Kathy Forer on wed 7 mar 07
Russel Fouts wrote:
>> Picasso's ceramics are apparently affordable for collectors, an
>> average piece (of what? it doesn't say) might sell for EUR150 today,
>
> I think you may have dropped a few zeros off that amount. I attended
> a viewing for an auction of Picasso's ceramics at Sotheby's in London
> in October last year and the prices ranged from 800 euro (for a tile)
> to 40,000 for a terracotta plate with a bull and bull fighter on it.
> (that's $1,050 to $52,500)
It would seem I'm dropping zeros all over the place.
I got the EUR105 from a too-hasty skim of the same 2003 article
In the last five years, Picasso's ceramic price index has
risen 47%,
compared with 24% for the general index for all disciplines.
A Pablo Picasso ceramic acquired for EUR100 in 1997 had
risen in value to an average EUR147 as of 1 January 2003.
And the market has gone up considerably since 2003, with all the new
investors and all so, the index might have gone over 200 easily by
now. But that's an index.
I was careless. If it had been written "EUR10 in 1997 had risen in
value to an average EUR14.7 as of 1 January 2003." I might well have
repeated that! I was reading poorly and thinking concretely, not in
abstractions, often a kind of either/or thought switch for me. It
didn't look right but I let it slide. The main point holds. www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/22/news/aachin.php> vs. www.artmarketinsider.com/>.
I just spent a few minutes (actually more like seconds -- numbers are
so beautiful until they start adding meaningless symbols to them and
then they just ruin everything) at index.aspx?id=1>, a demo that explains the various art commodity
indices.
However it's not just wishful-thinking to know that
It is quite common
to find very reasonably priced small Madoura editions in
sales rooms on week days.
Is that Tuesday or Thursday?
Be that as it may, the prices you quote at Sotheby's or those listed
at http://www.madoura.com are accurate.
I'm visiting my parents now who have the Picasso's Ceramics book by
Georges Ramie, Madoura's co-owner with his wife Suzanne, [Viking,
1976], that I'd been thinking about. I looked through it wanting to
find something I could send clayarters and there is too much to read
or to quote. But these two thoughts seem appropriate for this
discussion.
If the design is not the form itself but the way we see
the form, and if it is also deirable to forget objects
themselves and retain only their relationships, then we
have entered into a world of complementary principles,
not in the respect of the relationships of things
forgotten or the way of describing forms observed, but
surely in the possibility of bringing forms and volumes
into contact. [p. 147]
This reminds me of Plato's cave vaguely. Though he doesn't elaborate
systematically in the next paragraph, only in parts throughout the
book, Ramie builds up a case for what and how Picasso taught us to see.
Ramie's book has some delightful hyperbole in delicto that must have
St. Ives spinning in a stunningly elegant ego-less ethos:
For the moment the news spread that Picasso had become a
potter, a new world suddenly awoke. Ceramics had always
been considered a minor art, an art reserved for a few
effete initiates, finicking aesthetes drooping over the
glories of a past definitively completed. To tell the
truth, nobody paid it any attention. [ . . . ] And then, all
of a sudden, this imp of a man took it into his head to
devote himself heart and soul to this form of plastic
expression and to take an interest in all its
possibilities.
This event plunged many spirits into a tumolt of
reflections and even inspirations; perhaps this new
discovery was really going to bring forth some
absolutely new media! So it became a matter of urgency
to go and look into all this a little more closely. And
it was then that we saw once more that well-known
phenomenon of Picasso opening a door and everybody
pushing across the threshold. This time it was the door
to ceramics that was flung open so resoundingly, and the
multitudes immediately rushed through. As if by magic, a
renewed interest arose in the practice of all the arts
of fire. And the world had never seen so many ceramists!
[p. 154]
There's a review by Matthew Kangas at Picasso.htm> that's a pretty good overview of Picasso's pottery. The
Ramie book too is wonderful, republished in 1995. This is new on my
reading list: Pots, Politics, Paradise. Art in America, 3/1/2000,
SILVER, KENNETH E., A Hypertrophied Art of the Pantry : www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-60130182.html>
Sorry about the zeroes. 00000000xxxxx
Kathy Forer
Lee Love on wed 7 mar 07
On 3/7/07, Russel Fouts wrote:
> Kathy,
>
> >> Picasso's ceramics are apparently affordable for collectors, an
> average piece (of what? it doesn't say) might sell for EUR150 today,
Sort of like Warren MacKenzie 1 and 2 dollar shelf for kids. More
artists should think this way. They can reach a larger audience.
--
Lee in Mashiko, Japan
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
http://potters.blogspot.com/
"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." -
Henry David Thoreau
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
Russel Fouts on wed 7 mar 07
Kathy,
>> Picasso's ceramics are apparently affordable for collectors, an
average piece (of what? it doesn't say) might sell for EUR150 today,
a far cry from his (Boy with a Pipe) which sold for $US104.1 million in 2004.
http://www.artmarketinsight.com/en/art_article.aspx?idfrom=3D1&from=3DT&id=3D65
<<
I think you may have dropped a few zeros off that amount. I attended
a viewing for an auction of Picasso's ceramics at Sotheby's in London
in October last year and the prices ranged from 800 euro (for a tile)
to 40,000 for a terracotta plate with a bull and bull fighter on it.
(that's $1,050 to $52,500)
These weren't even originals. Most of them were some sort of "limited
edition" (like prints). The terms they used in the catologue:
Empreint Originale de Picasso = Excecuted under the close supervision
of the artist or with his consent in a limited edition: the transfer
from an origina suject enfraved on a hardend plaster matrix, by
applying a fresh ceramic sheet to take the clay impression.
Edition Picasso or D'apres Picasso = Executed under the supervision
of the artist or with his consent in a limited edition: the authentic
replica of an original in terms of form and decoration.
The edition of each piece is noted in the catologue; 1 of 50, 30 of
200, 17 of 500, etc.
They were all done at Madoura under license from Picasso.
This article from 2003 says a lot:
http://www.artmarketinsight.com/en/art_article.aspx?idfromE=&from=S&id=65
Looking at the impressed plates, I was amazed that he couldn't even
be bothered to scratch in the date of execution so that it was the
right way around when printed.
And I love Picasso's ceramics. Great show.
Russel
Russel Fouts
Mes Potes & Mes Pots
Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 2 223 02 75
Mobile: +32 476 55 38 75
Http://www.mypots.com
Home of "The Potters Portal"
Over 3000 Pottery Related Links!
Updated frequently
"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights
shall not be construed to deny or disparage others
retained by the people"
9th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America
| |
|
