Previous Posts: February 2019

Twenty seven Claimants who started litigation against the National Gallery over a year ago have won their case to be given the rights of workers. This status case is believed to be the first in the public sector and comes in the wake of several high profile gig economy cases, such as the recent decision of the Court of Appeal in Uber.

The Employment Tribunal found that the Claimants were in fact workers, despite having been denied their legal right to this status by the National Gallery for decades. The Tribunal Judge concluded that “in short, the Claimants worked ‘for’ the Gallery as members of its team of educators” despite arguments to the contrary by the Gallery.

These individuals had worked for the National Gallery collectively for over 500 years before their existing arrangements were brought to an abrupt end in October 2017. During their collective tenure, they had not been given any holiday, sick pay, pension or maternity pay despite having paid taxes through the payroll as employees. One individual had worked for the Gallery for over 45 years without these benefits which most people take for granted as part of their working relationship. They were denied these rights as the National Gallery alleged that they were “self-employed” a position which the Employment Tribunal Judge has found to be “unsustainable”. About the Gallery’s arguments the Judge said that “it is unreal to describe the dealings between the parties as transactions in which the Gallery stood as the “client or customer of any business undertaking” carried on by any of the lead Claimants”.

The history of British art is also the history of empire and genocide, written by collectors who traded in landscapes and lives.

Museums are in crisis. In the past, their social role has been taken for granted – they’re spaces for preserving objects and educating the deferential public that comes to admire them. It’s a tidy, completist dream: wouldn’t it be nice to see the whole of human history, free and open to all?

Except that history is nasty and ugly. It’s full of violence: every moment, every event, takes place within a power dynamic – there’s always a hierarchy in play. The whole concept of The Museum is a colonialist, imperialist fantasy, born from the fallacy that somehow the whole world can be neatly catalogued, contained in a single building, mapped out for easy digestion. There’s no such thing as a free object, and every piece in a museum has been moved from its original context. 

I agree with the idea of making excellent copies of certain museum 'possessions', like the Parthenon marbles and Cleopatra's needle, and handing back the originals.  Not on the grounds of colonial guilt, but because, in this day and age, it would be more interesting to see such things in their proper, original context. 

The ownership issue is irrelevant - whether modern Greeks are any more or less worthy of inheriting the objects of the ancient Greeks than Londoners, etc - the point is, Athens is the place where the ancients made the marbles, that is their proper context.  It would be perfectly possible to move Stonehenge to a park in central London, but that is not their proper context.

I also think the arguments about violence and art a bit of a red herring.  Throughout history, everywhere in the world where there has been competition between humans for land and resources, there has been violence.  In Britain and the rest of Europe, hardly a year passed for centuries without one feudal lord attacking another.  Really big battles seem to have cropped up about once a decade.  The same was true in the rest of the world, outside of Europe.  These were not, by and large, innocent, peaceful paradises subjected to violence by Europeans, who then stole all their valuables.  Where land and resources were at a premium, they had also had their own forms of feudal warfare, stretching back into pre-history.  Violence and bloodshed was a global, human phenomenon.

Art is one of the few worthy achievements to emerge from the context of global inter-human violence.  We should look at it with collective human pride, not with a sense of post-colonial shame.  You might as well look at buses and trains with shame, considering the raw materials we also 'stole' during the period of their development.

In the Sothebys catalogue entry for Klingemanns work it says ‘ Unlike earlier generative art installations Memories of Passerby I does not contain a database. It is an AI "brain", "developed" and "trained" by Mario Klingemann’.

This seems to [me to] be a bit of a fib, of course there is some data in there somewhere.

Effectively Mario Klingemann wrote some code that is fed into the CPU unit which process answers and learns from itself thus creating new images… But, and I’m no expert, he must have entered some data to start with for the unit to process – or given it some metrics – as a point of reference.

In fact he calls himself an artist working with 'algorithms' and 'data' – but Sotheby’s refuse to use these terms, I assume as they see them as boring, and and instead they call the computer a 'brain' and use the words 'develop' and 'train' to suggests he is more of a Jekyll and Hyde type, thus bringing some magic to the equation...

Really it’s not very different to the previous AI art sold by Christie’s – but Sotheby’s seem at pains to try to make it seem so.

