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Flippers Don’t Just Sell Emerging Artists

December 16, 2014 by Marion Maneker

Richard Estes, Double Self Portrait

NPR’s story on the Smithsonian’s Richard Estes retrospective reminds us that not all artists who are flipped on the market are newcomers. A quick search of Artnet shows that Estes has had eight works auctioned within five years of their creation, most for prices in the mid-six figures which puts this comment to NPR in a slightly different light:

“Often he’s putting two and three photographs together in order to create a complete image, and then basically compressing them into the compositional size and shape that he’s looking for in a finished painting,” May says.

The result is a city street you know you’ve walked on, but that doesn’t really exist. “He’ll raise the height of a building,” May says. “He’ll move a car a little bit. He’ll transpose the location of a street lamp or light post. … He composes it.”

But why doesn’t Estes just stop with the photograph? “I don’t know,” he says. “I get more money for the painting, I guess.” He laughs when he says that, but his paintings are part of some major museum collections.

Painting Or Photograph? With Richard Estes, It’s Hard To Tell  (NPR)

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