U S Embassy in Paris

              The United States Embassy in Paris

As a comprehensive example of abstract art in a domestic setting, we turn to art in a mansion ‒  the U. S. embassy in Paris. The American ambassador there, in 2016, was Jane D. Hartley. To select artworks to display in the embassy she drew from her own collection as well as from works available from the division of the state department called Art In Embassies.  That department has a knowledgeable staff she could consult. Besides they have contacts to obtain art on loan.

Together they chose, as a theme, works by American artists with a connection to France.  For example Alexander Calder spent many years living and working in Paris, so a large stabile by him was installed on the grounds.

We start a tour of the embassy interior by showing Ms. Hartley in front of the painting from 2010 by Cy Twombly called Camino Real.  It is also shown from another perspective, through the doorway of an adjoining salon. Twombly made at least five versions of Camino Real which means royal road in Spanish.  In the United States that name is associated with the 600 mile long road along the coast of California connecting the original 21 Spanish missions.  

Notice the characteristic drip or hanging moss look.  Twombly said his paintings were childlike but not childish and required the personal feeling he put into them.

 Another salon has a group of works on paper, “Les Fleurs”, by Louise Bourgeois.  

Now consider our photo showing the foyer.  Notice above the table, a large painting by the American abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning.  He is better known for a long series of abstracted, densely congested, some say brutal, pictures of women.  In contrast, the piece we see looks light and airy. Below on the table notice a blue yarn ball, called “Fasten Seatbelt” by the American textile artist Sheila Hicks.

        

Let’s try to analyze this scene with a decorator’s eye.  Blue and orange are complementary colors. Notice the blue items: chairs, lamp shades, yarn ball, and light blue strokes in the painting.  See the little flecks of orange in the yarn ball, the red orange in the painting, and with some imagination, see orange in the brass and the brown wood tone which can be considered a form of dull orange.  The walls continue the theme, being a very light muted orange. What do you think of the overall result? Should the candles be blue or orange? Just kidding – a stunning effect may be just one step away from an overdone effect.

Continue on to a salon with a Mark Grotjahn painting hanging above a sofa.  His painting gives the appearance of sheaves of taught pieces of colored yarn coming toward a center cleaved area.  He also has a series called butterfly paintings with a similar layout but without the textured, fuzzy yarn look. 

Grotjahn, about age 50, is quite the exception among artists, seeing that his works sell for millions of dollars.  Most artists have an exclusive arrangement with just one gallery, but he has enough leverage to be represented by multiple galleries.   Numerous artists earn so little in their early career that they need some other employment or otherwise they are indeed starving artists.

It is unfortunate that for many artists the market value of their works only go up after they are old or deceased.  Aside from too little too late for the artist, large profits are made by early purchasers who bought the artist’s works cheaply and sold high at a later time.  

Exactly that happened to one of Grotjahn’s early works.  It was sold for about six million dollars, by someone other than Grotjahn.  But in California where the sale took place there is a law called The California Resale Royalty Act that requires the seller to pay 5% of the sale price to the original producer of the art work or to the artist’s estate.  Note 5% of six million is 300,000.

Grotjahn had to go to court to get the payment and fortunately he had his court fees covered.  Some foreign countries, and California alone among the states has such a law. The general idea here is for the originator to receive some of the excess profit at the end of the process. 

 If we consider the artist originators as a class, we could think of a general tax on art sales to be used for the welfare of artists in need – to ease their situation, for instance, by supplying medical insurance.  Also, some way might be devised to link good artists ‒ even those lacking self promotion and business savvy ‒ with willing buyers.

Still brainstorming, I envision a television program something like “Antiques Roadshow” to showcase lesser known art and a companion televised Christie's style art auction for discovered artists.