Artflux

You’ll love to know that there is plenty of excellent art available at affordable prices, by well know artists, on Ebay. Now, you might think that the quality of the work sold online would not be competitive with images offered by high brow auction houses like Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury & Company and gallery dealers in New York. Some of the same artist whose work sold for overly high prices this year are selling their work on Ebay for much less.

Works by GREGORY CREWDSON are currently available at a fraction of the prices that galleries and autions houses are asking. It’s true that selling in this way sometimes cuts out the gallery dealers and auction house’s commisions. After all dealers often take 50 – 70 % of the proceeds to pay for their high rent so there’s not much left for the artists. Others who regualarly sell works on Ebay are HELMUT NEWTON, HIROSHI SUGIMOTO, JOCK STURGES, THOMAS RUFF, JOHN DOUGDALE, JOHN WATERS, LARRY CLARK, PHILIPPE HALSMAN, and many others.

A print titled ‘Man in Woods #2’ by GREGORY CREWDSON recently sold for only $1525.00 much less than the galleries and auction houses are asking. A HELMUT NEWTON signed print sold for only $36.66! That’s remarkable since one of his female nudes recently sold for the highest price of all the listed artists in the catalogue at Phillips de Pury & Company. A signed print of his wife sold recently for a a mere $149.00. HIROSHI SUGIMOTO’s minimalist landscapes signed and numbered have recently sold for $300.00. in New York. The Russell Levin Gallery has recently made available JOCK STURGES’s photograph of Floss that sold for 921.00.

A group of auction houses have been offering photography in live auctions that simultaneously take place on Ebay. Sotheby’s has discontinued their Ebay auctions that were notched with a blue logo to separate them form the rest of the crowd. I think that they were not welcome in this Ebay venue.

Oh and the only issue that I have with selling and buying photography on Ebay is the that Ebay does not allow any kind of frontal nudity in the images in the main art photography category. To list such items you need to move them to a mature audience category that is difficlut for buyers to get to. The images there are of lower quality and actually many buyers are reluctant to visit there as a result. The other problem is blocking payment by Papal. It would be in their interest to change this practice.

Good luck and bidding. Feel free to browse for images from Artflux Productions currently up for sale. Good luck and bidding!

Every year the Imperial Court of New York holds a fund raising event to raise money for charity. There is a silent auction that I have contributed photography to yearly. This year’s event the 20th Annual Night of a Thousand Gowns was held at the Marriott Marquis Hotel here in Manhattan. The honorary chairpersons were Whoopi Godberg, Joan Rivers and Blaine Trump. The entire event benefits Gods Love We Deliver. I was pleased to hear that the 11 x 14 signed edition silver gelatin print from the boot series that I contributed sold for $450. Thanks to Bruce Goudy who purchased the photograph title “John Kelly’s Boots.”

Untitled Bermuda 1982

The weekend has been rather cool in the mornings. Temperatures are a bit below 50 in the early mornings so my thirty mile cycle rides have been less frequent. The spring weather brings out multitudes of wondering tourists, skate boarders, joggers and there was a March of Dimes Walkathon. So I slept in more than I should have. There was the Peace march down Broadway that I watched from the balcony that unexpectedly flowed for hours to City Hall where Susan Sarandon and Jessie Jackson spoke. I took a bunch on digital photos as well as some frames with my Leica on film. Charlie invited me over to check out his new Fuji digital camera. Figuring out how to move the images from the camera to the computer was a problem until I figured the Dazzle card reader didn’t like the XD cards. It probably has something to do with the formatting. Anyway I headed home late to virtually fly back from Bermuda to Kennedy in my Lierjet before hitting the sack. The clouds photo was taken in Bermuda.