Vettriano original nets £290,000

Everytime one of Jack Vettriano's paintings comes up for auction in the UK, it's as if British art collectors spit on the face of British art critics and British museums.

One of Jack Vettriano's most popular paintings, Dance Me To The End Of Love (one of the world's bestselling posters), just sold for nearly 300,000 pounds in Scotland (and way over that once all commissions are added in) - that's a lot of dollars!

Untrained, gruff and very un-PC, Vettriano is perhaps the world's best-selling artist. He has been shunned by the high art world, with major UK galleries refusing to acquire his works. However, this self-taught Scottish artist has huge worldwide popular appeal. His painting The Singing Butler sold for almost £750,000 in 2004, the highest price ever paid for a Scottish painting at auction.

The only example of his work to be featured in a public collection in the world is a painting donated by a collector to the Kirkcaldy Museum in Fife, Scotland, Vettriano's birthplace.

New Photography Curator

Toby Jurovics has been hired as the Smithsonian American Museum's new Curator for Photography.

Previously, Jurovics served as a curator of photography at the Princeton University Art Museum.

As a federal government employee, Jurovics will be now responsible for research, exhibitions and acquisitions related to the Smithsonian American Museum's photography collection.

What Hollywood didn't tell you

Congrats to Philip Seymour Hoffman for winning an Oscar for playing Truman Capote in the movies.

And now for what Hollywood didn't tell you...

Between 1946-1956, around 50,000 Cubans obtained legal permanent visas to emigrate to the United States.

It was during this migration that José Capote migrated to the USA and settled in New Orleans in search of work, met and married Lillie Mae Faulk, and became a father to her young son Truman.

DC Dealer in NYC's DIVA

Hardworking DC art dealer Rody Douzoglou will be participating at the Digital and Video Fair (DIVA) in New York March 9-12, 2006.

Click here for more info on the videos and artists that Rody has been showcasing at art fairs all over the world.

One more

One of the great things about living in an area with a great visual arts presence is the sheer number of good places and venues that exhibit artwork. Here's a new one to me:

DC artist Afrika Midnight Asha Abney will be exhibiting through March 31, 2006 at The Graham Collection, located at 3518 12th St NE in Washington, DC. Contact numbers for Afrika Midnight Asha Abney is 202-455-3773 or Karl Graham, gallery owner of The Graham Collection at 202-832-9292.

Wanna go to an post-opening party tonight?

MOCA in Georgetown opened their Erotica 2006 exhibition yesterday, but tonight they're hosting another social mixer starting at 6PM featuring not only the artwork, but also X-rated videos.

And they're going to be doing this every Saturday at 6PM until the end of the exhibition - they will also host a closing party on March 31 starting at 6PM.

They're also having belly dancers, body painters and live figure drawing throughout the month. Contact them for details and schedule.

This looks like fun!

Deadline July 15, 2006 noon

Second Annual Quick Draw Competition at Plein Air Easton - A painting competition and Arts Festival sponsored by Easton Main Street in historic small-town Easton, Maryland.

Any artist may participate for $10 registration fee. (You do not need to be a juried participant in the week long competition). Cash and product awards to winning artists with exhibition/sale of all participants in the lovely gardens of the Historical Society immediately after the Quick Draw. Artists must paint, any medium, in a four block area in the downtown historical area from 2 - 4 PM July 15, 2006.

Juror: Camille Przewodek, OPA. For more information, go to www.pleinair-easton.com or call Carolyn Jaffe at 410-820-8822 or email them here.

Tierney on Hokusai

The Examiner's art critic Robin Tierney checks in with a piece on Hokusai at the Sackler and also a bit on the Frederick Gallery Walk.

Read it here.

How Art Appreciates

British artist and former Tate Prizewinner Grayson Perry opines on what makes art appreciate in value (thanks AJ). He writes:

"I think by far the most important factor in making art works valuable is what experts say and write about them. Respected figures in the art world hold the power to increase the value of a given artist’s work by bestowing art-historical importance and "specialness" upon them. Academics, curators, critics, powerful gallerists and collectors can give out extremely valuable brownie points. A work purchased by a leading public institution boosts an artist’s stock, which is why dealers will offer considerable discounts to museums.

A write-up in one of the heavyweight art mags such as Art Forum or Art Monthly spreads the consensus. One reason that I was so surprised at winning the Turner was that I had never [been] featured in one of these publications. Maybe this is the art equivalent of climbing Everest without oxygen."

Having lived in Great Britain for many years, I know how Brits are obsessed with "class" in all manners and forms, and so it is no surprise to me that Perry's conclusion has to do with class. Read the entire article here.

WaPo on the Corcoran

The WaPo's David Montgomery compiles a write-up of the Corcoran's Thursday shake-up first reported in the blogsphere yesterday, including here.

The article states at the end that "staff writers Blake Gopnik and Kate Wichmann contributed to this report."

Other contributors didn't know they were contributing.

Affordable Artists Studios

From 190 sq. ft at $206 per month to 970 sq. ft. for $1053 per month, and the utilities are included. Shown Wednesdays 6:00 - 8:00 pm at 6925 Willow NW or call 202-882-0740 or visit here and then click on A.Salon.

Corcoran Director Begins To Plot New Course

The new Corcoran director Paul Greenhalgh announced a few important changes (mostly driven by economic re-structuring) at the Corcoran yesterday.

Departing are chief curator Jackie Serwer, senior curator of education Susan Badder, prints and drawings curator Erik Denker, European art curator Laura Coyle, and traveling exhibitions director Joan Oshinsky, among others.

