Bloviator Promotes Art Deaccessioning.
Thursday, May 3rd, 2007
Avoid modern art. But when modern art finds you, call Buffalo Bloviator.
The Bloviator (pictured above in a rare cameo appearance), counts among his friends a Buffalo personal injury attorney. Yes, even some personal injury attorneys have friends. My friend has asked me not to reveal his identity at this time, because thanks to my advice, he is in fear for his personal safety. Herein, my personal injury attorney friend shall, and for the remainder of this document, be referred to as “the seller”.
The seller has had in his exclusive care, custody, and control a seemingly harmless painting of a house, hanging in his own house from a nail in his living room wall. The painting has been in his family for many years. The painting belonged to the seller’s grandmother who received it from a great aunt who had an art shop in France. The seller’s ancestors left France and Germany during World War II.
The painting is signed “P Cezanne”. The story passed down by his relatives is that the painting’s history is unclear and it is probably not actually an authentic Cezanne. And so the painting hung on a nail in the living room of the seller, in close proximity to where his children enjoy playing animated games with the family pet, often involving acrobatic feats and object-throwing exhibitions.
Exhibit “A”: The Signature.
Having myself personally been swept up in the excitement of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s successful multi-tens of millions of dollars masterpiece sale, I suggested to the seller that he should find out, or rule out, once and for all if his painting is a genuine masterpiece. I appealed to his personal injury attorney range of instincts -logic and money. I advocated that he should know now, rather than find out twenty years from now, that he is as wealthy as personal injury attorney John Edwards.
I suggested to the seller that he take the painting to Sotheby’s Auction House in New York City. I based my careful advice on all of the nuanced circumstances surrounding the issue, and the fact that I am fully ignorant about the topic. To my surprise and delight, the seller reported back to me that he had made an appointment at Sotheby’s for the day which has now become last Wednesday.
From this point on, the story takes on a particularly Buffalo character.
As my friend prepared for his trip to Sotheby’s, he became burdened with the responsibility of managing an uninsured piece of art potentially worth tens of millions of dollars. What if information were leaked from Sotheby’s that the valuable painting existed? The painting was removed from its nail and hidden under a pile of laundry. The seller found some cardboard and fashioned a container. He secured it with duct tape and even a shoestring. A sleeve was made out of an unfinished work of art that his wife had once begun and then abandoned in the basement.
The seller set out for Sotheby’s on Tuesday. He drove his car because he was afraid to check the painting through airport baggage. He placed the painting in the back seat in case he was rear-ended. (Being rear-ended is the stock-in-trade of a personal injury attorney.) Tuesday night he checked into a motel. He couldn’t sleep because he was worried about the possible masterpiece locked in his car.
As in every Buffalo story, the lead character called his friend regularly to report on his activities. Wednesday morning the seller phoned me. He had arrived in NYC and found a parking space sixty yards from the entrance to Sotheby’s. He reported to me that he was four hours early for his 2 p.m. appointment but didn’t want to appear too anxious by showing up early. He decided to wait it out in the car with the painting. Every Buffalo story also requires a urination scene. The seller was concerned about leaving the painting in the car, or leaving the car and carrying the painting into a building. He went behind a dumpster.
The seller contacted me again at 1:45 p.m. He reported that he was “going in.” My phone rang a few minutes later but the connection failed. I phoned back and the seller nervously whispered that he was beginning his meeting with the woman. He would call me back. At 2:05 my phone rang. “What happened?” I asked impatiently. “They laughed me out of the place,” the seller reported. He continued, “She could have been a little nicer about telling me that I was losing fifty million dollars.”
The Sotheby’s woman had studied the painting for about twelve seconds. She actually seemed more interested in his packaging, particularly the wife’s unfinished apple painting which he used as a wrapping paper.
Exhibit “B”: The the seller’s wife’s unfinished apple painting.
The painting “lacked the precision of the great masters.” She also said that the “signature did not look like Cezanne’s signature”.
http://www.uen.org/utahlink/tours/tourElement.cgi?element_id=34784&tour_id=17720&category_id=28211
Exhibit “C”: Cezanne signature.
The signatures look pretty darned close to me. The seller thinks so too. If the woman was wrong about the signature, then it calls into question her other argument as well. What does precision have to do with modern art anyway? Didn’t throwing paint from across the room at the canvas create many masterpieces? How precise is the Yellow Square painting that we have all admired at the Albright-Knox?
The seller and I agree that the authenticity of the painting is still an unresolved issue. I suggested placing the painting on eBay to solicit input from the marketplace.
You can see the auction at: http://cgi.ebay.com/Cezanne-Masterpiece-House-in-Provence-Near-Gardanne_W0QQitemZ180112628429QQihZ008QQcategoryZ20129QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
The opening deaccessioning bid starts at $1.00. So far there have been no takers.
(The seller will consider a Buy-It-Now price of $60,000,000.00 for those shopping for Mother’s Day.)
Being in the modern art business, the Buffalo Bloviator now feels as though we are among the misunderstood.