash, splotch (a technical term), crosshatch, gradient, the material, the size, every single aspect of a work of art was a decision made by the artist. Together all of these decisions coalesce to (hopefully) convey what the artist is trying to say. So maybe your 5 intelligent comments are imagining these decisions and why they were made. You could even take it a step further by asking yourself how the work might change if the artist had made a different choice. Would it be more or less effective? Would your perception of the meaning or message have shifted?
Let’s practice on this week’s artist recommendation! She’s so good and has a waiting list, but I’ve got the secret sauce…
Aniela Preston (b. 1998, Coventry, UK)
Picture this: You walk into an exhibition by an artist about whom you know nada. The images on the wall are at once familiar and foreign, whimsical and onerous, cheery yet eerie. What do you do? First, take a stroll around and drink it all in. Are there any recurring figures or symbols? Do you see a character show up in multiple compositions? What’s the color palette got going on? Do you feel uncomfortable? What makes you want to keep looking? How did the paint get to the substrate? Can you see the brushstrokes? Can you see piles, pools, or puddles of paint (impasto is the technical term) on the surface? Do the images remind you of anything else you have seen?
Here are my five thoughts:
- The architecture and compositions definitely have an Early Renaissance feel to them, when artists were just figuring out linear perspective, but here the perspective is amiss. It is like she wants you to think of Renaissance perspective but also recognize that this is not that. This is not an attempt to render the world as accurately as possible as we see it, but perhaps it is the world as we feel it, experience it, or dream it. This is not physical reality but the metaphysical, emotional, experiential, or internal reality.
- A lot of big cats. Why the big cats? They are not fearsome or aggressive here but symbolically they perhaps serve as a harbinger of danger.
- The hexagonal pool and the style of the lillies and trees in Veil of deception giving me major Ghent Altarpiece vibes. The Ghent Altarpiece is a masterwork by Jan Van Eyck, the Northern Renaissance master who taught us everything we know about minute detail. Why does she want me to go there??
- So many questions about the colors. Millenial pink e’er’where. I feel like I’m in Florida with all the turquoise and peach. But it’s working for me. I like the color palette because it feels calming in spite of everything else in the composition presenting a giant question mark.
- There are “bodies of water” in each painting— a tub, the blue rug and turquoise carpet, that maroon situation with a night cityscape in the far distance, the pool, the water and ship—and I feel like there is a thread here. Perhaps some aspect of environmentalism?
Ok, here’s the takeaway: Even when you know nothing about a work of art or an artist, you can start to identify details and make connections that will help you understand it. Some works evoke more questions than answers, and that is okay!
Aniela Preston graduated with her Fine Art BA at the University of Leeds in 2021 after completing her Foundation Diploma at Central Saint Martins. In 2022 she was selected as a finalist for the Ingram Prize, and most recently, she has been selected as a finalist for the Royal Society of British Artist’s 2023 Rome Scholarship. Aniela’s paintings blend the contemporary with the classical in a hyper-realist style, offering both quiet glimpses into intimate moments and gesturing towards wider societal, political and environmental issues. Her paintings, therefore, not only provide social critique but draw on the concept of traditional formality that mythologises the mundane. Painting primarily in acrylic, she hopes her paintings are not just aesthetic objects but rather invitations to consider the impact of our actions.
She has recently had solo shows at LUPO Gallery in Milan and Black White Gallery in London. Her work will be show at the Westbund Art Fair in Shanghai in November 2024. (Most of the paintings are already sold out! Let me know if you are interested and I can connect you with the gallery.) Aniela Preston will graduate from the Royal College of Art in 2025.
I'm tapped out at $5k but I really love some more expensive artists. HELP!
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I can help you solve this problem.
First of all, congratulations on joining the expensive taste club. We are a fun bunch! If you spend enough time around great art, you’ll soon notice that it can be difficult to set limits on how much you are willing to spend on a piece you love. But there is a budget. There is always a budget. If you have found an artist you love but just can’t afford one of their signature pieces, there are some workarounds…
- Consider purchasing a smaller work, a work on paper, a study, or a print (if the artist produces prints). Here is a gorgeous little ink drawing by Dora Maar up for auction next week and the starting bid is only $500…
- Watch charity auctions on Artsy. Many emerging artists will donate works to charity auctions to support causes about which they are passionate and to help gain exposure to art-loving audiences. There are often good deals to be had.