Mr Klesch, whose UK investments include a big stake in the AA breakdown company, claims that he and his wife attended the European Fine Art Foundation’s international art fair in Maastricht in the Netherlands last March, where Richard Green offered art for sale at a stand.

The defendant agreed to sell two paintings, River Landscape with Fishers and a Cart by Jan Brueghel the Elder [above], and Winter Landscape with Figures Skating and Sleigh-Riding Outside a Town, with the Utrecht Dom and Huis Groenwoude at Right by Salomon van Ruysdael, for €3 million and €2 million respectively.

In the particulars claim, dated last November, Klesch alleges that it became aware last May that the latter had been bought for $882,500 at a Sotheby’s auction in New York in June 2017 and the former had been purchased for almost €1.5 million at an auction at Lempertz Auction House in Cologne five months later.

Klesch alleges Richard Green knew each painting had been sold at auction in 2017 but assumes that it deliberately omitted this from the “provenance listings” in order “to minimise the likelihood of a potential buyer ascertaining the price at which the defendant’s [Richard Green] related companies had recently acquired the paintings and then using such information to negotiate a reduced purchase price”.

What a lovely picture! If I had €3 million I’d buy this, enjoy it, and shut up.

To comment generally on provenance, suppose an auctioneer or dealer gave a complete provenance from the artist’s studio up till just before a recent auction sale, ending with say, ‘Scottish Private Collection’ and left out the sale, might a buyer not reasonably conclude that the picture was fresh to the market? As we know a recent auction sale can substantially reduce the value of a picture.

Auctioneers’ terms usually provide that they  ‘accept [no] liability for the correctness of [our] opinions ... whether relating to description, condition or quality of lots... representations ...as to....provenance.. involve matters of opinion’. This may protect auctioneers. Do dealers have similar terms I wonder, and should they do so? One might in innocence expect that paying the higher price a retailer of goods asks gives a guarantee not available at auction, which is why one might go to a dealer rather than bid ones-self?

'Provenance' is principally a record of previous ownership; auctioneers are generally not the owners of the stuff they sell, so it would be misleading to list them as part of the 'provenance', except to emphasise a continous history of an item.

“Caveat Emptor” doesn’t begin to describe the challenges to art sellers and buyers. To protest (after inspection and purchase) paintings (bought prior at auction and) sold for what a client later feels is inappropriate shows a profound naiveté of the “food chain” that supplies the painting market, particularly Old Masters. Those familiar to “equities” or “orange juice futures” see art connoisseurship like alchemy. Mr. Klesh apparently bought himself exceptional paintings despite the obvious lack of understanding of market forces which brought him to his choices. I am proud to sign my name to this note, knowing the gallery in question does extraordinary diligence, and work tirelessly to acquire the very finest examples available.

The red-chalk drawing by Giorgione was found at the University of Sydney library, inside a 1497 edition of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.

University of Melbourne emeritus professor Jaynie Anderson, an international expert on the elusive Renaissance painter, ­described the find as “astonishing” and estimated its worth to be “in the millions”. She said the discovery “transforms our understanding of ­Giorgione’s life and his relation to other artists”.

Sydney University librarian Kim Wilson made the discovery. She promptly asked Professor ­Anderson for advice on the red-chalk drawing in the light of its ­accompanying handwritten inscription in black ink.

His [Hilliard's0 anniversary could therefore hardly be timelier, coinciding as it does with the United Kingdom’s struggle to reshape its relationship with Europe. One reason why it is helpful to reflect on the way that art of the past might relate to ideas of British identity is that contemporary artists have played such a disappointing part in the debates that have followed the referendum. It is not surprising that artists overwhelmingly wish that the vote had gone the other way, but their response has tended to confirm a belief that ‘remainers’ are experiencing a prolonged period of post-traumatic stress, evident in anger and denial. It is perhaps unfair to single out Anish Kapoor, but his comments on last month’s crushing parliamentary defeat of Theresa May’s Brexit proposals sum up why this debate is so stuck. Brexit, he claims, ‘seems to have brought out the very worst in us – Britain is more intolerant, more xenophobic, more insular than I have known it to be since the 1970s’.5

