Not a Natural-Born Collector - Essay Example

Paul Cezanne: Les Baigneurs Grande Planche Though I have always been an aesthete, I have no special attachment to objects, and I am not a natural-born collector. When I first moved to Manhattan, though, I did notice the etchings and small lithographs by famous artists hanging on the walls f the apartments f older middle-class New Yorkers, and from time to time it even occurred to me that I might like to own such things myself. In fact, I innocently supposed that owning art was a normal part f the New York style, like eating sushi or dressing all in black. I soon learned, however, that people f my age were no more likely to own inexpensive art f high quality than they were to go to the ballet. Rich people bought rich people's art, while the rest f us bought posters or nothing. The prospect f walking into a gallery and talking to the owner intimidated me, and I also took it for granted that the era was long past when someone like me could afford to buy anything worth having. What changed my mind was the Internet. In the late 90's, print dealers across the country began launching websites on which they advertised their wares, and some even posted the prices. I was already teaching myself about prints: works published in multiple copies that cost only a fraction f the price f a painting by the same artist, thus putting them within reach f art lovers f comparatively modest means. Now I began to consider the possibility f buying them. What separates a limited-edition print from a museum poster or a "framed reproduction" is that the former, unlike the latter, is largely or entirely handmade, is produced in small quantities, and is (usually) signed and numbered by the artist, who creates it with the technical assistance f printers familiar with the particular medium in which he is working. No honest collector will deny that this last feature, the signature, is part f the appeal; but to buy a mediocre lithograph simply because it is signed by Joan Mir or Marc Chagall is only a baby step up from collecting autographs. The best printmakers, from Rembrandt and Drer to Avery and Frankenthaler, have always been drawn to the medium for its own sake, and their prints are worth having not merely in lieu f a more expensive painting but because they are fully realized creations in themselves. (House 369-376) Anyone who doubts this need only look at a copy f Piazza Rotunda, a limited-edition aquatint by William Bailey that I bought directly from Crown Point Press in San Francisco, never having seen anything other than a thumbnail reproduction. It is a still life f a miscellaneous assortment f eggs and kitchenware arranged on a circular tabletop in a shallow, strangely empty room. When I opened the package and saw the piece "in the flesh" for the first time, I actually gasped, stunned by its subdued intensity and fineness f line. Unlike a poster, Piazza Rotunda has a subtly textured, three-dimensional surface, created by the impressing f the etched plate into the thick paper on which the image is printed. Even if it were unsigned, I would have wanted to own it simply because f the way it looks. In fact, that is the only good reason to buy a work f art: so that you can look at it every day, as often as you want. (McPherson 400-401) But what could I afford that I would want to look at every day Two f my well-to-do acquaintances are serious collectors, and knowing them nearly caused me to quit before I got started. To the aspiring collector f modest means, few things are more demoralizing than the spectacle f a Park Avenue living room whose contents include some twenty-odd canvases by a half-dozen important painters. I knew I would have to cut my aesthetic coat to fit my financial cloth. Once again, though, luck was with me. I had always loved American modernism in all its myriad manifestations. From F. Scott Fitzgerald and Aaron Copland to Louis Armstrong and Fred Astaire, our best artists have spoken in the crisply empirical, immediately accessible tone f voice now acknowledged by the whole world as all-American. In every sense f the phrase, they spoke my language. No sooner did I begin to look at paintings than I found myself similarly drawn to the work f American modernists. I discovered that many f them had also been prolific printmakers, and a few months' intensive study gave me a fairly clear idea f which f their works were available and how much they might cost. Next came hours f surfing the web for dealers, initially for fun, then in earnest. I bought Nell Blaine's Jestina's Reds because it was both handsome and inexpensive (having been published in a large edition). Beyond that, I knew I wanted to own an etching by John Twachtman, the greatest f the American impressionists; a print f some kind by Helen Frankenthaler, the abstract expressionist who is my favorite living artist; and a lithograph by Fairfield Porter, who had opened my eyes to the world f visual art. The Twachtman and Frankenthaler were easy enough to find, the Porter somewhat trickier until Justin Spring, Porter's biographer, directed me to a helpful dealer. Within a matter f weeks I had bought Dock at Newport, an elegant but affordable 1893 etching by Twachtman f which only 30 lifetime impressions have been located; Grey Fireworks, a large Frankenthaler screenprint commissioned by Lincoln Center four years ago; and Isle au Haut, the last lithograph Porter completed before his death in 1975. The Porter and Frankenthaler prints are based on