What do artists, who have yet to sell, do? Not only do the artists have no market information, they can’t sell unless they know the price point at which they should sell.
S’s dad, a painter, painted hundreds of canvases, yet never sold one. She called to ask me to appraise her dad’s paintings. I explained I can’t appraise (set a value) on a painting unless the artist has a track record of sales.
So S, I offer some advice for your dad on how to come up with a value at which he could sell his work AND a value at which you might insure his work. I looked at your dad’s work on his website, which lists his teachers; Don Blaisdell, Deborah Hurewitz-Pitts, and John Paul Thornton. All appraisals of artists begin with who taught them, who influenced their style. With this we build provenance (from whence the work comes). We explore the style of Blaisdell: very colorful, linear abstractions with horizon lines which imply a “Plein Air” environment. Ms. Hurewitz-Pitts uses color to imply shape, focusing on the abstraction of cloud shapes. Artist-teacher Thornton uses splashes of color to create shapes as well as create movement. The common theme in the work of Dad’s teachers is color, non-linearity, semi-abstraction, and a flattened picture plane. Looking at your dad’s paintings, his work bears all his teachers’ condensed definition of commonality, which I summarized above.
Take those defining artists characteristics and put an historic label on them.
When, in the history of art, were these defining characteristics important enough to create a stylistic movement? The answer is in the work of the 1950’s Abstract Expressionists of New York, also called the New York School. I find the story of how they became”united” as a school fascinating.
A group of officials from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY met in the late 1940’s to establish five competitions across the US from which judges mounted a show of chosen artists called “American Painting Today – 1950,” headed by Roland J. McKinney. He visited, among other artistic centers, Santa Barbara and interviewed members of the artistic community here in 1949. During his tenure as director of the Museum in Los Angeles very familiar with Sana Barbara.
S’s dad’s artistic statement on his website
“Art expresses my inner and outer feelings…what I feel in my gut…expressed through bright colors, abstractly, (addressing) the rights of individuals in today’s world.” This sums up the goals of the first generation of Abstract Expressionists. All 28 of them in New York boycotted the Met’s proposed technique of “jurying” what direction “American Art Now” is/should be. 28 artists in 1950 signed a letter to the Met’s President, accusing him of bringing a jury against advanced, more abstracted art. A history-making photo of 18 of these artists appeared in Life magazine. Look at the photo above for the faces of artists who believed in individuality, The Irascibles!
Now we know dad’s style, Abstract Expressionism. Also his philosophy, which matches the tone of that movement. We look at artists today who sell works informed by that style/philosophy. The site p4a.com which allows you to search by artists in a style, an era, or an artistic movement. I find an artist whose work speaks the same language as Dad’s is Fritz Bultman, one of The Irascibles of 1950. His paintings sold for at auction recently: $1,700 for a full 72″ x 34″ screen, and another estimated at $1,000-1,500 at 12″ x 16″. An artist who champions a style will sell for more than a follower of a style. So we turn back to Dad’s teachers. Dad should ask them, “I know my style; my artistic philosophy is in the style of the New York School. A lesser number of this school sells for $1,500 per canvas. What do you suggest I price my works for, teacher?”
Artists who sell for a living will have definite opinions, and Dad will argue and discuss his way to a price point using this method, S.