THE ART MARKET HAS COME to value artists who have had to endure personal hardship and suffering, as if that was a key element of their creative process. Thus we have lionised the hero artist standing against the world, especially twentieth-century figures such as Egon Schiele, Käthe Kollwitz and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Giorgio Vasari, in his sixteenth-century The Lives of the Artists, gave us a near-divine image of them working alone and inspired by innate genius. Money and commerce were hardly considered alongside their brilliance and innovation.
Stretching from the sixteenth century through to the nineteenth century, the same hero figure is found in Vincent van Gogh, who may have formally sold only one painting in his lifetime and died by his own hand.
Yet most artists are deeply commercial and…
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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, October 2024