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HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL WARNS OF PICASSOS FLOODING THE MARKET
BY Hannah
Ghorashi
Adding to the other upheavals the art market
is currently faced with—the possible repeal of the tax code darling known as
the “1031 Exchange,” the amendment of the California Resale Royalties Act—an
article published today on Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge blog
warns about the sudden deluge of Picasso works available for sale.
Back in
February, Picasso’s granddaughter Marina, heir to approximately 10,000 works of
art, announced her plan to sell off the majority of her inheritance all at once
and without involvement from auction houses or art dealers.
Marina
Picasso’s motivations, the article surmises, likely stem from turbulent family
history. (The post links to a New York Times article, which opens with the
sentence: “Since Marina Picasso was a child, living on the edge of poverty and
lingering at the gates of a French villa with her father to plead for an
allowance from her grandfather, Pablo Picasso, she has struggled with the
burden of that artist’s towering legacy.”)
So what
does this mean in terms of cold, hard cash? Mukti Khaire, an associate
professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, explains that
the art market is somewhat “illogical or strange” (ha!) in this regard:
“In many
cases, investors are happy when supply goes up because price goes down and they
can purchase more. But in the case of Picasso, and a few others, there’s a
slight subversion of that principle….If I own a notable Picasso work, I can be
reasonably sure it won’t lose value. But if I am the owner of a lesser-known
Picasso, I might be worried in this case.”
So there
you go. Famous Picassos will remain unaffected, but the values of lesser-known
works (pottery or early paintings, for example), are not immune to the whims of
capitalism and may start limboing. For the record, the prices of some
lesser-known Picassos are already as low as
£937 ($1,558), the price fetched by terracotta plaque Petit carré au
visage at Christie’s back in 2014.
Somewhere
in the article, Khaire adds, “On the other hand, it might be seen as a good
thing in bringing more art out into the world and allowing more people to
experience the joy of something as significant as a Picasso.” Let’s end on that
note.
ARTnews Ltd, 40 W 25th Street, 6th Floor, New
York, N.Y. 10010
New York Authorities Seek Custody of Stolen Artifacts Worth Over $100 Million
By TOM MASHBERG APRIL 14, 2015
The Manhattan district
attorney’s office on Tuesday made public the largest antiquities seizure in
American history and asked a judge to grant it custody of a startling 2,622
artifacts recovered from storage rooms affiliated with an imprisoned Madison
Avenue art dealer.
The artifacts, valued by the
authorities at $107.6 million, were described in papers filed in State Supreme
Court in Manhattan as having been looted from India and other places in
southern Asia and smuggled into the United States by the dealer, Subhash
Kapoor.
In their complaint, prosecutors
said Mr. Kapoor, 65, had cached the items in an assortment of hideaways in
Manhattan and Queens. They were confiscated during raids that began in 2012 and
continued through last year.
The seized items included
bronze and stone statues of Hindu deities, many of them ancient masterworks
worth several million dollars each.
The authorities said their goal
in gaining custody of the items was to set in motion the return of the stolen
objects to India and their other countries of origin. Officials also hope to
prosecute Mr. Kapoor, an American citizen, in the United States. Currently he
is awaiting trial in India on charges of plundering archaeological sites and
conspiring with black market traders to send illicit artifacts overseas.
American officials are planning to extradite him after his case is settled.
Mr. Kapoor, whose defunct
gallery, Art of the Past, sold hundreds of objects to prominent American
museums and collectors, has denied any wrongdoing.
“At the present time we are at
a distinct disadvantage because Mr. Kapoor is in an Indian jail and all the
facts in this matter are known by him,” said Kenneth J. Kaplan, a lawyer for
Mr. Kapoor. Manhattan prosecutors declined to comment on the case.
Since an initial raid on Mr.
Kapoor’s gallery by Homeland Security Investigations agents in 2012, three of
his associates have agreed to criminal penalties in exchange for cooperating
with investigators, according to officials and lawyers. The case, which now
extends to four continents and is being pursued in conjunction with Indian
officials, has been named Operation Hidden Idol.
