A recent auction at Christie’s brought in a cool $388 million or so. Art by Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Alexander Calder etc. Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” recently sold for $120 million – $120 million! A Rothko for a cool $87 million.
In a recent biography by Sue Prideaux she wrote that in 1895 Munch was at his brother’s funeral. A relative said: “Why don’t you paint something people will buy, Edvard? I know perfectly well you can do it. When you think of it, it’s really inconsiderate of you, especially when you know how poor we all are.” [Note: I haven’t actually read nor heard of this book or author but found it referenced on a website – and it currently has five stars on amazon.com – another bizarre fact of modern life how we base an opinion of things on how many stars it has. But it must be a good book. I apologize ahead of time for inaccuracies.]
Munch, Rothko, Van Gogh, Pollock etc. I’m sure they had moments of joy and happiness to go along with (possibly) more moments of poverty and despair. I wonder what each would think if they knew the current status of their work. Pride? Disgust? Anger? Apathy?