- Identify what it is about that artist that resonates with you and look for artists working along similar lines. Is it the theme? The colors? The artist’s story? This is a big part of what I do so feel free to ask for help.
- And I know you don’t want to hear this…but you could always save toward it. It’s good to set goals!
Here is 1 charity along with 4 artists who’s work sells for more than $10k (and in 1 case WAY more…) but their smaller works under $5k are just as wonderful, or might be even better, but definitely have something to offer…
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit Benefit Auction
The auction is live now on Artsy and lots will start to close on October 28 at 12:00pm EDT. Here are some favorites:
Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976, Plainfield, NJ)
Yes, you read that right. THE Hank Willis Thomas of The Embrace in Boston Commons. His work, like his quilts and large sculptures, sells solidly in the 6 figures and he has blue chip representation but he has a print practice that makes his work really attainable. I typically am not drawn to overly political art, its just not my thing, but Hank’s elegant touch always gets me and I am so enthralled by his new series of monoprints (or as the studio is calling them, unique variations) that remind us all how important it is to protect our democracy. I like how the works can be read in a variety of ways and from multiple viewpoints, depending where on the spectrum the viewer falls politically. In the end, Hank reminds us that we all share a common goal and that is to protect our freedom. These are listed at $10,000 each, which falls slightly outside the scope of this newsletter, but they are too good not to share considering his work is often well into the hundreds of thousands. Here are 2 of the unique variations.
Gudmundur Thoroddsen (b. 1980, Reykjavik, Iceland)
I had the distinct pleasure of seeing Gudmundur Thoroddsen’s show at Asya Geisberg in September. It was one of those shows that I saw first from the sidewalk and it beckoned me in to the gallery before I even realized what gallery I was entering. Once I realized I was in Asya Geisberg, I was not surprised as I always love her program. But I digress. This show was a knock out and these works whether small or large have such visual impact on a space. The paintings, while abstract, give the viewer a true sense of the Icelandic landscape in all its oxymoronic glory. The jagged edges of cliffs meet the soft moss covered rocks. The volcanic lava flows butt against icy glaciers. The island itself was formed from nothing into something but the beauty of the country stems from the fact that it is so untouched. You literally get the feeling that no one has ever been there before. I felt all of this standing in front of these paintings. The show closes in a couple of days but here are a few favorites under $5k.
Harminder Judge (b. 1982, Rotherham, UK)
I had the distinct pleasure of meeting and sharing a meal with Harminder a few months ago in Cleveland. It was refreshing to hear him rave about our fair city, so I automatically liked him, but also hearing him talk about art was transcendent, much like his artistic practice, which is grounded in an extended exploration of pigmented plaster as an artistic medium. “His alchemical process involves layering pigments into pools of wet plaster. The plaster sets – freezing a record of its creation in time, and the surface is then worked, polished and slowly worn away to reveal layers of colour, texture and movement beneath. Culminating in expansive modular panels and ineffable shapes which seem to hover off the wall, colour, forms, and compositions are allowed to reveal themselves and intensify over time. The results are sensual and seductive, with surfaces appearing sleek and shimmering. They have an illusory quality, seeming to hover in front of the wall, suggesting depth, evoking the idea of a portal or doorway and inviting the viewer to stay with them in contemplation.” -from the artist’s CV and bio
Prices range from GBP 30,000+ for his most ambitious multi-panel works down to around GBP 4500 for the smaller panels and he is represented by London Gallery The Sunday Painter.
Saba Farhoudnia (b. 1987, Tehran, Iran)
Saba was born in the midst of war. Her paintings are monumental in scale and explore the challenges facing the human condition. Saba merges the art of drawing, painting, language, and verse, through brushstrokes, geometric forms, calligraphy, and gestural marks to evoke drama, pain, humor, and beauty. The forms are intended to plumb the depths of the grotesque and elevate the humor in beauty. Her work explores humanity poised on a precipice: facing an insecure present and an uncertain future. She is represented by Fou Gallery in New York.
So there you have it and this is just scratching the surface. It was hard to narrow it to just 4 artists to feature but stay tuned for more posts like this. And if you see something you like, let me know and I can share more details.
Unionized Art-Buying...Kind Of... and Text-and-Image Abstract Painting Actually Done Well
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More like collective buying power...but unionized sounds catchier!
