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Monday
Aug042008

1968: Eloise Spaeth and the “Art-For-Everybody Movement"

DateMonday, August 4, 2008 at 02:24PM


All the art supply stores had one - a freestanding circular revolving rack of books for 99 cents, with titles such as “Drawing Cats,” “Finger Painting,” or “Oriental Brushwork.” It was my grandmother, Eloise Spaeth, who in 1968 wrote “Collecting Art.” She writes,”...we live in a period more favorable to the arts than any other period in our country. Local museums and art centers are boiling with change. That bang you hear down the street is not a manhole cover blowing off; it’s the cultural explosion. Even local newspapers treat exhibitions as news, and national magazines give art valuable and expensive space.” As though describing our own time, she is also strongly against what she refers to as the “stampede collector” - those who "unwillingly help create and support an artificial art market and discourage potential collectors.” In her 99 cent pamphlet, “With a $1,000 budget you are moving into the big time.”

Her advice to the novice collector:

1. The best education you can get is from visiting the museums.

2. Do not fall into the trap of falling in love with subject matter.

3. Be aware of fads. (Apparently, in 1968 this was African art: “...word seems to have gotten about that it is the thing to have - rush out and buy African art to hang beside your Motherwell.”)

4. Do not be seduced by what is hot off the easel - ask to see those earlier works.

5. “Buy the painting that looks all wrong over the mantle, over the sofa, or in your favorite room.”

6. Your errors are half the fun.

7. “The best way to protect yourself from the scoundrels [is to avoid auctions and] make your purchases at a reputable gallery.”

8. “...don’t allow yourself to become so dependent on one dealer that your walls will look like a showroom for his group of artists.”

9. A visit to the artist's studio is not a way to buy on the cheap, but to better understand the artist and his work.

10. Most interesting is the excellent advice my grandmother had for purchasing work at department stores and museums. Here is a paragraph from the section on buying art in a department store:

Sears Roebuck pioneered in the art-for-everybody movement by employing Vincent Price, whose talents range from depicting suave movie villains to astute collecting, to roam around the world gathering vast assemblages of original works of art. But, as the operation at Sears grew bigger and more people were involved, the quality of the art declined. In the beginning, many “name” artists did original etchings for the collection; and at the present time the print section is the best in the art departments at Sears. However, it is in the complicated area of prints that many department store galleries, whether intentionally or not, are unreliable. The fact that they are ignorant of the techniques and the ethics of the print world is no excuse. They would not sew a Balenciaga label in a Seventh Avenue dress, but they will sell a restrike as a first edition print. Of course there are stores with good print departments, headed by knowledgeable people: Dayton’s in Minneapolis, Hudson’s in Detroit, and Sloan’s in New York, for example.



Fascinating is that in 1968, you could rent a painting from MoMA for a few months, with the option to buy should it grow on you. The idea began in Dayton, Ohio in the 1930’s:

The Dayton Art Institute opens its fall season with an exhibition of its rental gallery works. The director takes great pains with this show, visiting many galleries in New York City and artist's studios so as to have a wide range of paintings for the members to choose from. The paintings are hung in a large gallery with labels showing rental prices, and a calendar is prepared for every month in the coming year...The rush to get in can only be compared to the Oklahoma “run” when, as the gun went off, everyone dashed to stake out a claim.



By Catherine Spaeth

Images: Eloise Spaeth, Collecting Art, NY: Pittman Publishing Corporation, c. 1968; "The Art lending Service, Sponsored by the Junior Council of the Museum of Modern Art", ibid., p. 27; Louis Bouche, "Portrait of Eloise Spaeth,"det., oil on canvas, c. 1940s, Collection of Otto L. Spaeth, Jr.

Catherine Spaeth

AuthorCatherine Spaeth | Comment24 Comments |
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Reader Comments (24)

Thanks for that read, Eloise Spaeth knew something.
Of course there are many kinds of department store art gallery dealerships, or as with here, we can add museums. Mori Museum sits aloft 400 [off the top of my head] designer shops, offices and meeting rooms that primarily function as hubs for transaction. Strangely it is the Museum that seems to be doing the best. Many below it are not renewing their leases. After all, for them, the 'discourse' is primarily about volume and lightning fast transaction, falling to 'shopping mindlessness' as we speed down the internal shaft.

