Who are the most marketing-driven artists alive & in history

meh. Point taken, but pet peeve stays. They have all sorts of other words they can use to label themselves. "Musical artist" is fine. But not "artist" as in formerly known as prince. Iv'e heard programmers refer to themselves as artists. "Artist" sans prefix should belong to artisans, they deserve it, they don't have any other words!
Anyways, people using the term "artist" are usually doing so in an effort to associate themselves with higher culture and with creativity.

Wow. If you could give me a link to some information about that kinkaid housing complex, I would be most greatful.

Wait, you're a food artist? What do you do? I used to work in Cake decorating.

Duchamp used creative visual puns, if you will, and as he invented most of them, they bear only remote relationship to rubber stamping out hundreds of lighted cottages. The fact is when I've sauntered past the now extinct gallery in Westminster Mall (it was located right outside of Robinson's May), I would see originals that were absolutely not painted by him. The technique was too good. He obviously hired elves not only the dauble paint on cheap canvas transers (they cost about $25.00 each) but they were painting originals. He serviced the public, yes, just like I pointed out with the "f" word as many would be collectors bought multiple images and stuck them in closets and under their bed because of salespeople alluding to "an increase in value." I know their "rap" as I would perposefully go into the gallery and bait them like I was a customer. I didn't even lead them on. This is a criminal offense to offer art as a secured investment or even infer it. The salespeople could be lines up after the civil proceedings now in process to take their turns at being fingerprinted and photographed with a long booking number under their lovely photo. Anyone who believes he was fullfilling anything remotely noble, there is a bird in Australia which can imitate you.

Hey, feolola, perhaps Gene Hackman will be in one of those houses serving hot soup to the Frankenstein monster.

BTW, farmerman, there is no evidence that any of the Old Masters had students or protoges paint entire paintings and then signed them. There are a few Rembrandts in suspicion but nothing has ever been proven. Certainly it can't be shown to be with the idea of bilking a mass audience out of thousands of their hard earned dollars for cheaply mass produced reproductions (the longevity being about ten years before they fade even without direct UV exposure). In cheap $25.00 frames, too!

wiz-I wasnt saying that any masters did as Kinkaid or the Dali cartel.. I was referring to the fact that an old way of instruction had people do work "after" a master as well as multiples of studies. My purpose was to insert a preemptive condition to portals comment.

I had some personal experience with the Dali scandal. One of the crooks had their telemarketing office in the same shopping complex as the gallery I worked for in the late 80's. Later on, the Upstairs Gallery scancal broke and the lady that did the authentication and appraisal of Dali's among many other prints and originals was a personal acquaintance and I used her for appraisals myself. There are still fakes of Dali, Chagall, Miro, etc. floating around from that era of faking prints (prints placed these artists in the price range of the novice collector with some expendable income -- little did they know how expendable).

(And I did know what you meant, so I apologize if my comments were taken as contradictory.)

Hey Portal Star...I work on the other side of the fence, luxury private catering. I do desserts and all, but the fancy pastry stuff I leave to others. I specialize in small party sit down dinners, normally from 4-10 courses, in private homes. The art is both visceral, physical and visual, from menu planning, to the work, to the plate itself.

This needs new photos, but I find myself short-changed at the mo...however, here is our website, and apologies in advance for the pop-ups.

http://cinnabar10.tripod.com

meh, meh is a great word....

Very cool. May I suggest you loose the midi music! :wink:

edited to say:
can you put real music on websites? Like, a symphony or somthing?

Thinking about it...

Thomas Kinkaid Village
I was fascinated by this description of the planning for a Thomas Kinkaid village. Note the next to last paragraph about morals, etc.

-----BumbleBeeBoogie

Thomas Kinkaid Village:

http://www.rhfweb.com/etp.html

BBB, I haven't looked at your link yet, but have known of the Kincaid housing tract...but also seem to remember that it was not selling fully. Well, that was then, the fortunes of that village are not something I follow closely.

We have been discussing general public taste recently at work, as our last artist, who does thoughtful, coherent, but not easily accessible, work didn't sell a thing. It was involved with topography, desert forms, subtle, used multiple points of view within a piece.....the woman has a strong intellectual background and the works are products of that, and are to me, beautiful. (No, I won't show them here, I am speaking now of a type of artist...who is not bought...)

she was apologizing to us for not selling..though of course not really apologizing, and besides, we knew the work wouldn't fly out the door when we chose to show her. People did appreciate her work, to some extent, but they didn't crave to own it. I fear that most crave to own something charming, charming across the room. Or if not charming, acknowledgeably cool as seen somewhere, uh, cool.

On most market driven artists... I canno' help but mention Picasso, although he drove the market, and not it drove him. I am no Picasso expert, just an impression.

ossobucco
ossobucco, when Asherman asked me what kind of painting I would like him to do for me, we discussed why people buy or don't buy paintings they see in galleries. I opined that, for myself, there are paintings that I find interesting for a few views, but would not want them in my home where I would constantly see them. I think one's comfort with a painting in a gallery and in one's home are two entirely different propositions.