Ever wonder why you walk into an exhibition and every single work already has a red dot? In the world of art, galleries like to make their best patrons feel very important. One way they do this is by offering exclusive access to new work by their artists before the rest of the lowly art-buyer-wannabes get to see it. Life ain’t fair, folks. If you patronize and support a gallery, they will love you back. This is one reason why having an art advisor behooves the novice buyer. An art advisor is basically a union rep for their whole clientele giving each client the collective buying power of the whole. That is certainly the case for my clients for a variety of reasons.
First of all, none of my clients are spending millions or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on art, nor do they have important last names (no offense y’all). And secondly, being new collectors, they have not necessarily found a gallery that they would want to patronize so heavily that they would gain exclusive access to previews. But when I combine the collective buying power of 10 to 15 clients, all of a sudden I gain access to everything they want on their behalf. See how that works?
The problem for me is that I have access to all of this incredible work that I would love to place, but with only 10-15 clients, not everything is for every taste. Honestly, this is the main reason I started this Substack. I am betting that there are TONS of would-be-art-buyers out there that do not even know this art exists, but if they did, they would love it, and they would buy it!
One such example is…
Heath Wae (b. 1989, Melbourne, AU)
Yall, I love Heath Wae. And I really, really love his new body of work that is opening in a cool new show at London gallery The Dot Project on October 23. The Dot Project is dedicated to emerging artists and the next generation of collectors. Their mission and my mission are essentially identical so I love them.
Using text in art is really hard, like really, really hard. It can so easily get cheesy or cheap-looking. Sometimes, when done poorly, it just feels like the easy way out for an artist to get their message across to the viewer. But Heath Wae uses text to great effect, eliciting a particular feeling in the viewer but not necessarily answering any questions or making the work’s meaning more accessible. With his words and phrases, he sets up a framework within which the viewer can meaner and explore. More labyrinth and less road map.
I would really love to see this whole body of work (except the one that is already sold, of course) stay together and hung down a hallway or in a cluster…Somebody do it please!
What do you think? Do these totally transport you to a different time and place? Let me know where your mind goes!
Quickie Read: Jess Bosworth Smith
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On Tuesday evening, I unwrapped a new painting that we recently purchased from Shaheen Gallery’s exhibition of new work by Antwoine Washington. Maybe they have been groomed or maybe their excitement is genuine, but my sons love it when new art arrives. They have opinions on where it should go and why; and, it is the most fun to hear all about what they are thinking. After we settled on the fact that the painting really aligns most closely with my younger son and that it should hang in his room, we took it in there to figure out which wall. There is a lot of bright art in his room and this particular painting is also bright. I held it up and my older son declared, “That does not excite my eyes.” He is 7 and he was exactly right. When I asked him why it does not excite his eyes, giddy with glee that he had articulated his opinion so clearly and concisely. He observed that the colors in the new painting are too similar to the other work on the wall and so it all just gets lost.
Exhibition promotional emails for 131 A Gallery’s current exhibition of Jess Bosworth Smith have hit my inbox a couple of times now and I like the work every time. Here is a favorite that happens to still be available.
Advertised price is R 38,000 or about $2100-2200.
I love 131 A Gallery’s program in Capetown, South Africa. They place emerging artists next to established artists and have a keen eye for high-quality work.
Have a great day!
(Banner image: Jess Bosworth Smith, I’ve Got Better People To Leave on Read (detail), 2024, gouache on board, 118 x 87.5 cm)
City Feature: CLEVELAND
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Great art does not have to come from New York and LA
Yes, many of the great American artists live and work in New York City and Los Angeles. FACT. But, if you live in the middle of the country, aka not in one of the aforementioned coastal cities, you know that there are so many wonderful artists living and working across our great nation.
HOT TIP: NYC and LA costs of living are exorbitant so artists outside of these huge markets enjoy much lower COL, and thus their art is much less expensive, but often just as high-quality as what is coming out of the emerging market in NYC and LA. That was a run-on sentence but I don’t care. I digress.
So, let us turn our attention to CLEVELAND. Say it in an Oprah voice, “CLEEEVELAAAANNNDDD!!!”
Honestly, Cleveland is a really dang cool city. Unlike the radically dad-sounding previous sentence, Cleveland is dope and has lots of great, world-class, might I add, cultural institutions, including but not limited to the Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, SPACES, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, etc… While our big arts and culture organizations are fabulous, we have but just a handful of galleries in our small but mighty arts ecosystem. So many of the artists who live and work here have to seek representation outside the city or are independent.
