Art Investment - Laurens Barnard - Stellenbosch

Invest in a Maambo (Atist from Zambia). maambo@laurensbarnard.info

A number of artists have been asking about the current economic downturn. More than anything, they want to know what's going to happen to us creative spirits. While I'm no economist, there's evidence of a hard truth.

Art follows money.

While art still gets made in an economic downturn, the commercial acceptance of art is neither consistent nor predictable. At the present time, the indulgences of the past decades where easy money chased anything slightly artistic have suddenly reversed.

I'm lap topping you from the economic miracle called Singapore. This city-state of skyscrapers and tree-lined boulevards is also suffering. Government workers are accepting wage reductions of 12 to 20 percent just to keep their jobs, and city fathers are looking over the horizon to find the next infusion of capital. 

Yesterday I visited a factory where piece-workers hunch over grindstones cutting chips of jade and other semi-precious stones. Other workers skillfully place the stones onto composite dioramas depicting landscapes, birds, animals and historic deities. The factory shop is long on product and short on customers. Downcast salespeople stand idly by, puffing on thin Malaysian cigarettes.

Our current environment, potential customers are easily more critical of art. 

Throughout history, the production of art has followed wealth and leisure. Great civilizations--Egyptian, Sumerian, Greek, Roman and, yes, the American Empire--have been built on it. Other yet-to-be-heard-from civilizations will follow. 

To get an idea of when we are coming out of our current setback, you need to look next door to see when that young family thinks they have enough left over to buy season hockey tickets. A healthy, well-regulated economy is the key. When the general population is well fed and well entertained once more, there will once again be enough for art. In the meantime, like for those workers in the Singapore factory, it's important to keep busy. FROM: Robert Genn Twice-Weekly Letter

PS: "Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason." (Ayn Rand)

Esoterica: Based on experience in previous recessions, three strategies are available: (1) Maintain your prices--increasingly prove the investment value of your work and honour those customers who have invested in you in the past. (2) Continue to make first-rate work. In recessions, the bottom end can fall out completely. If anything, aim to improve quality and try to produce more important and challenging work. There will always be collectors of quality work. (3) If you can afford it, grab any opportunities to improve.

Irma Stern (South African 1894-1966) "PONDO WOMAN"

Estimate R1 500 000 - R2 500 000

Stephan Welz and Co.’s auctions have become highly anticipated events with collectors paying top prices to acquire works that are of good quality, rare and fresh to the market. Interest in South African art continues to grow and was confirmed by the R26, 339, 800 result of the sale of the Kahn collection in Cape Town on February 13th 2007. Numerous auction records have been established within the last two years which can, to a large measure, be attributed to our high level of scholarship, expertise and understanding of the market. In addition, our association with Sotheby’s gives us unlimited access to the expertise of their specialists worldwide who regularly visit South Africa to present lectures and offer valuations.

Our recent successes also underline our continued ability to capture not only a nationwide but also a worldwide audience.

Recent auction records include:

Irma Stern “Indian Woman” sold for R 7 260 000 

Maggie Laubser “Mother and Child” sold for R 4 400 000 

JH Pierneef “Bushveld Landscape” sold for R 2 970 000 

Hugo Naude “Springtime, Namaqualand” sold for R 1 430 000 

Tinus de Jongh “A Canal in a Rural Landscape” sold for R 715 000 

Jean Welz “Still Life with Violin” sold for R 606 000 

Gregoire Boonzaier “House with Peach Tree in Blossom” sold for R 605 000 

Maurice van Essche “Grape Pickers” sold for R 440 000 

Eleanor Esmonde-White “Mother & Children Paddling” sold for R 352 000 

Three times a year major sales take place in Johannesburg, with another three in Cape Town. These auctions also include a section devoted to important fine arts. While the accent of our sales is on works by South African artists, or works of southern African interest, the categories of British, Continental, Old Master, Nineteenth-Century, Modern and Contemporary Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Sculpture are well represented. A variety of moderately valued property is also included.

Thursday, January 8th, 2009 

Pieter van der Westhuizen (1931-2008)

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of one of South Africa’s best loved artists, Pieter van der Westhuizen, who died at the age of 77 on 30th December. Pieter’s pages on SouthAfricanArtists.com have always been among the most popular and he had made over 100 of his paintings available for viewing and purchase on the site.

Born in Pretoria in 1931, Pieter studied art at UNISA under Zakkie Eloff and Robert Hodgins and went on to study at the Royal Academy of Arts in Belgium. He also spent some time in the early 1980s in Japan studying woodblock printing.

A versatile artist, he turned his hand to still life and abstract works as well as landscapes and portraiture. Comfortable in a range of media his primary works are oils, watercolors and pastels but he was also adept in ink, pencil and charcoal.

His work has been featured in exhibitions all over the world and Pieter was particularly well known in the USA, UK, Europe and Japan as well as in his native South Africa. These works have long been collectable and have featured in many private and state collections. Throughout his career he also found time to write and to develop his academic work.

Growing up in the years building up to World War II he has said of the period - “the world I found myself in was not a comfortable one. At around the age of four I decided that this life was not for me. I began creating another world for myself - in pictures.”

As an insight into the character behind the work, he often painted chickens - birds that cannot fly. “This represents more than just one thing. Childhood saw me drawn in two directions. The one side of my family was Afrikaans and the other side was English. The Afrikaners were poorer and always had two things in their backyard: a peach tree and chickens. The English had the bacon and eggs”. For Pieter, his “Afrikaans” chickens became a symbol of his own frustrations. “A bird with all the necessary equipment to fly but damned if it will happen”.

Indeed he was surrounded by animals at home with his dog named Skattebol (Sweetheart), cat Spinnekoppie (little spider) and the geese, ducks and birds on his large property. He had daily visits from the corner café’s tame crow, the neighbour’s sheep and two piglets.

“There is a lemon tree in my garden and Zebeth has planted rosemary at the four corners of the plot. There are birds and cats and chickens and geese and ducks and pigs and guinea fowl that fly around and scratch in the garden. When I die, I will wake up with a start”.

He never tired of his work and was producing some of his best work right up until his recent illness. He continued to exercise his skills with great diversity and imagination and his creativity was always to the fore.

“Painting is not an intellectual exercise for me. I do not agonize over it. If I enter a room, I notice the table, chairs and the rest of the furniture, but then I concentrate on the noises and the smell. If there were a woman wearing a perfume with a distinct fragrance, I would definitely remember that. Other people might remember it only subconsciously.”

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