Update: Both Stacey Schmidt, who is the Corcoran's Associate Curator of Contemporary Art and Margaret Bergen, who has done a great job as the Corcoran's PR guru, are also leaving soon for family reasons.

Irvine in New York

It is art fair time in the Big Apple and Irvine Contemporary has ventured out on their own this time around in NYC, with a program focused on DC/MD/VA trained or based artists. As the fair Heather puts it: "We want to show NY the world-class caliber of the DC and metro area talent here!"

And they have rented a spectacular 3,000 sq. ft Chelsea space for an exhibition, held in conjunction with the opening of the Whitney Biennial, The Armory Art Fair, Scope, Pulse and the LA Artfair-NY.

Irvine exhibition's dates: Friday March 10 - Sunday March 12th, 10:00am - 8:00pm daily. Located at 515 W. 29th Street, 2nd floor (between 10th & 11th Aves).

And (are you NYC bloggers ready for this?) there's a blogger preview Friday, March 10th, from 9-11:00am. VIP Cocktail Reception: Friday, March 10th, 8:00pm-midnight.

The exhibition features new paintings and works on paper by DC/Virginia/Maryland trained or based artists Trevor Amery, Gine Brocker, Ju-Yeon Kim, Peter Charles, Suzanna Fields, Susan Jamison, Christine Kesler, Robert Mellor, Beverly Ress,and Jason Zimmerman.

Also new work by other Irvine artists including Lisa Stefanelli, Kahn & Selesnick, Teo Gonzalez, Dalek, Robert Gutierrez, Frankin Evans, Jenny Laden, Bede Murphy, Amy Ross, Sean Foley and Lori Esposito will be also on view.

Irvine is also working with several prominent artists for the first time (artists that they will show in DC later this year) -- namely New-York based and MICA trained embrodiery artist Orly Cogan, and Brooklyn-based painter Edward del Rosario, (courtesy of Richard Heller Gallery).

They will also feature three surreal videos running simultaneously by CALARTS trained video artist Dane Picard and unique scuptures by MICA trained sculptor Josh Levine, entitled "Trophy Room."

Questions? Email Heather.

Wanna go to an opening tonight?

H Y S T O R I A, curated by my good friend J.W Mahoney and Lisa McCarty and featuring the work of Geoff Bell, Julee Holcombe, Betsy Packard, Jeffrey Smith and Champneys Taylor opens tonight at DCAC with an opening reception from 7-9PM.

There's also an artists' talk on March 12 commencing at 4:00pm.

Beckman on Cupidity

The CP's Rachel Beckman checks in with a nice piece on Neptune Gallery's most interesting Cupidity show.

Read it here.

American Gothic in DC

Grant Wood's iconic painting "American Gothic" travels to our area and will be on view at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum from March 10 through June 11, 2006.

This exhibition marks the first time that the painting (owned by The Art Institute of Chicago) has traveled to Washington, D.C. in more than 40 years.

Gopnik and Kirkland on the Whitney Biennial

The WaPo's eloquent Chief Art Critic depressess us all with his insightful and run-for-the-Xanax review of the Whitney Biennial, and JT Kirkland picks up on the mood and asks some good questions about the meaning of it all.

Gopnik here and Kirkland here.

My message to all of this depressive, cynical art and all the associated whiners? If you think life is tough, then think about all the twentysomethings in West Virginia whose only jobs may be pulling the guts out of turkeys, or worse still, the kids in the P.I. who scour garbage dumps looking for something to eat, and if lucky may find some discarded turkey guts to eat.

Gimme a break...

Parsons on Wallsnatchers

DCist's Adrian Parsons reviews the WPA/C's Wallsnatchers in Georgetown.

Read it here.

Referral Commissions

Artists and art dealers should always remember this rule (especially in a small town such as the Greater DC area is): You reap what you sow.

Recently a well-known DC area curator emailed me to let me know that she had referred to me a collector who was looking for figurative drawings. The usual referral commission in the business of art is 25%, so I emailed her back and asked to verify that percentage and she did.

The collector then came to my studio and bought a couple of drawings, and I immediately sent the curator a check for her commission. She then emailed me back a few days later and thanked me for my promptness.

Conversely, a while back a couple of different curators approached me asking for help in finding some artists for a specific acquisition project. I spent some time with each one of them, and then gave them a list of artists, as well as the artists' contact information.

I then contacted those artists and/or their gallery dealer, and told them that I was referring curator so-and-so to them in order for the curator to view and possibly purchase work from them. There were about 15-20 artists that I referred and who were then contacted by the curators of these two separate projects.

Some of the artists are represented by us, and thus they know (because our contract is very clear on that issue) what a referral commission is.

Several of the other artists (whom are not represented by us, or in some cases by any other gallery) emailed me to thank me for the referral, and subsequently even a few of them emailed me to let me know that the curators had purchased artwork. Some never even emailed or contacted me to thank me for the referral, but most did.

So far only one of those artists has asked what our referral commission is, and I am sure that if/when a sale is made, that the gallery will get a check for that commission from that one artist.

Let's see what happens with the rest of them... you reap what you sow.

Nepotistas Insider Trading at the Whitney Biennial

ANABA highlights some of the damaging information being revealed by comments at Edna V. Harris' blog that appear to indicate a serious degree of conflict of interests and nepotism in the selection of some artists for the Whitney Biennial.

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Any curated exhibition, including the ones that I've done, are always marred by some degree of nepotism, although there is generally not so much obvious and amazing conflicts of interests as this Biennial has apparently revealed.

But I am surprised that neither of the two distinguished and verbose Senators from New York haven't (yet) called for Senate hearings on this issue; can you imagine the amount of TV face time they'd get?

Fallon and Rosof have a really good walk-through of the Biennial here.