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It was haggled down to $5 at a San Bernardino garage sale, and now it's sitting in a Toronto gallery with a $50 million price tag. The reason? It's probably an authentic Jackson Pollock.
When retired truck driver Teri Horton found the painting fifteen years ago, it was listed at $8—a price slightly too high for what was meant to be a gag gift for a depressed friend. When reselling the canvas at her own garage sale later, an art professor spotted it and suggested that Horton might have a treasure on her hands. Her response became the title of a 2006 documentary made about the painting: Who the Fuck is Jackson Pollock?
Paul Jackson Pollock was an influential force in the school of Abstract Expressionism, known for his busy paintings created from paint splatters and drips. The last Pollock to be auctioned on the art market—known as No. 5, 1948 and previously owned by David Geffen—sold for an unprecedented $140 million, making Teri Horton's $50 million appraisal seem somehow less preposterous.
How the famous painting arrived for sale at Toronto's Gallery Delisle is another remarkable part of the story. Frustrated with American art dealers and auction houses who questioned the painting's authenticity, Horton chose to have the work analyzed forensically by internationally renowned expert Peter Paul Biro. Biro was able to match a fingerprint with another known Pollock work and affirmatively compared signature drip patterns. Then, on a whim that nobody at the Delisle Gallery really expected to pan out, Horton was approached by director and owner Michelle Delisle, and the contract to sell the painting (now known as Untitled, 1948) was hammered out last month. It officially goes on sale November 13.
The little gallery that could has also only been open for six months, and its highest sale to date has been a $9,000 work by local landscape painter Olaf Schneider. Art dealers charge a significant commission on paintings sold, and if Delisle can unload Horton's likely Pollock, not only will they reap a healthy percentage of the sale, but Delisle could gain overnight credibility on the international art market.
As for endearingly gruff Teri Horton, who still lives in a mobile home and once planned to use the painting for dart practice, she doesn't mince words about her distaste for her country's auction houses. "I want to afford Canadians the opportunity to hang this Jackson Pollock drip painting on their wall," she says. "I do not want the USA to ever own this painting by their own famous 'homeboy' artist."
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Personally I think that works of art which are declared as pieces from famous artist worth millions of dollars to be quite trivial, but stories about them like this that make them priceless. When an old painting becomes involved in the current lives of people instead of just sitting on a wall, they really become worth something.
The refusal to sell to any American because of a few dealers and art houses doesn't make sense.
It's an interesting story though, I'm looking forward to seeing the documentary tonight but I wonder if the review is all I need.
This reminds me of when the National Gallery of Canada purchased Voice of Fire by Barnett Newman for around $2 million. Some guy out in the Maritimes replicated the thing, which is a navy blue stripe, red stripe, and another navy blue stripe, with about $50 of materials he got a Canadian Tire.
Now $8 seems like a fair price for this thing.
Ah, Toby von. Now if "some guy out in the Maritimes" had only originated the piece instead of replicated it.... any monkey can replicate a piece of art. Artists produce art, they don't copy. Well some do anyway. That anti-art argument always makes me chuckle: "my 3 year old coulda painted that shit." If your three year old (or your cat, or your grandma, or your blind cousin Lenny, or "some guy in the Maritimes") produced an original work like 'Voice of Fire' than... than, well they'd be an exceptionally talented artist. And rich.
voice of fire is a replication as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briggs_Cunningham
Would love to find a monkey that could replicate this: http://web.mac.com/olaf_artist/olaf.ca/Canoe.html You'd be rich with such a talented monkey!
And all this time I thought the art world actually DID consider Warhol an artist. Maybe you could go school them with your "what makes an artist famous" theories*
*hint: it's (usually) not talent or great ideas.
"If your three year old (or your cat, or your grandma, or your blind cousin Lenny, or "some guy in the Maritimes") produced an original work like 'Voice of Fire' than... than, well they'd be an exceptionally talented artist. And rich."
Voice of Fire does not = talent.
Really enjoyed that doc. Watch back-to-back with "My Kid Could Paint That" for maximum impact.
