i think it's a darn shame no Christian philanthropist has commissioned any Thomas Kinkade murals.
for example, Moses receiving the 10 Commandments would make a great ornament for all our courthouses.
Oh, Moses, Moses, Moses (Anne Baxter in "The Ten Commandments")
Yitwail, what a funny imagination! My compliments.
Well, i avoided this thread from the beginning, and i can't for the life of me explain why i bothered to read the whole damned thing now. However, i would like to point some things out. "Starving Artists" sales have been using these methods for years, and buyers know they are buying assembly line work by art school graduates, and they are consciously buying "art" which is intended to match their decor, and they are paying prices which are only slightly more than the value of the frame if they bought that individually from an art or craft supply house. They aren't paying thousands for works which have been misrepresented. Another odious angle is exploiting "Christian virtue" to sucker the buyers. So those of you such as Habibi and Phoenix who are hollering caveat emptor and saying the buyers deserved to be fleeced for being that stupid may or may not have a point--i rather suspect that cases might be made for fraudulent business practices. Whether or not that is the case, however, is a matter for the offices of the Attorneys General in the various states in which one might allege fraud to have occurred.
But if the FBI is investigating him, and i'm not saying it is so, but if the FBI is investigating, the likely case to be made is securities fraud. According to what i've read here, he went public at $4.00/share, ran the price up to $25.00/share--at which point he might have dumped his personal stock holdings--and then engaged in coercive business practices which ruined individual dealers, driving the stock down to $3.00/share, at which point he bought back the stock and went private again. If it could be shown that he did all of this with malice aforethought, with intent, then a case might be made that he had perpetrated securities fraud. I rather doubt the FBI would be interested in ordinary cases of commercial fraud--but securities fraud is a different matter altogether.
If he is being investigated for securities fraud, and if the allegations made by dealers are true, then look for the SEC to act upon the findings of an FBI investigation, and look for him to go into court on those charges. Otherwise, caveat emptor is the operative principle here, and, so sad, too bad.
Art is difficult to "value" because "value" is in the eye of the beholder. As long as the buyer "thinks" he/she got a good deal, that's what should matter. I remember some decades ago when a Japanese business man paid $53 million for Van Gogh's "sunflowers." I thought that was wayyyyy over the top for any art work, and still think so today. I understand some artworks have sold for more since then.
The cases that are well known FBI instigations are the Dali (as well as Chagall, Miro and other contemporary artist) frauds, mainly perpetrated by The Upstairs Galleries in Southern California, the Center Galleries and Austin Galleries chains. The FBI was asleep for over a decade before catching on or even getting enough complaints through state Attorney General officials.
Then there was the re-struck Remington sculptures being passed off as originals out of galleries in Las Vegas and other locations. Even the salespeople were arrested after the galleries were closed down (most of them released and one of them came to work for me in Newport Beach but didn't last long).
Finally, there was the Simic Gallery out of La Jolla and Carmel that were purveying paintings of a French chateau as one-of-a-kind, when, in fact, they were mass produced and the same image! They'd sell one and then, when the customers left, cackle with delight that the customer was so gullible and uneducated about art and brought another out of the back room.
Several people went to prison over the Dali scandal, Upstairs was closed and the owner of the chain, Forest Lawn Cemeteries (what did anyone expect from the Disneyland of Death) was forbidden by the judge to sell any fine art for ten years.
Simic (a hack seascape painter) managed to produce a photograph and a biography of the French artist who was something like 140 years old by now and the FBI could not confirm he existed or not and dropped the case. Of course, they ceased importing these fasterpieces (sic).
I think there is a similarity to being ripped off for a piece of art to being raped. The victim is too embarrassed to go to the authorities.
It's just as ridiculous to invest from $ 600.00 to even as high as $ 5000.00 for so-called limited edition prints. The giclee is the latest method of making copies which is really a high resolution ink jet printer. I've seen some of these on canvas where the ink was chipping or cracking.
Wasn't Puck right? "What fools these mortals be."
So it's not just the case of Kinkade, Set, it's the whole art industry still marketing over-priced commercial art as fine art and getting away with it.
It is a free country, so I realize it is also the freedom to get fleeced if one so desires, and I say desire because they are basically bending over and offering to take it.
(Up the proverbial arse).
cicerone imposter wrote:Art is difficult to "value" because "value" is in the eye of the beholder. As long as the buyer "thinks" he/she got a good deal, that's what should matter. I remember some decades ago when a Japanese business man paid $53 million for Van Gogh's "sunflowers." I thought that was wayyyyy over the top for any art work, and still think so today. I understand some artworks have sold for more since then.
The Getty bought "Irises" which was the painting in question and that businessman took a loss. It was still in the crate as the buyer realized he'd been taken by Sotheby's on their clever finance program (prison time for one man on that one).
JLNobody wrote:Yitwail, what a funny imagination! My compliments.
we try our best! :wink:
Lightwizard wrote: Finally, there was the Simic Gallery out of La Jolla and Carmel that were purveying paintings of a French chateau as one-of-a-kind, when, in fact, they were mass produced and the same image!
that's appalling! next you'll tell me someone sold fake Rolexes in Rodeo Drive.
I don't know if anyone really gets away with selling fake Rolex's on Rodeo Drive but I haven't been up there in years. I might believe it because Dyanson Galleries had a location there selling Erte cast limited edition sculpture. That was stuff that cost $6.000.00 plus and as soon as one walked out the door with their "art," it depreciated to a street price of $ 2000.00.
