Amazing.
 

Maybe not in a good way?

http://living.msn.com/life-inspired/...8-cd6873ac8e00

This sort of art I just don't get. I mean, it's nice, but it's a big blue square with a white line. Pretty much anyone could make one in what, maybe a half hour? 43.8 million seems a bit much.

Steve B
Heading to the garage - there's some leftover plywood, paint, and a roller........

I could have painted that and would have discounted off the 43M price too....maybe all the way down to something like 42M....

The historical significance of this Newman work is astronomical, as is the expected hammer price. Worth about 20 t206 Wags. (Not to me) But I am aware of its value. Dave. ps Helps that my astrophysicist daughter is now in her last term at Johns Hopkins getting her masters in Museology (curating and cataloging and running museum collections). That's a tangent, but I am so proud of her. Go figure Astrophysics/Museology....left brain right brain!
pps She is currently working part time compiling a short paper on Why our beloved cards can never be reproduced by modern means...very insightful.

Maybe the World Ping Pong Champion bought it...

Gotta admit....took me a half second....ha ha ha ha ha! :D Good One! Dave.

I'm very interested to see her findings. Please post this paper or send me a copy.

I plan on posting it. It will be short and to the point. It will also take a while.

As the father of a daughter who is presently attending an art school on a significant academic scholarship, stuff like this kind of angers me a little bit, that people buy into this crap.

What our own Mr. Kriendler does is pure talent. This is trash for the pretentious art crowd. Art by artists who can't really do art, but disguise it as having some sort of deep meaning.

Barnett Newman was a giant figure in American Abstract Expressionism and one of the greatest of the "color field" painters.

I will say that I've seen some of the abstaract stuff while on museum visits. I never gor Pollack before I stood next to one. I don't think I've ever seen one of Newmans in person. The Pollack was huge and very textural. The mechanical side of me was amazed the huge globs of paint had dried without cracking and falling off. Maybe Newman had something else going on besides just a wide swath of color?

I feel the same way about the impressionists. Nice pictures, but not great until you're in the same room.

I still think 43 million is way steep for what it is. That's like two really great Rockwells, or maybe 20+ lesser ones.
Or a Rembrandt plus change?

Steve B

That Rembrandt and Rockwell are shown in the same museums as Newman and Pollock, truly boggle my mind.

+1 What's next? Weyland and Kincade? Ugh!

Weyland the comics guy? Maybe not. Although he's not bad as comics guys go.

Kinkaide ? I think eventually. Although it's always struck me as hudson river school done in day-glo colors. There are certainly people who tried to copy him and only managed to make some bright but horrible pictures.

My tastes are pretty varied- Escher, Bosch, Dali, DaVinci, (Actually most of the better italian painters of that era) Calder, Mucha, Gibson....

But not Picasso, or a few others who just seem overrated. Picasso is a puzzle to me, my art teacher showed me a book about him that showed some stuff he did at some early age like 12. Incredibly impressive compared to the stuff that made him famous.

Steve B

picasso used to joke that anybody would buy any piece of art he made, that his terrible pieces or art would get snapped right up. he could paint some piece of junk in a short time and get 80000 for it, buy a house. he knew it was a scam.

Yes, he used to "joke" about it all the time. You, however, seem to have taken him seriously. :D Dave.

Even more interesting.

The seller was Paul Allen.
http://www.geekwire.com/2013/microso...ng-43-million/

And apparently he spent the money on a V-2 for a museum.

http://www.geekwire.com/2013/paul-al...rcraft-museum/

Pretty cool, I know which one I'd rather have, assuming I had the space for it.

Steve B

My favorite of the modern artists are Kandinsky and Basquiat. If I had those kinds of resources, I wouldn't mind dropping serious dough for either of them.

When my mother was a teenager she had the opportunity to buy a painting from an up-and-coming artist whom she really liked for $400, but it was a lot of money for her at the time, so she passed. Who was the artist? Andy Warhol.

I don't think that artists like Newman are a scam, but I do find the prices baffling.

All I can think of when I look at that painting is, if he had used some better painter's tape the blue paint wouldn't have bled into the white. :rolleyes: