Albrecht Durer.

Estate Sale find, proves to be worth ~ a million times purchase price

After over a dozen flights researching its origins and much consulting of world experts.

I'm glad the lucky purchaser appears to be relatively low income.

However amazing the story is, somehow I'm troubled by the astronomical value famous artists' works acquire. It's apparently not so much the quality of the work as it is the investment value of authenticated work.

I wish there were more valuation attached to beautiful works for their intrinsic quality even if for whatever reason, the artist never became especially well-known if at all.

(For instance, I love this painting by recently deceased artist, Wayne Thiebaud, painting - and playing tennis - until the age of 101!...Posted below because I can't seem to make it smaller. Advice about how to post it without the "super jumbo notation?)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/1...e-thiebaud-dead.html

I believe it’s important to support the work of living artists. Dead ones don’t need the money.

I wish I were more knowledgeable and discerning about upcoming artists. As it is, unfortunately I don’t have a well developed visual sense.

quote:

Originally posted by RealPlayer:
I believe it’s important to support the work of living artists. Dead ones don’t need the money.

I wish I were more knowledgeable and discerning about upcoming artists. As it is, unfortunately I don’t have a well developed visual sense.

True, that dead artists don't need support per se, but don't forget that many of those whose work is now being auctioned for millions of times their original prices were destitute in their lifetimes.

The art-associated professionals, those at the business end of it, who are raking in fabulous profits, are less those making the art (even the few whose original work sold at high prices while they could enjoy the profit) than the market makers/brokers.

Perhaps the singlemost valuable commodity that makes a work of art valuable is less beauty or even stimulation, than originality.

Anyone can paint a "Picasso-esque" work today (classic ignorant put-down, "my seven year-old could have painted that") but only Picasso could do it first.

Yes, living artists (most) need support - I say "most" because there are a fair number who are managing to make quite a good living because of being promoted by "branders". (I think some Chinese artists are among the most popular, making out that way.)

Amanda, the NFT thing is beyond my knowledge base. The few things I’ve seen look really cartoonish and crappy, but maybe things will improve. It’s a new world.

My piano teacher in the 1960’s personally knew Stravinsky and Bartok, and for him John Cage, Stockhausen and Morton Feldman were incomprehensible. For me they are 20th century masters. Time marches on!

Whoops.

I'd already decided to make that (NFT) into a different thread, because I wanted to discuss another aspect of "famous" art - what's generally considered (visual) art.

If you care to (I hope you will) transfer your comment to the new thread, it would make it a continuous topic.

To me, that other topic is not about art but about economics, capitalism and promotion.