The problem about such remarks is that there is no attempt to see the issue from the point of view of those who think differently. Those who voted in favour of leaving the European Union are likely to regard such an attitude by a wealthy and successful artist as just another example of entitlement and privilege. They might also reflect that the diversity that is constantly held up as an ideal in the spaces of contemporary art does not seem to include diversity of political opinion. But Kapoor is right to say also that ‘it is our duty as citizens to find ways to come together and overcome the deeply sad and disorienting effects of Brexit’. How this is to be done is a question that should be asked most forcefully of those who when asked why they voted leave, reply that they want to leave the European Union, not Europe. How do they propose to reinforce Britain’s European identity? If quiet reflection on how to advance beyond this impasse is wanted, two good places for the historically minded to start are the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition and Goldring’s book.

In the autumn of the previous year, 1981, I first saw a poster of Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring at my sister’s apartment. Smitten by the lovely girl with her blue and yellow turban, her wide eyes and her enigmatic expression, I bought myself a copy, which I have to this day. While knowing nothing about Vermeer, I decided to seek out more of his work.

My own "see all the Vermeers" project, which also benefitted from the two large Vermeer shows at the National Gallery in Washington, then in both NY and London, included a visit to Kenwood around 1989, while the interior was being painted and refreshed. I went to the Director's office and explained that I had come from America to see "The Guitar Player" by Vermeer, and although the room in which it hung was being painted and closed to the public, it must be somewhere. Could I see it. I was taken to an adjacent closed gallery where the painting, protected in a layer of bubble wrap, rested sitting on the floor and leaning casually against a wall, along with other major works. An assistant picked it up, and I peered at it through the plastic. I've seen it at Kenwood since, but without the plastic.

Fortunately, my Vermeer project included a visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1987, when it still was in possession of its Vermeer.    I've seen all 35 plus the two recently attributed to Vermeer, both of which have appeared in exhibitions.

[...] who has been a consultant to the Louvre on Leonardo restoration projects, told the Sunday Telegraph that politicians at the highest levels and Louvre staff, “know that the Salvator Mundi isn’t a Leonardo”.

He spoke of the growing realisation that France cannot afford the “humiliation” of its world-class museum displaying a painting when there are serious questions about it. He is among those who believe that it was painted primarily by one of Leonardo’s studio assistants.

On Friday, the Louvre confirmed that it had requested a loan, but declined to comment on doubts about the attribution or concerns among politicians and art historians. On Sunday, the museum said that it is awaiting a response from the painting’s owner on a loan.

Asked whether it would display it as a Leonardo or as a workshop production, a spokeswoman said: “The answer will be given in October”.

"Is the world's most expensive painting a FAKE? Louvre snubs 'Leonardo da Vinci' painting"

But a Louvre spokeswoman told MailOnline: 'The Musée du Louvre has asked for the loan of the Salvator Mundi and wishes to present it in its October exhibition.

'We are waiting for the owner’s answer.

'M. Franck was part of the scholars who have been consulted 7 or 8 years ago for the restoration of the Saint Ann.

'He is not currently working on the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition and has never been curator for the Louvre.

'His opinion is his personal opinion, not the one of the Louvre.' 

I hate to do this to you, but Books Etc are selling the book for £90.33. British company, usually cheaper than Amazon (or anyone else), free postage on all books, usually send books more securely packed than Amazon do, I use them almost all the time. And Books Etc prices on Amazon Marketplace are usually higher than on the Books Etc website because of the fee paid to Amazon, so going direct is the best option. Of course, I understand that if you get a small payment for everyone who clicks through from AHN to Amazon and makes a purchase there is a reason for having the link (I don't know if this is the case, but I remember reading about this when I was thinking of having my own blog), but you might want to consider Books Etc for your own purchases. I have no connection with Books Etc apart from being a very satisfied customer.

Yet another commemoration and yet another mega-show at the Rijksmuseum. Is it possible to have too much Rembrandt? Can you have too much love, wisdom, fine weather? No, you can’t.

His was the first art that properly caught my eye; or rather his eyes caught mine and wouldn’t let go. Those eyes, one lit, the other in shadow, belonged to the late self-portrait at Kenwood House. I was, I think, just nine years old, but even then I registered the transfer of the artist’s intense observation of himself as somehow a scrutiny of my own attentiveness. It was a gaze a small boy dared not break.