But, we’ve got a guy. There’s always a guy, right? He has been in the art biz since he could crawl and knows everyone, like everyone, in the art world. And he has a phenomenal gallery that marries the best of our local talent with all-stars of the century like Alex Katz and Frank Stella. His name is Brett Shaheen. His gallery is Shaheen Gallery. And a few of the amazing local artists to whom he has introduced me and I am now sharing with you are:
Rose Haserodt
TR Ericsson
Neil MacDonald
Do you live in a city filled with amazing local artists? Let me know where you live and maybe I will feature your city next!
As always, thank for being here!
I Want Good Art But I Don't Know Where To Start and What Is An Emerging Artist Anyway?
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Spoiler Alert: Start here. And emerging = affordable.
Let me paint a picture for you and see if it resonates. You are in your mid-late thirties. You have recently moved into a big-kid house. The last vestiges of your first-apartment furniture and IKEA art have finally made it to the curb for garbage-pickup day. You are ready to buy real furniture (that withstands ketchup and greasy fingers, obvi) and some “good art.” The furniture piece is easy enough to find on your own. But the art, well that is another story.
You have some money to spend on said art, but not hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars. Where does one find GOOD art under $10,000, you ask.
HERE! RIGHT HERE! You did it. You solved the mystery. You came to the right place. Everything on this Substack will be under $10,000. I will bring my 16 years of experience in the art world and multiple art history degrees (yep, two of them. See, Dad, there IS commercial value in an art history degree!) to bring you the best art from around the world that is wallet-friendly, high-quality work that will stand the test of time. It will inspire you, challenge you, spark interesting conversations with your guests, and probably make your friends jealous. You’re welcome.
Subscribe to read on for my very first suggestion…
On my phone, in a secret (not really secret) folder, I keep a treasure trove of artists I love who are just hitting their stride. We call them emerging artists. It is difficult to define or categorize emerging artists. They are usually on the young side, but not always. They are usually relatively recent MFA grads, but sometimes they took time away after finishing school and are coming back to being a working artist. They probably have a few gallery shows under their belt, maybe a solo show. Perhaps they were in New American Paintings (a gold mine of emerging artists, btw. You should subscribe to the magazine and put them on your bookshelf if you really want to look like you know what you are doing.)
What emerging artists typically have in common is that they have found their voice and a visual language to communicate what it is they want to say. They have a few bodies of work that demonstrate both their technical prowess and thematic relevance; and the people who need to have started to notice them. And they are probably still starving, so we should support them.
If we are talking about artists in terms of investments, emerging artists are the venture capital gambles. Some will hit it big and be generation-defining. Some will make it enough to support themselves. And some will peter out into oblivion. But the work they are making now is awesome and worth buying because it resonates with YOU!
Let’s talk about Katherine Qiyu Su, for example, because a very smart client just bought one of her paintings and she is in the current exhibition Blue Hour at Phillips. Katherine was featured in the Annex at Half Gallery in New York in August 2024, her US debut, and had another solo show earlier in the year. She has been in quite a few group shows in London and Italy. She got her MFA in London in 2023. And she has something really interesting to say and a novel way of saying it. I LOVE it already! But let’s look:
Whoa! High visual impact, right?! Katherine’s work is all about the human experience with reality and memory. Where is the line between what we remember to be true, what we know to be true, and what actually happened? How do we trace these intangible memories? As someone who used to memorize her entire day’s worth of homework and never write a single thing down but now will forget to breathe if she does not write it down, this work really hits home. Here are a few more awesome paintings:
If I were standing in front of these paintings and knew nothing about them, here are five things I might say about them:
- I love her use of complementary colors to emphasize the contrast of her explosive brushwork. (Thanks grad school.)
- These intimate moments of line work punctuate the large sweeping swaths of color.
- The exposed bare linen demonstrates where we started and reifies the journey to this final frenetic composition.
- The composition is abstract but I feel like I am really looking at something. But I can’t put my finger on it. It’s like a word on the tip of your tongue.
- This painting makes me want to shift in to high gear and get $h*t done!
Katherine’s large canvases sell for about $8000-9000 and smaller ones (about 35×28 in) sell for under $5,000. I have access to a couple of available so hit me up if you’re interested!