It has given me great pleasure today to sell another picture. This is hardly an event of earth-shattering importance, but it has given me a good deal of satisfaction. I have been amused, however, by the coincidence of this event with my reading Robert C. Morgan’s book The End of the Art World, in which he is strongly critical of the role that the art market has come to play in shaping what passes for art, the preparation of art students and the formation of public taste. I don’t move, of course, in the realm of the Saatchis, but I could be said to be “in the art market”.
On reflection, I don’t think that Morgan’s “map” of the art world extends into the areas I inhabit. The outlet was not a prestigious gallery in London but a rather nice “gastro-pub” in Wharfedale. It has been, in fact, my most successful outlet from a commercial point of view: I’ve sold five pieces now through their kind agreement to display my work in their restaurant. I think that the “client” was not of the type envisaged by Morgan. He had formerly lived in the area, and was familiar with Almscliff Crag (the subject of the picture) as a rock-climber. We’re not talking about purchase as investment here, you understand, but a shared set of personal associations linking artist and purchaser.
This might be a trivial illustration, but it has made me pause to reflect on the extent to which we might all be prepared to overgeneralise about the state of “Art”. Art is not just a country but an empire, and parts of it remain unknown to others. At one level the “art market” has become globalised, as illustrated by the situation of David Hockney, whose work I was admiring in Amsterdam last week. That doesn’t exhaust, however, the variety of the world of art.