In art I don't think volume is the problem, either. Quality is! Monopoly is!
20 x 200, for example, is an excellent 'model' clearly stating its purpose, offering cheap 'name cards' that actually offer more than a name.

c.p.

August 4, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterAnonymous

a time capsule! I enjoy that stuff. How quaint.

Nowadays people specialize in renting paintings - or leasing them.

I just spent hours on ebay doing the same for software - imagine having to upgrade your Motherwell.

I suppose people do upgrade their art collections - from prints to paintings to installations to buildings and planets. What can't you buy?

oh, integrity, happiness, class(at least not wholesale).

Shall I hire a stylist? A publicist? A life advisor? A therapist? A decorator?

I think I shall.

August 5, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterzipthwung

Your grandmother wrote pretty well I think.

August 5, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterzipthwung

my grandma wrote Willa Cather Lite. Not bad - but you could tell it was for kids and lacked the edge I so crave. Like Highlights magazine. WHy does everything have to have a moral? A villain?

August 5, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterzipthwung

"Why does everything have to have a moral, a villain?"

Serge Guilbaut thought my grandmother was a villain - this was democracy in the Cold War, and she did publish a paper for CAA, "America's Cultural Responsibilities Abroad," in 1951 that argued for art as propaganda. She quotes John Opdycke from "Mark My Words":

"Propagandize implies systematic promotion for the purpose of building and maintaining public support for an opinion, or principle, and to this end presupposes closely knit organization, definiteness of aim and concerted effort."

Long before America stole Modernism, she was campaigning hard for American art and became very involved with the Archives of American Art, the Whitney, and the American Federation of the Arts. What I like about this little book is how she finds ways to decentralize the power, making a point of what is available and of quality in places like Dayton, Detroit or Minneapolis. As soon as her husband died, she got in her jalopy and wrote "A Field Guide to the American Art Museum," which was the reference standard in all libraries for years.

August 5, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterCatherine Spaeth

I'd heard of this idea of borrowing or leasing works from museums, and wondered if anyone actually did it.

So I've learned something.

Especially about Vincent Price! Although I knew Hollywood had its share of discreet connoisseurs - like Edward G Robinson.

The idea of art for everybody, is not that different from the mania for art fairs now. I think when Rudi Zwirner tried it out in Germany in the 60s, it was largely because there just wasn't a big enough collector base there to sustain dealers in contemporary art. It was a way of kind of seeding collectors, but I don't think it was driven by the same dreams of investment/profit that get pushed now. The idea was just that if you were interested or liked contemporary art, there were ways you could collect, on a modest scale.

The whole investment thing is wildly out of proportion.

August 7, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterCAP

No, it wasn't so driven by investment or profit. Guilbaut had something right, it did have a lot to do with building a cultural identity, there was an incredible belief that art was good for our nation, that all hotels should have original art and that art galleries should be in factories for the workers. I really get a kick out of Vincent Price at Sears.

August 7, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterCatherine Spaeth

Art for the workers! In 1953, my dad (Catherine's grandfather) organized an art exhibition to celebrate the new offices of Meta-Mold Aluminum Company in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. No big deal; there may have been twenty employees in those offices. But the exhibit of "contemporary painting and sculpture collected by American corporations and their officers" was extraordinary, with works by Calder, Sheeler, De Kooning, Stuart Davis, Hartley, Feininger, Cezanne, Kuhn, Rothko, Picasso and on. There were two stated purposes: "To inaugurate Meta-Mold's policy of art in the working life of the company, and to document the remarkable change taking place in the attitude of American business toward the things of the spirit." A bit of wishful thinking there, but true to the fifties.

August 13, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterTony Spaeth

Fascinating post. I just came across a copy of your grandmother's "American Art Museums and Galleries: An Introduction to Looking" and I am thoroughly enjoying it. It's amazing to look at America's museums circa 1960, especially ones that were new at the time of publication.

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