Blunt

Watching Alan Bennett’s television play ‘A Question of Attribution’, one is unfortunately reminded that the legacy of Anthony Blunt is almost entirely of the traitorous fourth man in the Cambridge spy ring whose politically motivated exposure in 1979 was, it seems, solely to provide the Thatcher government with a whipping boy.  That his exposure also greatly embarrassed the crown, working as he had been as surveyor of the Queen’s pictures, and knighted in the process, Thatcher’s short term goal of providing transparency in government further distanced her from the queen, with whom she had at the best of times a chilly relationship.

Occluded in all this, though, is the extraordinary art historian that Blunt was. If one doesn’t know anything else, one should know that Blunt was almost entirely responsible for a rescue and consequent recognition of the baroque as an important epoch, and elevating Poussin and Borromini to canonical status within the period.

Moreover, before and during his tenancy as director of the Courtauld Institute, he moved the discipline from a crudely fashioned empiricism into the contextual analysis that forms the backbone of not only modern art historical consideration, but virtually all aspects of study involving material culture. With all that, he was serious about scholarship, and had no time for what is politely termed ‘appreciationism.’ A painting may say something to a body, but that aesthetic interchange, unless one is looking just to decorate the walls, is largely irrelevant. One can’t possibly know entirely how a picture was perceived within its contemporaneous context, but it is that context, albeit only partly apprehended, that is crucial to achieving the all important site of meaning.

Why it was that Blunt decided to spy for the Soviets is impossible to say. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time’, that time being the era of economic and political ferment of the mid 1930’s, seems the oft given but inadequate response to what remains still an open question. In her excellent recent biography of Blunt, Miranda Carter tries to give some indication of Blunt’s Marxist leanings, concluding something pervasive in Blunt’s point of view that also influenced his critical analysis of paintings. However, Blunt’s own identification of a particular painting as either aristocratic, bourgeois, or proletarian, while indicative of class division, is hardly conclusive of class struggle.

My own career in art history post dates that of Blunt, but fortunately, it has overlapped and been influenced by very many who knew and were taught by him. The opinions are, unanimously, positive nearly hagiographic ones, and mercifully apolitical, of a scholar whose scholarship was rigorous and impeccable, whose lectures and seminars were a joy to attend, and whose attention to students was sincere and conscientious.

A welter of elbows

At last- a new blog entry from Michael.

Something I am pleased now to be well enough to resume is taking the San Francisco Municipal Railway. The walk to and from the Muni station at the bottom of our hill is salubrious for the body, and that taking public transportation is moreover the right thing to do should put everyone in a positive frame of mind. With all that, the proliferation of handheld devices and coffee bars has made the interior of the cars these days a welter of elbows. Possibly I’m a bit perspicacious, as the presence of protuberances so near and at torso level makes me wince- the result, perhaps, of having my chest nearly caved in in a car crash a couple of months ago.

Trying to set my own I hope temporary phobia aside, doubtless others, including those offending, are bothered by their near neighbors’ behavior, browsing aimlessly on their handheld devices, and sucking through the takeaway cover, blithely ignoring the signs posted prohibiting eating and drinking on the train. All of this is of course made the worse with the crowded presence of backpacks and folios, all of a size one would require to scale Everest without a Sherpa guide.

Mind you, I don’t travel a vast distance on Muni- just five stops from Church Street to Montgomery Street- but for myself, I don’t feel the need to tinker with my iphone or risk the lurching of the train causing me to pour an inadvertent mouthful of boiling coffee down my gullet. I rather enjoy the people watching, and, absent anything worth looking at, just a few moments to be lost in my own thoughts. My own suggestion to Muni would be to play a continuous loop of japa meditation. It would certainly do everyone plenty of good, and the change from elbows akimbo to upturned palms would be, for me at least, a welcome one.

The MacDonaldisation of Cork Street – London

While Michael recovers, a post from Elliot Lee’s excellent Art Antiques Design blog

For almost 90 years, Cork Street in Mayfair has been one of the most famous streets for art galleries in London, and possibly the world. Cork Street is known and loved not only in Britain but internationally, and provides a major draw to London and the UK throughout the course of a year. The history and atmosphere of this street, as well as its close proximity to the Royal Academy of Art, make this a unique place to visit for collectors, art enthusiasts, students and tourists alike.

The careers of many prominent British artists – Barbara Hepworth, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, and Lynn Chadwick, to name a few – have been closely related to Cork Street.

