Scotland for the Brave
Jay Akasie features Sotheby’s Scottish paintings sale at the Gleneagles Hotel in the New York Sun. Despite the temptation to move the sales to London, Sotheby’s has kept this quirky sale thriving. Akasie makes a good case for what’s signficicant about Scottish painting:
The Glasgow School was a pioneering group of painters who broke away from their salons and infused their landscapes with hints of Impressionism. They helped lay the groundwork for the Scottish Colorists — men such as Samuel John Peploe, Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, John Duncan Fergusson, and George Leslie Hunter — in the early 20th century. “The colorists spent time in Paris and got to know the techniques of Matisse and Monet. Their paintings have huge appeal to the international set,” Mr. Zlattinger said.
But the real star of these sales is the Contemporary illustrator, Jack Vettriano, the UK’s most popular artist by poster sales. While buyers are in Scotland, they can also think about getting some of the firearms so popular among Wall Street types.
Asset Allocation
CNBC picks up on the “The Mei Moses Fine Art Index, which tracks repeat sales of all art sold at the leading auction houses, gained more than 20 percent in 2007, dramatically outpacing the 5.5 percent gain for the S&P 500. The most recent five- and ten-year compound annual returns for the art index, 16.3 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively, also exceeded the return of the benchmark stock index, 12.7 percent and 5.9 percent during those periods.”
Checkmate
The Telegraph looks at artists who’ve designed chess sets: “Duchamp is not the only artist to have designed a chess set. In 2001, a newly formed art company called RS&A commissioned five prominent artists, including Damien Hirst and the Chapman brothers, to create bespoke sets that were then exhibited at Somerset House in London two years later. Japanese-born Yayoi Kusama adapted an 18th-century design with her trademark painted polka dots. The mischievous Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, best known for his 1999 waxwork mannequin of the Pope being squashed by a meteorite, replaced traditional chess figures with delicate porcelain figurines depicting recognisable people and characters associated in his mind with good and evil. Martin Luther King takes the role of the white king, with Superman as one of his pawns, while his opposite number is Adolf Hitler, standing beside his black queen, Cruella de Vil.”