Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

Donald “Drawbertson” Shows How to Be a Popular Art Star Without a Gallery

August 17, 2015 by Marion Maneker

The Donald Robertson juggernaut keeps on steaming along, growing in popularity and reach. Since we last saw Robertson living in the New York suburbs and commuting to his creative director job at Estee Lauder, posting his art on Instagram and selling through an online service, the artist has moved to the West Coast and launched his own website to sell his art.

“I failed Life Drawing for making all the people longer and skinnier than they were,” he says. “Now it’s the secret to my success.” In the 80s, Robertson helped launch MAC cosmetics, and he worked at several magazines in New York before landing his current job as roving creative director at Estée Lauder. But he never stopped drawing. Robertson’s aesthetic is homemade, a little messy, and collage-like, and that approach extends to his commerce: anyone can buy his work—which starts at $375 for a print and can go to more than $12,500 for a painting—online. “I’m trying to do stuff that’s less expensive,” he says. He believes that art shouldn’t be so rarefied, nor should fashion. How else to interpret a toilet-paper roller tricked out with the Louis Vuitton logo? “Fashion people are essentially children,” he says, laughing. “And the ones who are good are the ones who remain child-like the longest.”

Artist Donald “Drawbertson” Robertson’s Rise to Success (Vanity Fair)

More from Art Market Monitor

  • Sarah Thornton, Art Market StarSarah Thornton, Art Market Star
  • How Watercolors Won the WestHow Watercolors Won the West
  • An Auction Market on StiltsAn Auction Market on Stilts
  • Sotheby’s HK $65m Mod & Cont Asian Art Evening Sale Demonstrates Strong Regional DemandSotheby’s HK $65m Mod & Cont Asian Art Evening Sale Demonstrates Strong Regional Demand
  • Pritzker Richter Commissioned by Siemens Goes on Block at Sotheby’s with World Record EstimatePritzker Richter Commissioned by Siemens Goes on Block at Sotheby’s with World Record Estimate
  • Dealer Named in Case Echoing San Francisco Art FraudDealer Named in Case Echoing San Francisco Art Fraud

Filed Under: General

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • Lost Lempicka Discovered at Sotheby's
  • $10 M. Picasso Portrait Unseen for Decades to Sell at Bonhams
  • Vienna Secession Painting, Long Thought to Be Lost, Sets a Record at Auction
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • Roy Lichtenstein’s Top Ten Auction Prices
  • Collection of Texas Heiress Anne Marion Expected to Fetch $150 M. at Sotheby’s
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • Sotheby's Pulls in a $9m David Hockney for November
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor