Art & Inspiration Blog

“A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, [and] loving favour rather than silver and gold.”-Proverbs 22:1

Your first name, and (probably your full name) in Hebrew is always hidden in my regular paintings, and also in one of the works below in this post.

This is true because Hebrew letters are phonetic and I use them for each and every stroke, as I copy out scriptural texts that I specifically select for each artwork.  Torah font Hebrew letters are the best set of symbols to represent the strings of elementary physics, which are the building block of the universe. Since I use many tests or repeat texts to gain as many strokes as a work takes, all of my regular works have enough strokes to not only easily create anyone’s name, usually there are enough of the letters needed to also create the names of an average person’s relatives also, and for the larger works, friends and even actual face-to-face acquaintances. [To discover more about this new art theory download the free PDF manifesto  by clicking--> Manifesto of Post Conceptual and UnGraven Image Art
theory –a Painting’s Meaning is Inherent in its Strokes ]

Most Jews have a Hebrew name; others have names that are from Hebrew, such as Mary, James, Joseph and Anna. However everyone’s name can be transliterated into Hebrew easily because Hebrew is phonic; for example, in two different images below the names  “Leigh” and “Larry” are transliterated into Hebrew.

The images below are shown in the order that I created them.

I created a small card for a childhood friend Sharon and then one for her adult daughter Leigh, who have been very kind and helpful to me. Although they are Christians, I wanted to make the cards more personal, so I used their names in Hebrew (Sharon is a name from the Bible), plus also in English. Unlike my other works I wanted them to actually be able to read their names. You should be able to do that also.Sharon’s Sunset by Judy ReyWasserman

Sharon is an inspired and inspiring woman, so the image of a sunset was used. A sunset can always be understood as anmoment of inspiration, which is also a new beginning.

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Leigh’s Tree by Judy Rey Wasserman

Leigh is a healer, so her card is of an image of a tree, which symbolically refers to the Tree of Life.

Both of the above works were created in the late summer of 2012.

I thought about the idea of purposefully including names, readable names, and possibly names in English in my works for seven months.

Then I created another card, for a relative of mine, of a sunset, which uses the scripture text of Genesis 1 for the water color pencils and then adds black ink letters of his full name in English for the darker strokes in the work.  That image is not shown to protect his privacy.

This week I created another, slightly larger work (7×5 inches) based on a several layers that are Genesis 1-2:7. Then I added several more complete layers from both the Genesis text t and also the name Larry in both Hebrew and English.  Below the image I have included, reading from left to right lamed, resh, and yud – to write Larry in Hebrew. You
can fairly easily find them and also the English letters in the image.

Sunset for Leonardo Da Vinci’s Birthday with Larry’s Name for his Birthday by Judy Rey Wasserman

Hebrew letters  that make the sound of the name Larry. You can find them in the image above in many places.

I continue t ponder and pray about the idea of purposefully including names in the strokes. If you have comments or suggestions, please write them below.

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Judy Rey Wasserman is an artist and the founder of Post Conceptual Art theory and also the branch known as UnGraven Image Art at ungravenimage.com. Download a free copy click: Manifesto of Post Conceptual Art– A Painting’s Meaning is Inherent in its Stroke.
Check out the images and availability of limited and open edition prints — Click: store.
Follow her on Twitter at @judyrey

One of the joys of spring is breaking forth of resurrected and new life.

Resurrected life can be seen in the buds and flowers on trees, flowers from perennial bulbs that come back year after year. New life can be seen in the lambs, the chirping of new chicks in the trees, and, where I live, dandelions and early greens. Flowers, eggs and lambs are also symbols of the spring religious holidays of the Jews and Christians, Passover and Easter.

Jews celebrate their rebirth as a free people (comprised of  twelve related tribes), and the many miracles and lessons of their journey of delivery from slavery in Egypt. The final of the twelve miracles that were endured by the Egyptians, was the death of all the firstborn sons — a fate the Hebrews were spared by following the Lord’s instruction given by Moses to smear the blood of a lamb over the doorposts of their homes, and then to enjoy a special dinner and night together, the first Passover seder, inviting as many people as were necessary to fully consume the lamb.  Pharaoh then agrees to let Moses’ people, all slaves in Egypt, go free and out of that freedom, wandering out in the desert, the Bible and what becomes Judaism as a religion is born.

Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus son of Joseph of Nazareth. In the New Testament, Jesus is called the Lamb of God by John the Baptist.  Jesus’ resurrection brings the birth of Christianity.

This new basic Essence Portrait of a lamb below is created of strokes that are the original Torah font (Bible font) letters from the texts: Jeremiah 3:1-8, and Isaiah 53:6-7.  

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Judy Rey Wasserman is an artist and the founder of Post Conceptual Art theory and also the branch known as UnGraven Image Art at ungravenimage.com. Download a free copy click: Manifesto of Post Conceptual Art– A Painting’s Meaning is Inherent in its Stroke.
Check out the images and availability of limited and open edition prints — Click: store.
Follow her on Twitter at @judyrey

As an heiress and member of the Guggenheim family, Peggy Guggenheim ((August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979 ) was a socialite with many also famous friends, many of whom were artists and writers.

Selecting the text(s) that I will use to create a portrait can take as long, or almost as long as creating the basic black and white Essence Portrait. I do a lot of research on every subject, including interviews when possible. Then, based on that information, based on those understandings,  I do more research using a Concordance, looking up keywords and researching texts. Every now and then I just “know” what text to use, because I am somewhat familiar with the Bible and it seems obvious.

The choice of text for my new Essence Portrait of  Peggy Guggenheim was immediately clear and obvious to me: Proverbs 31, also known as Woman of Valor.

Peggy Guggenheim is known for being a great art collector and generous public benefactor. However, as an artist, I appreciate her as having been more than a great collector, she was a woman who discovered and championed great artists. I has been said that we might not have had Abstract Expressionism without her support for the artists. This makes her more than a collector, she was an important patron and benefactor of artists.

Peggy Guggenheim – Proverbs 31 by Judy Rey Wasserman

A great deal has been written about Peggy Guggenheim, and even by her in her autobiography, about her life, her adventures as an art collector and gallery owner, her relationships with artists and writers, and her many marriages and loves.

As a young woman, on a self-selected art tour to see more art, she journeyed from her native New York City Western Europe, where she met just about every influential artist at that time, including Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Mondrian, Leger, Henry Moore, Hans Arp, Brancusi, Alexander Calder and Anton Pevsner, Jean Cocteau, and Max Ernst, who she was married to for a couple of years.

Her interest in collecting art and friendships led her to open a gallery in London where she could show the works of her friends. She gave Wassily Kandinsky his first-ever London show, and followed that with  an exhibition of contemporary sculpture featuring works of Henry Moore, Hans Arp, Brancusi, Alexander Calder and Anton Pevsner.

After Hitler invaded Paris, she abandoned her idea of opening a museum in London dedicated to a collection of works by Modern Art, and returned to New York City.

In October 1942, her museum-gallery, Art of This Century, opened in Manhattan, exhibiting all her Cubist, Abstract and Surrealist acquisitions. She showed the works of leading European artists (many mentioned above) in her gallery, but also met and showed the works of the new, and unknown, American Abstract Expressionists, including Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Janet Sobel, and Clyford. Most importantly she is credited with discovering (she had a good eye!), arranging for the first show (s) and also championing the work of Jackson Pollack.

Close up of portion of Peggy Guggenheim – Proverbs 31 by Judy Rey Wasserman

(Can you spot some of the Torah font Hebrew letters used? Apart from the clear and obvious ones, you can spot some of the letters that are used as strokes, especially heys, vavs and yuds, which are often used near eyes of my subjects.)

Despite Peggy Guggenheim’s two brief, but very influential stints as an art dealer, her galleries really existed to showcase the art she loved, and had purchased, rather than as business venture aimed at making money. After the war, she returned to Europe in 1948 when her collection was exhibited at the Venice Biennale, introducing Pollock, Rothko and Arshile Gorky to Europe, alongside her works of previous Modern movements and artists, such as the Cubists and Surrealists.

Her collection continued to grow. It toured  across Europe, and was shown in Florence, Milan, Amsterdam, Brussels and Zurich.

By 1951 she had purchased and resided in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal., where he collection then resided. She began a tradition of opening her collection and home to the general public every summer.  She left her collection and the palace to the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation. It is one of the must go-to art destinations in Venice, and the world.

A great deal has been written about Peggy Guggenheim, and even by her in her autobiography, about her life, her adventures as an art collector and gallery owner, her relationships with artists and writers, and her many marriages and loves. Reading about her life is an interesting way to discover more about the history of Modern Art.

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Judy Rey Wasserman is an artist and the founder of Post Conceptual Art theory and also the branch known as UnGraven Image Art at ungravenimage.com. Download a free copy click: Manifesto of Post Conceptual Art– A Painting’s Meaning is Inherent in its Stroke.
Check out the images and availability of limited and open edition prints — Click: store.
Follow her on Twitter at @judyrey

Dealers become famous and then remembered in art history primarily for the artists that they discovered and represented long before they became well known or recognized as important artists. Discovering or strongly championing an unknown but one day destined to become and remain a blue-chip artist is a dealer’s ticket, basically the only ticket, to art history immortality.

That kind of truly risky and often somewhat expensive championing of an artist is and was rare. Of course, artists that offer a new way of painting or producing art who will change art history, are also rare. It takes a dealer with vision and courage to support the work of such an artist\; to buy their works (when they are not selling), advance money to an unrecognized artist, and continue to both cheer the artist on while promoting works while the establishment continues to ignore them as they are ahead of their time. It can be quite a gamble.

The majority of these far-sighted and intrepid dealers went out to the studios, cafes and bars where they met or learned about the artists they are known for discovering. Except for one of the most famous of all dealers.

Art dealer Theo van Gogh is not famous for the many artists whose works he successfully sold, most of whom were well known and collected. He discovered his one day to be a blue chip artist and one of the greatest artists of all time, artist while he was still in his crib, because Theo is the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and artist he championed but whose works he failed to sell in either of their lifetimes.

Both Vincent and Theo worked for their uncle in a family owned business of art selling that had offices in both The Netherlands and Great Briton. This is how Vincent came to be in London, where he was also exposed to the great works of the English artists (obviously he was previously familiar with Ditch art, and their influence is clearly seen in the colors of his earliest works). Vincent moved on to seemingly fail at other things until he decided to be an artist.

Theo moved to Paris, where he continued to work as an art dealer and met many of the artists we now know as the Impressionists, plus, those that became the Pointillists and Gauguin. By this time Vincent had begun to take up art, and Theo invited his to Paris, to meet the artists there. Thus begins the time when more and more Theo helps to unfailingly
support Vincent’s art goals, both emotionally and financially.

It is said that Vincent van Gogh never sold a painting, but in actuality, his dealer and brother Theo bought his works in order to support him. However, Theo, who was successfully selling the works of far less avant garde artists, could not sell Vincents works.

Theo died of illness about six moths after Vincent succumbed to a gunshot wound, that new evidence indicates may not have been self inflicted. They are buried side-by-side in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.

Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Theo’s widow, continued Theo’s efforts. She edited and produced volumes of the brothers’ letters, and also promoted Vincent’s work and reputation through her donations of his work to various early retrospective exhibitions.and worked with artist friends of Vincent van Gogh’s to ultimately gain recognition for his art.

The strokes used to create this new Essence portrait of Theo van Gogh are the original letters from Psalms 101, 123, and 133. Psalm 133, also known as Hiney ma tov, was used about twice as much as the other two. Psalm 133is the psalm of friendship and brotherhood and references the relationship of Moses and Aaron. Since their father was a reverend it had to be well known to both Vincent and Theo. It says, “Behold, how good it is for brethren to dwell together in unity”

Vincent van Gogh (Psalm 113) by Judy Rey Wasserman

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Judy Rey Wasserman is an artist and the founder of Post Conceptual Art theory and also the branch known as UnGraven Image Art at ungravenimage.com. Download a free copy click: Manifesto of Post Conceptual Art– A Painting’s Meaning is Inherent in its Stroke.
Check out the images and availability of limited and open edition prints — Click: store.
Follow her on Twitter at @judyrey

Leaving Winter Sunset Tree (study) is a created with strokes that are the letters from the words of Genesis 1-2:7. This work is a part of two of my series, fitting into both Genesis Sunsets and Trees of Life.

It is late winter here. The early blooming jonquils are pushing their heads up above the dirt and here and there, what is left of the snow from the major winter storms.

Personally, it has been a long winter here in the country, with many days of being “snowed in” due to unsafe roads.

From my studio I can see sunsets all winter long because the hedges and trees that hide them in other seasons lack leaves. Although some days the sunsets are dramatic, but never quite as much as the ones when itis warmer. Somehow, even when cozy and warm indorses, from my window I can “see” the cold.

I began work on this small study a year ago, and then propped it up where I could see it, staring at it every day for a year, debating various solutions to what I sensed was the problem(s).  This week, I finally figured out a way to show that cold and completed the study.A larger version will follow from what I have now learned.

Leaving Winter Sunset Tree by Judy Rey Wasserman

2013, acrylic, ink and watercolor pencils on paper, Strokes: Genesis 1-2:7

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Judy Rey Wasserman is an artist and the founder of Post Conceptual Art theory and also the branch known as UnGraven Image Art at ungravenimage.com. Download a free copy click: Manifesto of Post Conceptual Art– A Painting’s Meaning is Inherent in its Stroke.
Check out the images and availability of limited and open edition prints — Click: store.
Follow her on Twitter at @judyrey

Sometimes in the short days of winter, trees that have lost all their leaves can seem to reach towards each other in a dance choreographed by the wind. Like seeing things in clouds, in the winter we can see patterns of shapes that remind us of other things in the barren branches of winter trees.

The Bible’s Genesis 1-2:7 provides the original torah font letters for all the strokes that create the Winter’s Dance (study). Here and there you may be able to pick out a letter (stroke).

Winter’s Dance actually falls into two of my series, Genesis Sunsets and Trees f Life. After the blizzard(s) and storms of this cold and seemingly long winter, I hope it brightens your day.

New and now available as a giclee print. See: Shopping cart for a larger image and more information.
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Judy Rey Wasserman is an artist and the founder of Post Conceptual Art theory and also the branch known as UnGraven Image Art at ungravenimage.com. Download a free copy click: Manifesto of Post Conceptual Art– A Painting’s Meaning is Inherent in its Stroke.
Check out the images and availability of limited and open edition prints — Click: store.
Follow her on Twitter at @judyrey

The romantic and loving Swan Couple — Song of Songs by Judy Rey Wasserman, was previously created and posted on  this blog in the basic (black and white) Essence version.

Now, in a new version, with what can be considered a natural or landscape version, it appears in color, with the water depicted with blue and green strokes, the birds beaks their natural orange with shading of reds and pinks, and featers shaded with cool violet hues. Both versions are members of the Written on the Wind series.

Every stroke in both versions is a Torah font letter from the original text of the Bible’s Song of Songs chapters 1-8, which is also known as the Song of Solomon. All of the scripture in the Hebrew Testament were and are chanted (sung) in synagogues and Jewish temples. The word “psalm” means song. Thus the name of this book of the Bible.

Swan Couple — Song of Songs by Judy Rey Wasserman

Although lacking in obvious religious content, Song of Songs is often interpreted as a parable of the relationship between God and Israel. For Christians the symbolic relationship is between God (often in the Person of Christ) and Christians or the Church.

The print of this artwork makes a welcome gift for your beloved, an engaged couple, a bride and groom or a special couple celebrating an anniversary. See a larger version of this image and discover how easy and affordable a studio created archival print is by clicking : Print

This romantic image is also available as a card, invitations and matching postage available for weddings, engagements, Valentine’s Day or just to tell your beloved how much you care. See them in the stationary department atJudy Rey Wasserman’s Zazzle Store
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Judy Rey Wasserman is an artist and the founder of Post Conceptual Art theory and also the branch known as UnGraven Image Art at ungravenimage.com. Download a free copy click: Manifesto of Post Conceptual Art– A Painting’s Meaning is Inherent in its Stroke.
Check out the images and availability of limited and open edition prints — Click: store.
Follow her on Twitter at @judyrey

We learn by doing.

This week I learned by doing. The new artwork at the bottom of this blog, Hands Duet (Study) by Da Vinci & Wasserman, is the result of that “doing”, which was inspired by art, including works by Picasso, Warhol and Basquiat, plus a special musical duet

In previous centuries students learned to write (compose in English) by copying the writings of recognized authors. I remember reading that in the USA it was especially popular for students to copy the writings of Ben Franklin.

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” — Ben Franklin

As an art student my class was assigned to take a well known painting and create an illustrated report about the work, how it came to be, its development, etc. The illustrations had to be hand-drawn, not photocopied, however we were allowed to use tracings. We had a few days to think about what work we would select, and I chose Gurenica because it is large and would at least give me many elements to use for illustrations, plus it is gray-scale, which challenges me as myteacher(s) and I know that my personal strong suit is color. It would have been far too obvious and easy for me to have selected a work by Monet, van Gogh or Matisse.

In New York City the public library with greatest selection of art reference materials was the now closed Donnell, located not far from MOMA (and Guernica was then visiting MOMA). At the library I discover a treasure trove of information in reference books on Guernica. Picasso had made many sketches and paintings as he experimented with figures that he used to populate Guernica.

The one that fascinated me then and continues to live hauntingly in the memory behind my eyes is the figure know as the Weeping Woman. Ironically, Dora Maar, the model for Weeping Woman, also photographed the stages and progress of Guenica, providing me with so much material.

I spent many afternoons in the library meticulously tracing Picasso’s drawings and paintings, especially the variations of the Weeping Woman.

Although I never met Picasso in person (although I later learned my my teacher, Bertram Katz had), yet more than any class I have ever taken, Picasso taught me how to draw. It was a masterclass on how to draw, and how to plan out a great work of art, conducted by Picasso in library and then at MoMA as after the tracing sessions I would head to MoMA to closely examine and compare the sections of Guernica to the tracings of preliminary sketches I held in my hands.

Since that assignment I have traced drawings by other great artists because it helped me learn. Except for the Guernica report that I have kept, the tracings went into the trash, having accomplished their purpose.

When I decided to create my own Essence Portraits of various artists, no longer tracing, but drawing and painting following the Post Conceptual tenets of UnGraven Image (symbols as strokes) it was natural for me to turn to the self portraits of Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Monet and van Gogh (and coming soon Cezanne).

Recently, I realized that I have been blessed with another benefit from the Guennica assignment, I am very comfortable “working” with great artists.

Other Contemporary and Modern artists have appropriated works or parts of works by renowned artists, or unrecognized designers of commercial products, such as Brillo boxes or the Marlboro Man. Famously, Andy Warhol appropriated Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and in his latter The Last Supper paintings, which he made very much his own.

Thanks to modern technology, iconic actors and singers are reappearing in new works musical works and commercials as their images and music are combined with new ones. My favorite, and the inspiration for my new art series, is a duet of the now adult Natalie Cole her father Nat King Cole singing “Unforgettable”.
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A few years ago, when I first saw the new “Unforgettable” video, I thought it would be lovely to be able to accomplish the same thing in art, a duet that does not appropriate a work into something totally different of my own, but instead harmonizes, works with another great artist to create our new work while I manage to acknowledge the “parental” inspiration of the other artist. The only paintings that I can think of that managed to successfully be duets, where the clear voices of two different artists were clearly seen, without one overshadowing the other are the ones from Warhol and Basquiat, but they were both alive at the time.

This is the second Duet work in the series. It is a study that began as an accident as I forgot to set the fine art printer to black only — and it produced the Da Vinci drawing of hands (altered from the original sketches to just show the hands against a white background) in sepia and umber. It was late in the day, and rather than print a new black and white version, I began to kind of “trace”, in Post Conceptual UnGraven Image style, some of the darer area is black. I used the letters of Deuteronomy 6 for the strokes because I had a print out of it at hand from the Essence Portrait I had just created with that text. I was just fooling around, tracing Da Vinci’s shapes and lines by using Torah font letters as my strokes.

In the spirit of the Duets idea, I added the blue to the sleeves. That had appeal so I continued on with another archival pigment ink pen that claims to be pure brown, but is more orange-sepia to me. Whatever, the color works here.

From Picasso and other artists I learned to call  a smaller work “Study” to indicate that the artist is not really sure where this is going, is experimenting, and in not way wants this work credited as a major one. Certainly for Da Vinci this comes from a sketch, not a finished drawing.

Hands Duet (study) by Leonardo Da Vinci and Judy Rey Wasserman

Wasserman’s strokes are the Torah font letters of Deuteronomy 6

See previous blog posts and images about Leonardo Da Vinc  and Picasso by Judy Rey Wasserman

Did Leonardo Da Vinci Envision Post Conceptual Art?