Ash agreed and asked me what I would enjoy seeing every day? He knows I like abstract paintings, but wanted to narrow the field. I told him I enjoy a painting in my home that, when I view it every day, I keep discovering new elements that I missed on previous viewings. In other words, the painting keep revealing it's components over a long period of time.

Ash was intrigued by the idea and the gift canvas is wonderful. Not only did Ash use colors compatible with the general colors in my home, it also contains, in abstract form, over 18 different objects. Some of these forms and objects are not readily evident until I really study the painting. He asked me to find as many as I could when he delivered the painting to me. I found everything over a period of about one hour but the last form eluded me. Ash had to point it out to me.

I enjoy viewing this wonderful piece of Asherman art not only because the artists is a friend, but because it will hold my interest for years. That's what I mean about having a comfort level with home art that is different from gallery art.

I can enjoy all forms of paintings in my home from portraits, landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, etc. I can search the same way for subtle details that reveal themselves over a period of time. But all of these details usually are not surprises in that they represent recognizable scenes and forms that are expected. Asherman's abstracts give me the unexpected, and that's what I enjoy so much about his work.

I don't know if this makes sense to anyone, but its the only way to describe the type of art that I enjoy in my home.

-----BumbleBeeBoogie

The Kinkaid village is fascinating in that it relates , fairly well to the various "utopian" centers that various artists in the US (my reference) had planned as , sort of, architectural hosannas to themselves.
I refer to Churchs plan for an Adirondack work center. Elbert Hubbard and his Roycroft village, Pyles own village in Northern Delaware, and the desert academy and all the Taliesens. In England , I can only think of Pugin and Morris as , sort of, spiritual founders of such communities. I suppose that, since (with exception of Pugin) , most of these were responses to Victorian values and esthetics, and they all seem to surround the artitic style of the Arts and Crafts movement.
The only glaring difference between , say , the Roycrofters and Kinkaid is, the Rorcrofters had some really talented people.

BBB-seeing something new in a work is a testament to your ability as an observer to be able to appreciate the tricks an artist uses to compose their work. I especially like to stop in front of a painting evryso often and separate the composition from the technique and discover new things of each.

Ossobucco, I agree that Picasso began pandering to the market and he readily admitted it. Others who are respected artists in prestigious museums and private collections who decided to reach a more mainstream audience with limited edition prints (some of them, unfortunately, fake):

Chagall, Dali and Vasarely

Did these artists consciously decide to cash in on their fame or were they connected up with mall galleries, for instance, where the marketing technique was closer to promoting the art as a commercial product like an automobile? Or both?

Artists who become mall artists and have made millions marketing in this way are very nearly endless. Their product is really commercial decorator art (or in the case of Kinkaid, sentimental art like a Hallmark greeting card). It's a marketing bonanza, this purveying of commercial illustration art as fine art. Most of the artists have about a five to eight year window to have their art hyped and sold in volume. Then they are like yesterday's pet rock or, worse, yesterday's toilet paper.

A handful have managed to sustain a market although several of those have deflated dramatically in price over the past two years:

Hiro Yamagata, Leroy Neiman, Eyvind Earle, Aldo Luongo and Michel Delacroix are among the names. Warhol and Haring's limited edition prints, both in museums, are now strong in the marketplace and their originals are through the roof.

The question is how much of the directing and satisfying the targeted market is controlled by the artist. Usually not very much -- they usually sign with a major publisher (or sometimes a fly-by-night publisher who takes advantage of them, something that happens too often in the industry) and the publisher takes the initiative to get their work into galleries. The Art Expo (run by the magazine and group at Art Business News) is one way for exposure to the commercial gallery marketplace. With the advent of the giclee print, the publisher doesn't take as much of a risk as the edition doesn't have to be printed all at once. The serigraph is run as a completed edition so the publisher takes the risk they'll get stuck with a lot of unsold prints.

Picasso bought a villa in France for the price of ONE of his still-life
paintings....ohmigod! I dont know whether it was he or an agent
employed by him who marketed him so successfully, but certainly he was no pushover. He had a HUGE ego, immense belief in his abilities and an even huger and humbling capacity to work like
a slave....

Leroy Neiman (sp) and Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollack driven to sell and be successful.

Actually I should include all the bank art folks - Motherwell, DeKooning, Louis Morris or is it Morris Louis I always foget.

I don't remember what I said. Saying that, no one should take any one thing I say all so seriously. Did I ever mention Picasso, apparently I let go and did. BBB, I have great interest in the abstract Asherman did for you, not entirely for itself, but as a work that relates to one person in these encompassing ways.

I have a horrible feeling that since I am doing the content special'ing at this moment in time that I am an expert, which any expert here knows I amn't. Well, most experts know what they don't know, primarily, and I am only interested in knowing some of what they know.

Ah, I move things into and out of the few slots in feature, and watch to see that we don't all kill each other...instead keep discussion going. Other than that, I am not wiser than anyone at all, and no matter how pedantic my wording sounds on any one post, I'm here to learn.
Louder and more obnoxious, maybe.

Anyway, ne'er mind my last soliquy, we would all be rich to really be attached to the artwork in our homes, and richer if the work very much related to ourselves, as your work by Asherman, BBB.