pre-existing paintings, but they are wholly satisfying on their own; no sooner had I hung them than I knew I was on the right track. While not a collector by temperament, I do have an orderly mind, and I immediately grasped the difference between a roomful f unrelated artworks and a shapely, coherent collection. I realized that what I wanted to do was assemble a group f prints that told the story f American modernism--but from my point f view, not that f the Museum f Modern Art or anyone else. For all my boundless admiration f Frankenthaler and her contemporaries, I had come to feel that MoMA and its single-minded curators have given cruelly short shrift to the American modernists who preceded them, as well as to those later figurative painters who, like Porter, were influenced by abstract expressionism but never felt obliged to break with representation. Once I got the idea for what a witty friend f mine dubbed la Muse Teachout, my buying became more focused. The four prints I already owned fit neatly into my scheme, and by the end f 2003 I had essentially accomplished my goal. Dock at Newport epitomizes the break with literal representation that opened the door to modernism, while the pre-World War II American modernists are well represented in etchings by John Marin and Milton Avery and a later serigraph by Stuart Davis. Grey Fireworks and a Joan Mitchell lithograph take care f abstract expressionism, and Isle au Haut has become the centerpiece f a suite f prints by Blaine, Jane Freilicher, Wolf Kahn, Alex Katz, and Neil Welliver, all figurative artists whom Porter knew, admired, and reviewed. Finally, Piazza Rotunda stands for post-Porter developments in figuration. As a historical footnote, I also acquired Paysage du Midi, a 1925 lithograph by Pierre Bonnard, the French post-impressionist painter whose vivid palette and daringly free approach to representation inspired Porter and his peers. At this point I stopped making new purchases. I had spent all the money I could spare--perhaps a bit too much, as collectors are want to do--and had run out f walls. Alas, I still have a couple f holes to plug: the Teachout Museum will not be complete without a Marsden Hartley lithograph, and I know a Kenneth Noland monotype that would go quite nicely with Grey Fireworks. Nor will I rest easy until I own an Avery woodcut and two more Porter lithographs: Broadway (which I have chosen to adorn the jacket f my next book) and Ocean II. (Krivickas 66-66) f course, I have no idea whether I will be able to afford any f these pieces if and when I track them down. I am also uncomfortably aware that only five f the artists represented in my collection (Bailey, Frankenthaler, Freilicher, Katz, and Welliver) are still alive, and that I have yet to buy a work f art by an unknown artist--the test f a true collector. I want very much to explore the work f contemporary painters and printmakers who have chosen to ignore postmodern trends and go their own way, just as Porter and Avery went theirs. To do that, I need to take a pause and learn more than I know now. (Athanassoglou-Kallmyer 111-129) But whatever my reservations--and no collector is ever entirely satisfied--I am happy with the Teachout Museum just as it is. Not only is it a joy to behold, but its beauties have had the beneficial effect f making me want to spend less time rattling around Manhattan, fulfilling the hectic duties f a freelance critic, and more time sitting in my living room, communing with the works f art I have so carefully assembled. Whether it will help me to live longer is an open question, but collecting art, even on a modest scale, has definitely made my interior life richer than ever before. Not long before I called a halt to my buying, I happened to read The Substance f Style: How the Rise f Aesthetic Value is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness, the much-discussed book about postmodern design by the libertarian columnist Virginia Postrel. In it, she makes the following observation: Artists and art collectors have long mocked the idea that someone might purchase a work to go with a couch--an insult to serious art. Perhaps as a result, the wall-dcor industry has been the home f generic, clichd prints. But not all visually sophisticated consumers want art to impress their friends, hobnob with the gallery crowd, or make money as an investment. Some just want a more attractive living room. In response, an unsnobbish middle market is offering prints and photographs to go with stylish furniture.... Crate & Barrel sells framed reproductions f Mark Rothko paintings for $499. Sales are growing at double-digit rates. This passage could only have been written by someone who does not know the first thing about the meaning and function f art. Not that I blame Postrel--I am, after all, a newcomer myself--but I was nonetheless forcibly struck by how little her words correspond with my own experience. Works Cited Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Nina., Czanne and Delacroix's Posthumous Reputation. Art Bulletin, Mar2005, Vol. 87 Issue 1, p111-129 Krivickas, Jennifer H., Czanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron f the Avant-Garde. Library Journal, 2/1/2007, Vol. 132 Issue 2, p66-66 McPherson, Heather., Czanne: The Self Portraits (Book). Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, Summer2003, Vol. 26 Issue 3, p400-401 House, John., Impressionism And History The Rewald Legacy. Art History, Sep86, Vol. 9 Issue 3, p369-376 Read More