Leonardo Da Vinci Essence Portrait

Pablo Picasso’s Essence Portrait – Psalm 46

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Judy Rey Wasserman is an artist and the founder of Post Conceptual Art theory and also the branch known as UnGraven Image Art at ungravenimage.com. Download a free copy click: Manifesto of Post Conceptual Art– A Painting’s Meaning is Inherent in its Stroke.
Check out the images and availability of limited and open edition prints — Click: store.
Follow her on Twitter at @judyrey

What Are You Looking At? by Will Gompertz is a wonderful romp through the narrative history of art from Impressionism to the present day.

Gompertz is an art insider, the former director of London’s Tate Gallery and now the Arts Editor for the BBC. He knows where the bodies — or paintbrushes– are buried. He shares his “secrets” in a gossipy tell-all style laced with with and laugh provoking humor. Art stars of the past 150 years come alive and dry history becomes a stand up comedy routine, which is how this book first began. What Are You Looking At?, began as stand-up comedy at a Fringe Festival.Although funny and irrelevant, Gompertz always manages to pay homage to the great art and artists that populate his pages.

Obviously, the prime audience for this book is people who are interested in art, or want to find out why a dead shark in a tank, a cube, or a canvas filled with drips could fetch such high prices. However, this is also splendid book for entrepreneurs or anyone who is involved with launching a radically new idea in any field because it shows the oft repeated history of innovators.

The history of modern art is populated with people who failed. And failed. They were mocked. They were rejected by those in the establishment. Where mocked. Yet, somehow, the radical innovative artist caught the attention of at least one person, who would support and help propel their ideas, which led to ultimate and great success. These relationships and their anecdotal stories, between artists and other artists (such as Manet and the younger Impressionists or Picasso and Braque),artists and dealers, and artists and collectors that make this book special.

Note: Judy Rey Wasserman only reviews what she likes and is worth sharing with her friends, which includes readers and Twitter followers. This includes art shows, books, movies and sometimes even TV shows that deal with art or artists, or scientific and inspirational topics covered by the blog at artofseeingthedivine.com.

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Judy Rey Wasserman is an artist and the founder of Post Conceptual Art theory and also the branch known as UnGraven Image Art at ungravenimage.com. Download a free copy click: Manifesto of Post Conceptual Art– A Painting’s Meaning is Inherent in its Stroke.
Check out the images and availability of limited and open edition prints — Click: store.
Follow her on Twitter at @judyrey

The “art market” is like champagne; it is exciting, has bubbles and can make some people a bit giddy. Some of these champagne art bubbles can, and will, burst. That is the history of the art market, and as its history repeats itself, its future. We saw this happen when the French Academy favored the art stars of its day, refusing to allow in the group dubbed: Impressionists.  The ascending bubbles of many of the established Academy artists burst over time and their works sell today for far less than those of the then new and radical Impressionists who struggled to earn a living. 

Currently in print and online an ever growing swarm of articles posit that the works the Modern and Contemporary artists whose works have reached the highest auction prices point the likelihood that the Art Market is a bubble that is about to burst.  Seems to me that the lessons of Western Art history are being avoided as carefully as the obvious pun on the reality that bubbles also “pop”, since the artists most maligned are actually Pop artists or related to Pop Art.  The artists most mentioned and in the cross-hairs of the controversy stirring art business writers are: Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.

Psalm 19 (Andy Warhol) Double Un-Denied by Judy Rey Wasserman
Strokes = Original Torah font letters of Psalm 19

The history of the art market is damp with the many burst bubbles of various individual artists, as their contributions to the ongoing thrust of art history were reevaluated.  However, the entirety of the Art Market never burst, just the market for specific individual artists. The opposite is also true as the works of other, previously less well known artist became more revered and their prices increased. A good example of this would be the Barbizon artists who are credited with influencing the Impressionists and Post Impressionists.

Since the Renaissance successfully investing in art has always been elegantly simple and often quite financially accessible for the middle class as well as the very wealthy. All one needs to do is discover the next artist who will change the history of art and invest in him (or her) before they are finally discovered by the very rich, so their prices went up.

The history of Modern Art is full of true stories of now iconic ultra blue-chip artists were at first rejected because their work was too radical and different from what was popular until they came along.  Sensational or weird is often mistaken for radical — which means a new way of making or conceiving art – a different focus.