In regards to the "three year old (or your cat, or your grandma, or your blind cousin Lenny, or some guy in the Maritimes)" crowd:
No one's asking you to pay millions for it or any other piece of art, and frankly, there are plenty of other people who will. Carry on, now.
Actually, you're right, we weren't asked. We were forced to collectively buy "Voice of Fire".
Looks like Stephen Harper, using multiple nicknames, is commenting on this post.
$2,000,000 / approx. 30,000,000 Canadians is how much?
Write your MP! Demand your pennies back.
Yeah, we're forced to collectively pay for bullets too. Hands up who prefers lousy awful shit-tastic art to bullets? No, seriously - tanks or velvet Elvises? Hmmmm?
I don't ever recall being asked. Not once. Never. Ever. And you know, if asked about the Voice of Fire I'd probably have snorted and guffawed also.
Likewise, Charman Mao must be writing the ones you approve of.
"Your posts sounds like [insert leftist whipping boy here]" is a lame comment. If that's all you've got, don't even bother.
Whether it's devoid of artistic merit or not, improves or degrades our aesthetic sensibilities, or a good or bad financial investment, the fact is we weren't asked, but we did pay for it. People seem to forget that.
Oh for the love of god: you can't possibly tell me that people are still going on about Voice of Fire.
It didn't exactly have the makings of a controversial purchase: Barnett Newman was well-known and, well, influential by the time the NG got around to buying the work.
Voice of Fire does not = talent? Well, I suppose that depends on how you define talent. Haven't we all got past the point where we equate art with brush-wielding talent and/or the ability to draw pretty flowers? Jesus. It all seems kind of juvenile, really.
Plus, OF COURSE we weren't asked. People seem to forget how much it would cost to have a nationwide popular vote on every government purchase made, uh, ever.
Here's the other thing: with regard to the "my grandmother could do that" argument, well, your grandmother could also do what's marketed as life-changing cancer research too, probably (i.e. pipetting things)...if she was directed by someone. If you take the colossal mental leap and define art in terms of ideas (i.e. conceptual art...it's a whole genre! don't look at it or your head might explode!), then, your grandmother would probably be happy knitting a scarf.
News flash: Sol LeWitt HIRES PEOPLE to draw on gallery walls. Donald Judd SENT HIS BOXES to FACTORIES to be MADE. Dan Flavin USED FLUORESCENT LIGHT BULBS STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. Gasp.
Maybe just stick to watching Bob Ross?
Ah Toby von. You could not have more spectacularly missed the point. Or perhaps you inadvertently illuminated it particularly brightly.
I can duplicate your post in 1.5 seconds, far less than the time it took you to type it in! Here's the cheaper duplicate, and no taxpayer's money was involved:
What's a fair price for your 90 seconds?
Actually, if you're looking for a hilarious illustration of the sorts of sycophants that praise Rothko, one of the more recent "Mad Men" episodes featured a bunch of advertising yes-men unable to decide for themselves whether they liked the president's recent Rothko purchase or not, ultimately deferring to the authority figure to decide for them that yes, the emperor does in fact have clothes, even though he appears completely naked.
When you look around at how ugly, unskilled, philosophically trite and gimmicky much of the stuff that fills our public gallery spaces has become - work that's devolved to somewhere well below the skill level of neanderthals - then yes, I do believe that it's worth offering a dissenting point of view on some of these purchases. "Voice of Fire" is only the tip of the iceberg.
Believe it or not, some people still care about the state of the arts in the modern world, and will say as much.
Aaaand yes, this is all fairly off-topic from the original article.
shastasheen just won this by a knockout. Kudos, and I agree with you completely. You just said it, uh, much better than I did.
"Maybe just stick to watching Bob Ross?"
I'm new. Is Wednesday Asshole Day around here?
shastasheen, the genius of Barnett Newman was to bullshit his way into selling a painting of three stripes by giving it a catchy title and no doubt some pompous artist's statement. You can do that with about anything. See this example.
..don't you all LOVE garage sales?????????
lol, garage sales ARE pretty damn awesome!