Art high and low

Catch up reading
Note: I like Hannock's work, but prefer Chatham's

Bottom line, buy what you like, and the critics be damned.
The only ones who listen to them are know-nothings and each other.

Portrait of an A-List Artist - October 17, 2005:

"Are Hannock's paintings too derivative? Too accessible? Certainly a devotee of the avant-garde would say so. And it's true that neither the Museum of Modern Art nor the Whitney, the two pantheons of contemporary art, have Hannock's paintings in their collections. Several prominent art critics contacted by FORTUNE either didn't want to talk about Hannock or hadn't heard of him. When I explained to the critic Robert Hughes that many wealthy collectors own Hannock's work, he responded, 'The taste of the American rich is shit.' Ah, well, that.

William Lauder, a serious collector whose father, Leonard, just happens to be chairman of the Whitney, has a blunt message for critics: 'I don't care what they say. I like Steve's work a great deal. I don't buy paintings to make the critics happy.'"

Contrast to this
Where we have the Thyssen's ... collect for the sake of collecting.

"There was plenty of money to buy art. Heinrich's heir, Heini, inherited hundreds of paintings in 1947, but he wanted more, and he wanted them quickly. At the climax of his passion, he was adding to the collection at the rate of a painting a week, ending up with 1,500 works.
Mr Litchfield declares that his role was as Thyssen's confessor. He spins an extraordinary tale of great industrial wealth, compulsive acquisition of art, decorated with complicated sub-plots involving serial adultery and divorce."

The Thyssens | Bad blood, bad art | Economist.com:

"Thyssen's fourth wife and her lover took a commission from the seller on all Thyssen's purchases, of which there were no fewer than 800 during their marriage. Apparently, he bought a Jackson Pollock merely because he was intrigued by an account of Pollock's death. And Thyssen's fifth wife, Carmen Cervera, a former Miss Spain known as Tita, refused to visit the hairdresser because she feared that hair and nail clippings could be used to prepare a curse on her and her husband."

"What counts now, however, is whether the paintings in Madrid are any good. Apart from the professional boosters, critics have not been enthusiastic: “minor works of major artists and major works of minor artists,” said one.

The remarkable generosity of the Spanish government has meant that everything can be hung simultaneously, but not everything is worth showing. (And there is even more on show since Baroness Thyssen arranged the sale of her share of the collection to Spain.) On a recent visit, this reviewer found gallery after dreary gallery so dispiriting that there was no zest left to appreciate the sudden appearance of a fine painting. The Prado and the Museo Reina Sofia are only a short walk away."