| paralleling Knatz.com | Personal / Stories / Theme / Business | 2009 10 31 |
The Picasso of 1985
Short version: Early 1975: I was making an art presentation to the Brewster Gallery in Greenwich Village. I'd been chatting with Jerry Brewster while turning the graphics in my portfolio, telling stories about the artists, detailing sales results so far, both my sales, and my clients' resales, when another art salesman barged in. The newcomer didn't know Jerry, had no appointment: he just ignored my prior position and blurted, "I've got the Picasso of 1985!"
Jerry let a smile flicker, and answered, "Good. Bring him to me in 1984."
Then he turned his attention back to me as the oaf realized that he had been dismissed, his greatest artist in the world unseen.
Details: In 1970 I founded the Free Learning Exchange, Inc., following Ivan Illich's saintly genius in trying to offer the public a cheap low-tech internet by which that public could sidestep regulation into freedom: any community with a cybernetic bulletin board of human and inanimate resources, together with both interest matching services and feedback on quality, on behavioral irregularies, could recreate the ancient marketplace into a new Phoenix of liberty, upgrading interfering regulatory government into direct cybernetic democracy at the same time: Congress was designed for representatives to renew information from their constituency annually; with networked cybernetics opinions can be updated at the speed of light. In 1973 my wife stopped paying the bills and kidnapped our son: a handy way of not having to discuss his education with the deschooler. I had to produce income myself, and, having sworn off teaching in the university system, and with no time to find a position even were I willing to break my vow, I took a shit job in a graphics gallery which palmed reproductions as technically "original." In a month I was director of the company's Madison Avenue gallery, and by 1974 artists were clamoring for me to represent them directly. Thus, late 1974 saw me cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back as I embodied PK Fine Arts, Ltd., and early 1975 found me back in the 'Apple, schlepping my portfolio into the Brewster Gallery in Greenwich Village.
I knew Jerry Brewster after a fashion: we'd mutually seen each other in the Whitehorse Tavern, way west on Hudson and 11th, not far from his place on 7th just below 14th. So, I'd stopped by let him know that I was in the business, had some good new artists. When I phoned and said now would be a good time for me, he summoned me in. Fancy art galleries may have back rooms with space adequate for an artist (or rep) to make a presentation, but I can testify that there aren't any in the level of the business I'd entered. But Jerry's no-space was luxurious compared to the no-space in most low-to-middle-end galleries and frame shops. I was hawking stuff from two to three figures with only a token item or two in the lowest four figures: Jerry had art at two and three figures but also had some items in four to five figures. (Jerry would soon open a Madison Avenue branch intended to specialize around five figures: Miro, for example: lithographs for $18,000 to $24,000: early 1975 remember.) (Jerry told me, "It's just as had to sell some 7x9 chatchka for $89.95 as it is to sell a Picasso for $30,000. I'd rather sell the Picasso." Understand: at those prices, again early 1975, we were talking about multiples only: lithographs, etchings ...
Jerry half-recognized me, realized that I had some sense of what I was saying. I'm confident further that Jerry recognized that I was tilling ground for an ongoing business relation; not trying to squeeze a quick sale so I could have lunch. The above story occurred. Now you see it in its setting. I can now add additional reflections:
Jerry bought nothing from me that day. Much better he explained to me that his sister did all his buying: and she had the checkbook: once she made a decision, she'd write the check, then and there. I returned many times over the years. Gertrude would buy, and sometimes reorder within days. One new lithograph I sold her was framed and put in the window that evening, and was sold to a customer waiting for her to open in the morning.
I saw little of Jerry after that. He spent his time up on Madison Avenue, super busy, super important: and probably frantic to pay the rent: you have to sell a lot of Miro to meet that nut. But one day he happened to be back down in the Village. I reminded him of our first meeting in his gallery, and quoted him to himself: "Good. Bring [this Picasso] to me in 1984." Jerry looked pleased. "Gosh. I didn't know I was that smart," he joked.
I love this story because it illustrates that there is no intrinsic value in business. A Picasso has no value because it's a Picasso, because it's beautiful, historically important, because it's challenging, excellently rendered, inconceivably conceived, because it makes your mind all withershins ... No, it's valuable only if you can resell it at a profit: regularly enough to pay the rent, and move uptown, and then to Mt. Vernon, and then to Scarsdale ...
I here repeat something I said to great artist Will Barnet in 1973, the year before this story. I told this at K., but K. got purged, so here it is again: I said that art had three values.
- the value to the artist in making it
- the value to the observer in looking at it
- the market value
PS: I don't think Jerry Brewster actually used the Yiddish term "chatchka." I have though sold to WASPS in the business who did use that term: and so do I.
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