In August 2012, Standard Life, the landlord for seven galleries on Cork Street, sold the building to a property development company called Native Land.  The Mayor Gallery (the oldest gallery on Cork Street), Beaux Arts, Alpha Gallery, Adam Gallery, Stoppenbach & Delestre,Waterhouse & Dodd, and Gallery 27 are all affected.

The leases for a number of these Galleries are due to expire between March and June next year. It is thought that planning applications will be submitted to Westminster Council in the next 3-4 months, and from July next year, short-term breakable leases will be in place. The affected Galleries will ultimately  have to re-locate in order to make way for the MacDonaldisation of the street. If, as has been suggested, Pollen Estates – owner of a number of buildings on the opposite side of the road which house another dozen Galleries – follow suit, this would, surely, spell the end of Cork Street as a hub for the showcasing of artistic and creative talent of all periods.

Westminster Council are yet to receive any planning application. They have advised us that when the application is entered for consideration, any objections or  opinions should be registered with them. Please see the link below:

http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/environment/planning/comment/

Elliot Lee

The Housecall

While Michael convalesces, a reprise of an earlier blog

Something that Keith and I do a lot, and always enjoy, is making a housecall. If at all possible, we visit the premises where one of our sold pieces will be installed, when it is installed, to give it a once over, make certain there’s been no damage in transit, and wax what needs to be waxed and polish what needs to be polished. As long as we’ve been in business, we’ve never installed anything where the homeowner, no matter how busy, grand, or vaunted, was not there to greet us.  I’m not letting my ego run away with me here- this has very little to do with anyone’s desire for time with the Chappell visage, but more probably with the level of intimacy established between dealer and buyer.

The why of this, ostensibly, is that one has sold something that will be on display in an intimate space- the buyer’s home. Even the most public of people still consider their own homes to at least some degree their sanctum sanctorum. From clothes closet to foyer, the notion of a person’s home being their castle encompasses what is a basic touchstone. And that one’s possessions articulate with that psychically castellated space functions to make home and furnishings an outward manifestation of one’s personality. This starts to sound like all our clients are megalomaniacs, but, frankly, in our experience, none of them are. In fact, when we make a housecall, as we did this last week in Houston, the powerful lady and gentleman homeowners were supremely gracious, and eager to discuss their collecting passions and objectives. As their purchases from us were adjuncts to their already established collecting foci, we had lots to talk about. This is what’s known as ‘common ground’.

But it’s substantially more than that- it has to be, as discussions and concomitant relationships with clients go on for years and years. In this age of the internet where it may only be the first purchase that is consummated in our galleries and subsequent purchases made online, one would assume that the connection between dealer and collector would wane. To date, I’m happy to say, it hasn’t. While we love what we do, and are fascinated by the objects we sell and feel a connection with the material culture in which they were wrought, this is all very much part of a continuum that involves that part of the bilateral relationship manifested in the housecall.

Heading in the right direction

While Michael recovers, here’s an earlier blog

How goes the old Wall Street aphorism- bulls and bears get rich, but pigs get slaughtered. Sage, perhaps, but financial sagacity is not my strong suit. Nor that of plenty of other people, particularly in the fine art and antiques trade, with this last year or two cluttered with disbursal sales of former dealers. It’s been an interesting experience, Keith and I chatting with those of long tenure in the trade, discussing how items used to be passed from dealer to dealer, with some kind of mark-up each time it traded hands, until it reached an eventual buyer. The new transparency in the marketplace for art and antiques brought about by information technology is, to my way of thinking, not entirely a bad thing. Mind you, price shopping in the art world is pretty tough, as the price differential between a good object and a similar though superior object is measured exponentially.

But, of course, quality and pricing make for good talking points with clients. I hope my colleagues in the trade agree with me, that discussion about the merits of a piece of furniture or artwork ultimately assist the client to make the right decision and the dealer that assists in that process has established a relationship, and not just accomplished a spot sale. We’ve found generally that sales these days are accompanied by lots of discussion, including plenty of specific questions about our stock, about the trade generally, and the nature of connoisseurship. Although times being the way they are, my venal self would like to jump ahead to closing the sale, but the process of bonding through long discussion has had, for me at least, the beneficial effect of keeping me on my mettle. Discussion, research and explanation assist not just the development of connoisseurship in my clients, but significantly improves my own, and ultimately makes me a better dealer.