Last week art history was made as a painting by abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock, sold for one hundred and forty million dollars (£73.35m), making it the most expensive painting of all time.
The unusually large piece (4ft by 8ft) which is rather blandly entitled “No. 5, 1948,” is a chaotic entanglement of browns and yellows painted in the dribbled style that was to make Pollock an icon in the art world. It was sold by the Los Angeles entertainment tycoon David Geffin to Mexican financier David Martinez. Despite the fact that Sotheby’s brokered the deal, the sale was not made through auction and therefore the actual agreed price wasn’t made public, so while the $140m price tag may well be accurate it might never confirmed.
To look at the painting I can’t help but wonder why it would be valued so highly. One reason would be that Pollock was not a prolific artist and his works very rarely come up for sale. But the swirling dribbles of paint leave me wondering what on earth Pollock himself was thinking when he created these highly sought after paintings. By no means was he talentless. He developed his dribble technique over many years and his earlier paintings are far more traditional. I wonder if he ever imagined his work would one day be counted among some of the most valuable paintings in the world?
Just after he painted “No. 5, 1948” Life magazine was asking the question “Is he America’s greatest living artist?” But Pollock himself, at the time in his late thirties, was considered a troubled man. He was a violent drunk with a quick temper. His anarchic and apparently disordered style may very well have been a reflection of the man himself who once said, “Every good painter paints what he is.” Pollock died just a few years later in a car accident. He was 44 years old.
While the $140m price tag for “No. 5, 1948” is a record, it might not be for long. Auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s are looking forward to potentially record breaking prices being paid for works being auctioned this month. Paintings by Picasso, Gauguin, and a self portrait by Andy Warhol are all scheduled for auction.
Meanwhile spare a thought for Vegas Casino tycoon Steve Wynn who last month accidentally put his elbow through a painting by Picasso that he had just agreed to sell for $139m. Wynn was showing a small group of guests the painting when the accident happened. Speaking to his guests later that same evening Wynn apparently said “Nobody got sick or died. It’s a picture. It took Picasso five hours to paint it.” An ironic observation given the fact that the agreed sale price of the painting could probably build and stocked a hospital in a part of the world where art is the last thing on anyones mind.
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Check back on Saturday when I’ll be giving you all the chance to ‘paint’ your own Pollock style painting right there where you sit!
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Jackson Pollock NGA feature
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation
Christie’s : Impressionist & Modern Art auction (Nov 9th)
Sotheby’s : Contemporary Art auction (Nov 15th)
Vegas Tycoon Pokes Hole In A Picasso
The $40 million dollar elbow
Wrote the following comment on Nov 8, 2006 at 4:38 pm
140 Million?! Crikey! Talk about misplaced priorities…
Wrote the following comment on Nov 8, 2006 at 6:35 pm
maybe in my art history class next semester they’ll explain why stuff like this, stuff that i did in preschool, can go for 140M.
Wrote the following comment on Nov 8, 2006 at 6:51 pm
Well, you be sure to get back to us with that Jo, I’m sure we would all love to know.
Wrote the following comment on Nov 8, 2006 at 7:27 pm
I never really have gotten modern abstract art. I took a picture of a friend in the MOMA in NYC in front of a painting that was completely black rectangle. He managed to convince one of the security guards to be in the pic with him, and both of them posed with their hands out to their sides, palms up, with a quizzical “huh?” expression on their faces.
Wrote the following comment on Nov 8, 2006 at 7:55 pm
I use to work in an art gallery and I came up with a theory about modern abstract art. I think it’s what an artist comes up with after he’s made a name for himself and loses his creativity. Like when a writer gets writers block and starts typing nonsense.. Like the kinda crap that Stephen King comes up with in between his good stuff. He has a name so people will buy it. If the artist didn’t have such a big name already from his real art you would maybe find that painting hanging over the bed in a badly decorated one hour quicky no tell motel.. or more likey, hangling on his Mommy’s refridgerator with ABC magnets.
Wrote the following comment on Nov 8, 2006 at 11:54 pm
When I was at school I was sent to the deputy headmaster for turning in my art homework which was “unsatisfactory” according to the teacher. The homework was to draw something about school. I turned in a crisp blank piece of card on which everyone else had done their homework. The teacher demanded to know what I was playing at. I told him it was an impressionist piece. He demanded to know what on earth I was talking about so I explained that I had communicated exactly what I felt about school… nothing.
