tagged w/ Art Investment
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TORONTO (AP) — Art experts believe they have identified a new Leonardo da Vinci— in part by examining a fingerprint on the canvas.
Peter Paul Biro, a Montreal-based forensic art expert, said Tuesday that a fingerprint on what was presumed to be a 19th-century German painting of a young woman has convinced art experts that it's actually a da Vinci.
Canadian-born art collector Peter Silverman bought "Profile of the Bella Principessa" at the Ganz gallery in New York on behalf of an anonymous Swiss collector in 2007 for about $19,000. New York art dealer Kate Ganz had owned it for about 11 years after buying it at auction for a similar price.
One London art dealer now says it could be worth more than $150 million.
If experts are correct, it will be the first major work by da Vinci to be identified in 100 years.
Biro said the print of an index or middle finger was found on the painting and that it matched a fingerprint from da Vinci's St Jerome in the Vatican. Biro examined multispectral images of the painting taken by the Luminere Technology laboratory in Paris. The lab used a special digital scanner to show successive layers of the work.
"Leonardo used his hands liberally and frequently as part of his painting technique. His fingerprints are found on many of his works," Biro said. "I was able to make use of multispectral images to make a little smudge a very readable fingerprint."
Technical, stylistic and material composition evidence also point to it being a da Vinci. Biro said there's strong consensus among art experts that it is a da Vinci painting.TORONTO (AP) — Art experts believe they have identified a new Leonardo da... more
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Art Expo India 2009 is a high profile meeting ground for art dealers, galleries, artists and prospective buyers. This exhibition will play a catalytic role in building the art market in India. It is a high end shopping event presenting a wide array of works by famous and upcoming Indian artists. Publishers, dealers, gallery owners and artists will proudly display art in various styles using popular media - from paintings and sculpture to prints and photographyArt Expo India 2009 is a high profile meeting ground for art dealers, galleries,... more
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The devolution of confidence in traditional investment alternatives, in concert with the elevation of the importance of design and aesthetic throughout the world, points to a renaissance in the value of art to a degree never before witnessed.
After all, the art auction market is fair and transparent with a degree of stability that many financial institutions, and even some AAA-rated U.S. government debt, can only dream about.
The Current State of Things
The U.S. has experienced many decades of economic growth facilitated by technological innovation and ongoing reductions in the cost of labor. As a result, it has enjoyed one of the highest rates of consumption in the world, bolstered by low interest rates and record rates of liquidity, all courtesy of the rest of the world's willingness to buy U.S. debt.
The DJIA is down 13.1% year to date and the S&P has fallen 12.4% in that time. The U.S. dollar has lost 10% against a basket of six currencies over the past year, 40% over the past six years, a time when the price of oil is up seven-fold. The Chinese Yuan is up 7% year-to-date versus the dollar after having gained 7% in all of 2007.
The U.S. money supply is growing at the rate of 16% per year, the highest rate of growth since 1971 and, correspondingly, Gold is up 283% against the dollar since June 2001. The real source of many consumers' wealth, their homes, have already lost 16% of their value since the peak in 2006.
Writeoffs related to the credit crisis have already passed the $450 billion mark. Keep in mind that this still only reflects sub-prime losses, as no commercial or Alt-A losses have been taken as of yet. After assuring in June that economic risks had diminished, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke testified in mid-July that "there's no doubt there's further deterioration in the cards for bank earnings and we'll continue to see financial sector woes play themselves out." Despite inflation in the form of rising consumer prices, currently at an annual 5.6% rate, the highest since 1991, the stresses in the financial system negate almost any efforts by the Fed to tackle inflation. That does not bode well for the dollar.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:
The liquidity and capital crisis at these two mortgage behemoths is set against their guarantee of a whopping $5.3 trillion in mortgage credit, or half the total of all U.S. mortgages. The main issue however, revolves around their relative under-capitalization; the two have only a combined $81 billion in capital and that inadequacy means that raising capital has become a priority in this era of mortgage crisis. That roughly 2% of liabilities in the form of capital means that the danger exists that if the value of the mortgages that they guarantee declines by a small percentage......From where that capital will come is the big question, and it is increasingly likely that it will be the U.S. taxpayer who will have to shoulder the burden once again. Why? Absent their ability to raise additional capital in the public market they will almost certainly be rescued by the federal government because they are at least implicitly, if not so stated in their prospecti, guaranteed by the federal government, meaning that their failure would send a pronounced negative signal to the nations' creditors were they allowed to fail. Hence, their bailout could cost as much as 10% of GDP, the rating agency S&P has said and "could create a material fiscal burden to the government that would lead to downward pressure on its rating."