The recovered artifacts are from India and
other places in southern Asia. Prosecutors said the dealer had cached the items
in an assortment of hideaways in Manhattan and Queens. Credit Michael Kirby
Smith for The New York Times
Mr. Kapoor’s office manager,
Aaron M. Freedman, 43, of Princeton, N.J., pleaded guilty in 2013 to six counts
of criminal possession of stolen property valued at $35 million and, according
to his lawyer, helped officials track down some of Mr. Kapoor’s hidden storage
locations.
In addition, Mr. Kapoor’s sister,
Sushma Sareen, a 61-year-old Queens resident, pleaded guilty in November to a
misdemeanor charge of obstructing justice and was sentenced to conditional
release. In 2013, she had been charged with receiving and possessing several
million dollars’ worth of ancient bronze statues, which remain missing. She is
also cooperating, according to investigators.
Federal authorities have
identified 18 American museums as owning a total of 500 items sold or donated
by Mr. Kapoor. Several museums have recently turned in objects judged to be
illicit, while others have said they are satisfied that their Kapoor items were
legally acquired.
A version of this article appears in print on
April 15, 2015, on page A22 of the New York edition with the headline
In the eye of the beholder
If a person cannot understand the beauty of life,
it is probably because life never understood the beauty in them.
Grigorii Choros-Gurkin, Lake of the Spirits of the Mountains, 1909
I remember standing on a street corner with the black painter Beauford Delaney
“I remember standing on a
street corner with the black painter Beauford Delaney down in the Village,
waiting for the light to change, and he pointed down and said, “Look.” I looked
and all I saw was water. And he said, “Look again,” which I did, and I saw oil
on the water and the city reflected in the puddle. It was a great revelation to
me. I can’t explain it. He taught me how to see, and how to trust what I saw.
Painters have often taught writers how to see. And once you’ve had that
experience, you see differently.” James Baldwin, in a 1984 Paris Review
interview
A Yorkshire Lane in November, 1873, John Atkinson Grimshaw
Painting is poetry
“Painting is poetry that is
seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” Leonardo
da Vinci
Looking out to Sea - Théo Van Rysselberghe 1862-1926
Art never responds to the wish
“Art never responds to the wish
to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are
willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.” Flannery O’Connor
Spring Sunny Day, Konstantin Yuon
The artist sees
“The artist sees what others only catch a
glimpse of.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Jean-Pierre Cassigneul
The spirit
“Where the spirit does not work with the hand,
there is no art.”Leonardo da Vinci
Frederick Carl Frieseke - The Balcony
Stolen art from WW2
German loot stored in church at Ellingen, Germany found by troops of the U.S. Third Army.
Durer engraving, found among other art treasures at Merker
An unknown Rembrant recovered safe in Munich
Boston's notorious unsolved art heist
Twenty-five years ago this
month, two thieves dressed as police officers tricked their way into the
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and stole 13 important works of art.
In 81 minutes, they cut the 1.5
metre tall Sea of Galilee painting by Rembrandt out of its frame, along with
precious art from Manet, Vermeer and Degas.
Pulitzer Prize winning writer
Stephen Kurkjian has written a book on the crime, Master Thieves: The Boston
Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World's Greatest Art Heist.
"It's a disgrace that this
crime has not been solved," Mr Kurkijan says.
When the buzzer rang at 1.24am
at the museum, the guard saw two men in police uniforms and let them in.
They asked him to step away
from his desk and he complied.
"[The guard's] favourite
band, the Grateful Dead, was playing the following day," Mr Kurkjian says.
"He desperately wanted to
go to that concert. He knew if he did not comply with what the men who he presumed
were police said, he would be arrested and he would miss that concert."
The guard and the only other
man on duty were tied up and the thieves went to work, slashing works from
their frames and breaking glass.
