It has proven impossible to guess which paintings will sell in an exhibition. I’ve been at this over 30 years. I never know. Some years I sell every one. Some years only half.
I will admit a vexed relationship with money and art.
Mr. Blake said, “Where any view of money exists, art cannot be carried on.”
A wise man. Or was he? A genius certainly. And a man who’s funeral was paid for with borrowed money.
I don’t object to money. I think my trouble comes from growing up in a family of art. My mother was a painter and an art teacher. My eldest sisters the same. Both reminded me that young children’s art can be more beautiful than Picasso’s. A Picasso quote, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” My mother assured me that he never made it. But he got more money for his.
Art in my house was everywhere. Everybody made it. It was valuable, important, but not in a money way. You just did it. Everybody did it, like conversation. You don’t charge for conversation.
I remain confused about selling art.
I spent time in New York. It was the time of Warhol. He got money. It put a stain on the thing for me. For him, for that group, making money was the art. And it carries on.
As I say, I have a vexed relationship with selling art.
But every year I go thru the years crop and put my favorite paintings on the wall. It is an important thing, to dress them up with a frame, or at the very least to back them, take the creases out. Give them a little wall, to see what they can do with it.
And some I sell. I’m happy to do it. One can’t be one’s only collector, not enough space!
As I say, impossible for me to predict which ones will sell.
