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I believe in recycling but is this a little nuts?
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Started by batman_fan,

11 posts in this topic

Dr. Balls

Dr. Balls

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Strictly from the Armchair Quarterback position: composition-wise and vintage wise, I was a little surprised this racked up $1.8M at the time, but it does have some factors going on for it that it's previous sales counterparts don't. First, it's on masonite rather than canvas. Seeing as how I've never laid eyes on an original Frazetta, I don't know if the smoothness of the masonite creates a much nicer tone and transitions in the oil paints than Frazetta's older canvas works. The Molly Hatchet cover that just sold was done on pressboard, which would make me a bit nervous, but I guess if you've got $6M to spend on a piece of art, you've got the means to conserve it. I think the masonite might have allowed Frazetta to have a much smoother ability to create his tones and colors - this may result in a visually stunning effect that is more vibrant and sharp than it would have been on canvas.

I can't imagine someone is going to put a multi-million dollar bid on something strictly looking at a picture on the internet - but who knows if they looked at it up close to see the differences between substrates.

Second, it's pretty large at 18x30" - the other big dollar paintings that sold previously are slightly smaller. Granted, Frazetta painted this with a lot of room for cropping, the sky doesn't have the same compositional purpose as his earlier commercial paintings - in older works, he uses the sky to direct viewers around the piece. The gradiated air/smoke/mist serves a little purpose to that, but he's left a lot of atmospheric styling out of it that is seen in other pieces - probably for production purposes.

And believe me, I'm not criticizing him for how he painted it and how it was laid out. He's a master at illustration and obviously had a reason to compose it this way. A hazy background image of a mountain, moon or something like that may have created problems with placing the masthead for the comic.

Granted, the 1990 piece is of Death Dealer, and maybe that's the reason for the run-up? I think it will probably go for more simply because it's totally in-vogue to spend $6M on a Frazetta piece.

Plus, all the explanation in the world goes right out the window when you look at it and say "I love it. I'm bidding!"

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vodou

vodou

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On 8/4/2023 at 11:25 AM, batman_fan said:

Maybe it didn’t match the owners drapes as well as they thought it would.  

Predictions, will it hammer for more, same, or less?

 

IMG_0882.jpeg

IMG_0881.jpeg

 

On 8/4/2023 at 1:00 PM, KirbyCollector said:

Makes me wonder how legit this auction was

I’m not aware of any of these Heritage auctioned pieces actually going into known collections. Absent solid evidence to the contrary, shouldn’t we leave on the table that most/all were bought in (aka or JH) to create the requisite stair steps to re-offer them again several years later to organic buyers but now with an auction “history”?

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cstojano

cstojano

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On 8/4/2023 at 12:48 PM, vodou said:

 

I’m not aware of any of these Heritage auctioned pieces actually going into known collections. Absent solid evidence to the contrary, shouldn’t we leave on the table that most/all were bought in (aka or JH) to create the requisite stair steps to re-offer them again several years later to organic buyers but now with an auction “history”?

I am assuming this means no money was changing hands because at this point you'd have to know whatever market you were trying to create isn't happening. Someone would be in 10 million at this point for what, to generate commissions on a bunch of lower tier pieces to come later??

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cstojano

cstojano

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On 8/4/2023 at 11:23 AM, Dr. Balls said:

Strictly from the Armchair Quarterback position: composition-wise and vintage wise, I was a little surprised this racked up $1.8M at the time, but it does have some factors going on for it that it's previous sales counterparts don't. First, it's on masonite rather than canvas. Seeing as how I've never laid eyes on an original Frazetta, I don't know if the smoothness of the masonite creates a much nicer tone and transitions in the oil paints than Frazetta's older canvas works. The Molly Hatchet cover that just sold was done on pressboard, which would make me a bit nervous, but I guess if you've got $6M to spend on a piece of art, you've got the means to conserve it. I think the masonite might have allowed Frazetta to have a much smoother ability to create his tones and colors - this may result in a visually stunning effect that is more vibrant and sharp than it would have been on canvas.

 

Thanks for saying this. I don't understand why substrate doesn't get discussed more often. And I don't understand why anyone uses canvas. As a non-artist I can only assume I am missing something about the painting process itself because it seems that a masonite (or similar hard and smooth) surface would be superior in many ways. I find the texture distracting as well, from a visual stand point. And why use stretcher bars anyway. They always end of damaging the canvas and it can be framed flat anyway. 

Edited by cstojano
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Dr. Balls

Dr. Balls

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On 8/4/2023 at 3:59 PM, cstojano said:

Thanks for saying this. I don't understand why substrate doesn't get discussed more often. And I don't understand why anyone uses canvas. As a non-artist I can only assume I am missing something about the painting process itself because it seems that a masonite (or similar hard and smooth) surface would be superior in many ways. I find the texture distracting as well, from a visual stand point. And why use stretcher bars anyway. They always end of damaging the canvas and it can be framed flat anyway. 

I’ve (amateurly) used both before, and I prefer board way more than canvas. I enjoy the firmness of board, but it does warp with lots of paint. (I used to use illustration board, not Masonite)

Canvas sucks up paint and takes way longer to work with. I hated the flex in stretched canvas, and was never a fan of the “canvas” look of a finished painting. Granted, I was merely dinking around, not doing anything specific with my paintings.

And like you said, it’s much smoother and I preferred painting on board as it was much easier for a novice like myself to get the desired blending result much faster than on canvas.

My guess is long ago, paper boards were cheaper than canvas - so commercial paintings were probably done on that, leaving fine artists to use canvas out of tradition.

Since Frazetta was both, It’s probably easy to see at some point he wanted to ditch canvas and go to board. However, an experienced painter may chime in here with their thoughts on canvas - my observations are really basic.

Edited by Dr. Balls
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