"Did they know what they
were looking for? Yes," Mr Kurkjian says.
"They were not collecting
commissioned art work to order like say Dr. No in a James Bond movie. This is
the work of thugs. That gives me an idea as to the kind of people who made
their way into the museum."
Mr Kurkjian has spent 20 years
researching the heist, and says he discovered a link with organized crime in
Boston.
He says Boston gang leaders
believed they could use the masterpieces to negotiate with the FBI.
"It made sense that if you
get artwork and the FBI wants it dearly enough to get it back, they will do
business with you," says Mr Kurkjian.
After 25 years, and a
longstanding $5 million reward, none of the artwork has ever been recovered.
"It's not common knowledge
who pulled off this score," according to Mr Kurkjian.
"My sense is the people
who did this got scared they were going to get arrested and most of them got
killed before they could say what happened to it."
Empty frames still hang where
the Rembrandt and Vermeer once graced the museum walls.
Mr Kurkjian is convinced the
paintings would one day return to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
"I do believe there are
members of the bad guy's family who know pieces of the puzzle and if those
people can be appealed to, it can be recovered. This artwork is our collective
treasure. It belongs to all of us."
Leonardo da Vinci........................
Learn how to see. Realize that
everything connects to everything else.
Still missing
BOSTON (MyFoxBoston.com)
-- Wednesday marked the 25th anniversary of the heist from the Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum. Priceless artwork was taken right out of their
frames 25 years ago and still have not been tracked down.
On March 18, 1990, 13
pieces, valued at $500 million, were stolen. The most famous piece taken was
Rembrandt's only seascape, "Storm on the Sea of Galilee."
The FBI says that two men
dressed as police officers subdued two guards and had their run of the Gardner
Museum for 81 minutes. FOX25's Bob Ward broke international news last May that
the FBI had confirmed sightings of at least some of the stolen artwork back in
2000, 10 years after the heist.
The FBI told FOX25 that
organized crime figure Carmelo Merlino once told an FBI informant that he
planned on returning the Rembrandt masterpiece for the reward money, but
Merlino then ended up busted for other crimes and died in prison.
FBI Agent Geoff Kelly
told FOX25 that the Merlino lead took them down a path of organized crime
figures in Connecticut and Philadelphia, leading investigators to believe at
least some of the paintings have been offered for sale in Philadelphia.
Investigators believe they're on the right track to finding the paintings.
On the anniversary of the
heist, the FBI reminded the public that they still need help in tracking down
the stolen artwork, A $5 million reward and immunity has been offered in order
to recover the 13 works of art worth a half-billion dollars.
“Beauty is.......................
“Beauty is no quality in things
themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind
perceives a different beauty.” David Hume
Édouard Manet - Jeune femme dans le jardin
Art
“I think a lot of art is trying to make
someone love you.” Keaton Henson
Claude Monet’s studio in Giverny
All children are artists
“All children are artists. The
problem is how to remain an artist once they grows up” Pablo
Picasso
.%2BOil%2Bon%2Bcanvas..jpg)
Interior with a mother reading aloud to her daughter. Carl Vilhelm Holsøe (Danish, 1863-1935). Oil on canvas.
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Panacea
“Art is the expression of the soul through different mediums
that results in the creation of true beauty.” Panacea
The panacea, named after the Greek goddess of universal
remedy, Panacea was supposed to be a remedy that would cure all diseases and
prolong life indefinitely. It was sought by the alchemists as a connection to
the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone, a mythical substance which
would enable the transmutation of common metals into gold. A panacea (or panaceum) is also a literary
term to represent any solution to solve all problems related to a particular
issue.
A painter
“In fact, I have no real friend
but you, and when I am in low spirits, I always think of you. I only wish you
were here, that we might again talk together about moving to the country.” Vincent van Gogh, “Letter to Theo Van
Gogh,” 22 July 1883
“A painter should begin every canvas with a
wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by
the light.” Leonardo da Vinci
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