The deputy headmaster could see that I was pulling everyone’s chain, but he enjoyed my explanation enough to simply let me off with a talking to about doing homework. :-)
Wrote the following comment on Nov 9, 2006 at 1:08 am
Elbow throught he painting huh….sounds like he was drunk! What a rich,arrogant moron! I would buy the Picasso at a reduced price…torn and all. adds character. Some of the most famous and best paintings in the world have some sort of damage. As for the Pollock pic….in my opinion, if you have to get in the mind of the artist to understand, its not very good. I like post-impressionistic or Renaissance. The colors and subjects are calming.
Wrote the following comment on Nov 9, 2006 at 10:10 pm
I saw “Pollock” with Ed Harris. Dysfunctional relationships and alcoholic. But…..$140m. Not sure from the movie why it would be so highly valued. Art is so subjective.
Wrote the following comment on Jan 20, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Cost aside (as after all money is simply the capitalist reaction to a product which is essentially functionless) it seems somewhat ignorant to dismiss the work of an artist who effectively defined an entire art movement and made one of the biggest cultural impacts of the last century or so. Yes the piece could be seen as elitist art for intellectuals and other artists but the very significance of such work is that it fought against the need for meaning and concept. Put simply its intention is only to engage and absorb the viewer not scream some big lesson at them, in this respect it should be seen as an attempt to make people happy and that can hardly be frowned upon.
P.S. by the way joanna and simon, if your only stipulation for art is that it is difficult to make rather than to conceive then you are somewhat missing the point. Anyways Pollock spent a great deal of time considering the composition and colour in his pieces they are not simply preschool.
Well there’s my rant for the day
Wrote the following comment on Jan 20, 2007 at 2:51 pm
oh yes, and abstract expressionism is never really a style adopted by artists late into their careers, all the heros of the genre worked in the same 50 year or so span and they produced the art as young men and women first before, inevitably, growing up. Those who (attempt to) produce it now are mostly interior decorators.
Wrote the following comment on Jan 21, 2007 at 6:03 pm
I’m not saying art should be difficult, I actually respect Pollocks work and influence. I just think that $140m for a painting is obscene. Simple as that.
Wrote the following comment on Jan 27, 2007 at 5:05 pm
In that respect you are incredibly spectacularly right, I was disagreeing more with the comments left by others than with the main article.
By the way I have been looking at money and art recently in my course and I thought you might be interested in some figures I generated on equivalent $140,000,000 purchases:
358,974,358 litres and 974ml of bottled water
17,521,802 boxes of Penicillin
1,573,033,707 boxes of Paracetamol
3,649,381 days of AIDS medication
144,329,896 kg and 907g of rice (2,143,298,969,068.95 kj of energy)
358,974,359 Braeburn apples
147,368,421 litres of Semi-Skimmed Milk
197,183,098 kg and 592g of potatoes
I thought it gave an enlightening sense of perspective.
Wrote the following comment on Jan 27, 2007 at 6:41 pm
3,649,381 days of AIDS medication – Wow! Thanks for those Ben. That actually really does put things in perspective. I went to India once to photograph poverty relief work and I came back with the knowledge that £200 can build a well that can give an entire village water. The knock on effects this has are amazing. Children get to have an education because the women can stay in the village and teach rather than having to walk long distances several times a day for water. There were many other effects. It was incredible.
Wrote the following comment on Feb 10, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Ah the conspicuous dislay of money!
What could be more ego gratifying for a very rich man than owning a $139 million object, but to be able to say (publicly of course) it doesn’t matter if it gets damaged…
Which goes to the heart of it – some people wouldn’t be so rich if they valued the lives saved by all those boggling numbers of doses and liters and boxes.
Not a high enough personal return on investment.
But it also translates into why Jackson Pollock is so ‘hot’ this year and van Gogh was so hot in the 80’s (remember the record price for his Irises?); real estate speculation has bottomed out just like stocks did in that Golden Age two decades ago. Once again art is a hedge and is completely unmoored from any true value.
I have to say, I’ve loved Jackson Pollock’s work ever since I unexpectedly came upon his painting in New York one day when I was 16. I mentally sank into the depths of ‘Lavender Mist’ is if it were a deep blue lake and came up refreshed in spirit.
The nasty brutish truths of the art world in which he was a definite ‘Player’ are layers of garbage between the deep, meanigful and personal connection that can be experienced when an individual comes in contact with a work made with genuine intellectual inquiry and feeling.
Putting an inflated dollar value on it has the inevitable effect of putting up a wall of scorn and intimidation for the majority who know in their everyday lives what such numbers could mean.