Monet, van Gogh, Kandinsky, Picasso, Pollack and Warhol are all artists who pioneered new and radical art, and ways of making art, in their own times.  Look back through the history of art and it can easily be seen that great artists are trailblazers, a risk takers, who contributed more than just a unique style that could later be built upon by another radical, trailblazing, risk taking artist.

There are many artists who are painting Impressionist works today. Some are fantastic – but they are not radical, not reformers, they are only elegantly plowing a previously well plowed field and the best make a good living. So, we do not revere their work. No risk.

Etched into art history are names of art dealers, such as Paul Durand-Ruel Ambroise Vollard, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Peggy Guggenheim, Irving Blum, and Leo Castelli, because they originally championed the works of artists mentioned previously – they risked.

Deuteronomy 6 (Leo Castelli) by Judy Rey Wasserman
Strokes = Original Torah font letters of Deuteronomy 6

In a recent letter to the editor of the New York Times, entitled “Invitation to a Dialogue: An Art Market Bubble?” William Cole juxtaposed the 1971 the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquisition of Velázquez’s “Portrait of Juan de Pareja” for $5.5 million ($31.4 million in 2012 dollars), then the highest price ever paid for a work of art with the considerably higher prices (even when adjusted for inflation) reached at auction for the top selling Modern and Contemporary artists.

Museum curators know that some works are difficult to hang as they will “steal” the scene from the other works in the room.  Yet, as an artist, I can easily mention or imagine hanging an equally good work by Monet, van Gogh, Cezanne, Kandinsky, Picasso, Pollack and Warhol near Velázquez’s “Portrait of Juan de Pareja”, without anyone outrageously stealing the show.

Psalm 113 (Vincent van Gogh)  by Judy Rey Wasserman
Strokes = Original Torah font letters of Psalm 113

Further, the behavior of collectors in 1971 in relation to a pre-modern masterwork does not reflect what such a work could sell for at auction today. There are exceedingly few masterworks by great artists that predate modern art that are available at auction. What might be relevant to the discussion is the recently rediscovered and authenticated Da Vinci “Salvator Mundi,” a 2-foot-high (0.6 meter) panel painting Christ, once owned by King Charles I, valued by dealers at a record $200 million.

Da Vinci, and almost all once radical, blue-chip scene stealing artists have one other thing in common. They have all inspired other later artists who in turn were radical, scene stealing and became or will become blue-chip artists. Both Koons and Hirst are influenced by Warhol. The question remains: what new, truly radical artist will be influenced by their works, if any? It is perhaps a bit soon to answer such a question.

The exhibit at the Metropolitan shows some of the many artists who have been influenced by Andy Warhol, and more artists, such as myself (armed with a manifesto) are now waiting in the wings.  As Eric Shiner, Director of The Andy Warhol Museum, noted in his letter-reply to the editor of the New York Times, “Warhol changed the visual vocabulary of the United States, and by extension the world, through his radical departure from preconceived notions of what art is, how it functions, and, yes, ultimately how it is sold, traded and collected.”

Recessions, depressions, inflations, or boon times can change the monetary worth of an individual masterpiece, since the value of the currency itself changes. Does the essential value of the Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s David or Rembrandt’s The Night Watch really change based on the economy or currency valuation? Of course not.

While investors at auctions can make straws out of paper money to inflate or prop up the failing market for an artist who is clever but never truly art-radical, eventually whatever is only given shape by air (or gas) will burst or dissipate. Secondary galleries are littered with the works of artists from the nineteenth and early twentieth century who were well known in their time, but were not at the forefront of the movement they followed and never inspired the work of an artist that became blue chip. Quietly, one by one, those little bubbles burst as the prices for those artworks, when inflation is factored in, devalue in price.

The whole of the art market will not suffer, or decrease in value, because historically that is not what occurs. The market for individual artists burst. Sometimes, seemingly all at once due to financial conditions in the society, or because the new radical artists come along, the artists who only have style begin to seem less important or valuable.

Art history continues to be written by artists with radical new ideas, but the art market continues to be a version of history repeating itself.

Your comments are welcomed below.

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Judy Rey Wasserman is an artist and the founder of Post Conceptual Art theory and also the branch known as UnGraven Image Art at ungravenimage.com. Download a free copy click: Manifesto of Post Conceptual Art– A Painting’s Meaning is Inherent in its Stroke.
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