The devolution of confidence in traditional investment alternatives, in concert with... more
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Charles Collins is known for his encouragement of other artists through his God in the Arts Foundation, which evolved out of a desire to encourage anyone who "believes that all life is like petals on the same flower." Ultimately, his work seeks to change our collective consciousness.
Most of his oil paintings are profoundly spiritual and evoke a strong sense of peace and timelessness. He begins with a charcoal drawing, adds a thin glaze with a dark color, terra green or burnt umber, which provides the base for light to reflect off. This is covered by an under painting -- when his images in the over painting are complete, he adds up to 30 glazes.
He has learned most of this on his own, by experimentation, though he has a degree in fine art from the Dallas Art Institute in Texas. His work is in collections all over the world and he is the first Taos artist to have painted an album cover for singer Michael Martin Murphey and another for Arlo Guthrie. His painting, "The Ambassadors Meet in Washington," was the first in the then 23-year history of Taos Invites Fall Arts Festival to win both Best in Contemporary and Best of Show.
"When I'm painting it's like creating an image of the attributes of God, creating the same vibration that created you, like a loop that feeds back to you in a circle of life, with the same resonance." - Charles Collins
Charles Collins is known for his encouragement of other artists through his God in... more
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about the artist
Born 1970. (American abstract painter) Living in Los Angeles, California, Scott Spencer loves to listen to music while he paints. "Classical music is great for the more cerebral pieces and good old rock and roll works best when I want to let the paint fly." Spencer takes inspiration from his immediate surroundings, real or imagined, and paints into the wee hours of the night. "That's when the energy comes." He began painting full time after a brush with cancer in 1999. Spencer is represented by renowned gallerist and art dealer Biljana Grcic-Beran through Galeria Jan in La Jolla, California, and was admitted into the Pasadena Society of Artists in 2004.
artists' statement
Life is a game. Play along. In the Grand Scheme of it all, we may very well be experiencing different realities. These are definitely wacky times. We live in an age of orange newscasters and Burger King memorabilia. I stepped off the deep end a long time ago and have been dogpaddling for dear life ever since. Nobody taught me to run from my problems. I had to learn that one on my own. I give myself over to That Which Governs. I know Someone or Something is watching after me, keeping vigil. Every day I thank my lucky stars and the Powers That Be that there are art collectors in this world. "Thank you," to everyone who owns and all future owners of these paintings. You are wonderful people, allowing me to continue painting and giving me great satisfaction. If you're ever in Los Angeles, please look me up. I'll buy you some lunch. I'd like to get to know you. Every canvas has an agenda--a life of its own separate from its maker, separate from thought or logic or reason--and to plot its course is only to interfere. To plan is to destroy. Let it paint. Trust the mess. All marks are good. Oh, but the mutiny of scrutiny . . . if we could only leave it alone. The self-taught artist has a great chance to be unique. Without knowledge of "rules" to hinder the hand or an instructor's style to imitate, what results is pure, entirely his own. Contrary to popular belief, abstract art is "meaningful" on a parallel with representational art. Each of us sees differently, and individual responses to an abstract work of art are varied. An abstract work's "meaning" is oftentimes stronger and more personal for the viewer than it is in purely representational art where the subject matter is obvious and can only evoke a limited range of emotions. Nowhere else in this existence have I found the freedom and exhilaration that oil painting affords. Albert Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Welcome words to a daydreamer like me. "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion." Francis Bacon Being gay is a gift, a variation on a theme. Love is too powerful to be shaped or confined. At the moment, I'm loving the paintings of Cecily Brown, Raimonds Staprans and Paul Balmer. My all-time favorites are Max Beckmann, Milton Avery, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Joan Mitchell, Egon Schiele, Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler and Lucien Freud.about the artist
Born 1970. (American abstract painter) Living in Los Angeles,... more
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