Big Name Brands
Cool by Association
“When I was a child, my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk, you'll end up as the Pope.' Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.” — Pablo Picasso
Many lack confidence when it comes to their interiors, and in putting together a carefully curated collection of art and design, even those with exceptionally deep pockets (which of course explains why the very best architects, interior designers and art advisors are in such constant high demand); and much like a surly teenager lusting after the latest sneakers, it’s often more comforting to play it safe, to stick to the big brand names, rather than risking ones reputation — and even social ostracisation — on an unknown entity, or up-and-coming talent. Of course, a good many collectors lack any real, in-depth art historical knowledge and so many of the artists, makers and craftsman that might appeal to those working in the industry, designers and dealers etc. — whether it be for their originality, process or technical virtuosity — will be of relatively little interest as they’re too niche, and not sufficiently recognisable to impress an often equally insecure rotating roster of dinner guests. As a result, there are certain names, for e.g. Alberto (1901-1966) and Diego Giacometti (1902-1985), Picasso (1881-1973), Basquiat (1960-1988), Warhol (1928-1987) and KAWS (b. 1974), who are so instantly recognisable that, in the words of Elie Massaoutis, Head of Design at Phillips’ Paris, “have become brands whose works act as vectors of social recognition”. This is in no way to cast any aspersions on the merits of such artists, many of whom carry such cachet for the very reason that their inherent skill and talent has led to them becoming universally admired as being at the very pinnacle of their chosen métiers. It may be fashionable amongst young curators to rubbish Picasso’s work, but anyone who has seen video footage of the great master painting on glass at his home in Vallauris could hardly fail to be impressed by the way in which he deftly manipulates strong fluid lines into casual, expressive brilliance. Of course if one were to survey the general public and ask them to conjure the name of an artist who has achieved astronomical prices at auction, there’s a good chance Picasso’s would be the first to trip off their lips; he is after all an artist whose work has become synonymous with wealth and success — sought after not only for its intrinsic artistic value, but as a signifier of social standing, in the same way as a Rolls Royce, private jet or super yacht. Perhaps most memorably, in 2015 Christie’s New York sold Picasso’s 1955 masterpiece Les Femmes d’Alger (Version “O”) for $179.4 million; with less than 100 collectors worldwide who could purchase the piece (which had the highest ever presale estimate for a painting at auction — $140 million), it reportedly went to the Qatari royal Al Thani family.
A "Crocodile" armchair in bronze by Claude Lalanne (1925-2019) from the collection of Michelle Smith, image c/o Sotheby’s
The drawing room of collector and philanthropist Michelle Smith, on the far wall a cabinet by Jean-Michel Frank, image c/o Sotheby’s
Indeed the name Picasso is so universally well know that since the artist’s death in 1973, his fabulously wealthy heirs have themselves frequently permitted its use as a marketing tool. Paloma Picasso (b. 1949), of course, made a fortune selling perfume and jewellery bearing her father’s name, but more controversially, in 1999 Claude Ruiz Picasso (b. 1947) allowed the French Citroen car company to call its new £10,000 hatchback the Picasso (rather surprising given he has sued multiple companies he accused of misusing the artist’s name to market computer games, ties, pyjamas and even pizzas) — something Marina Picasso (b. 1950) would later challenge in court, lamenting “I cannot possibly tolerate the name of my grandfather being used to sell something so banal as a car”. Asked at the time why Claude had made the somewhat surprising decision, his lawyer explained bluntly, “Claude Ruiz Picasso is recognised by a majority of the five surviving heirs as being perfectly entitled to exploit the Picasso brand name.” At the time Citroen refused to say exactly how much it had paid for the right to use the artist’s signature as a trade mark. “This will be our first car of the new millennium,” a spokesperson explained. “We wanted to choose a name that was a little different, that associates the genius of Picasso with the inventiveness of our company’s founder, Andre Citroen” (something of a stretch if ever there was one). For many of course Picasso remains the gold standard of the art market and it seems likely he’ll remain that way for the foreseeable future. It’s important to remember that unlike certain contemporary art world phenomena, the likes of KAWS, Banksy and Beeple (b. 1981), the most saleable works by modern masters occupy a central place in the canon of art history. Put quite simply, Les femmes d’Alger, (Version “O”) was the most significant work from the latter half of the artist’s career that was still in private hands, and thus available on the open market: over three months in the winter of 1954-55, Picasso produced a series of fifteen canvases, in which he varied the arrangement of figures in Eugene Delacroix’s (1798-1863) Les femmes d’Alger (1834), a painting he had been captivated by ever since he first saw it as a young man visiting the Louvre. Of all of those works, Les femmes d’Alger (Version “O”) is the most fully realised, detailed and compact, comprising all the major influences present throughout his career in one canvas.
A bronze and suede bench designed by Diego Giacometti from the collection of Michelle Smith, image c/o Sotheby’s
An “Égyptienne” table lamp by Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) from the collection of Michelle Smith, image c/o Sotheby’s
As a result of such astronomical prices, the art world has inevitably attracted numerous con-artists, trying to pass of fakes and forgeries as the real thing. Barry Avrich’s 2021 documentary Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art, charts the demise of New York’s prestigious Knoedler gallery — which was embroiled in the largest art fraud in US history; an $80m deception that duped some of the world’s highest-profile experts, collectors, museums, and even the then Chairman of Sotheby’s, Dominico De Sole (b. 1944). Following rumours of forged paintings supplied to the gallery by a woman named Glafira Rosales, who at the time was entirely unknown to anyone in the art world, it was discovered that between 1994 and 2011, under the direction of the gallery’s then president Ann Freedman, it had sold almost 40 faked Abstract Expressionist paintings of works by some of the most sought-after artists on the market: Robert Motherwell (1915-1991), Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) and Mark Rothko (1903-1970), among others. All of the works, as it transpired, had been recently produced in a garage in Queens by Chinese emigré artist, Pei-Shen Qian. Watching Freedman recount her side of the sorry story is akin to watching Prince Andrew grilled by BBC’s Emily Maitlis over his relationship with billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “It was credible, to me. I believed what I was told,” Freedman explained. “There was a mystery, but there’s often mystery in provenance. I hoped to solve that mystery as time went on.”
Of course, for many years, conversations about such nefarious activity primarily concerned fine wine, art and antiques; for e.g. in 2016 when French antique dealer Bill G. B. Pallot (b. 1964) (who quite literally wrote the book on 18th-century French furniture, and for decades ran the furniture division of Parisian gallery Didier Aaron) admitted to police that he had masterminded the forgery of at least four chairs purportedly built for France’s royal household and, in a series of transactions via third parties between 2009 and 2015, somewhat audaciously sold them to the Palace of Versailles. He was caught out when Charles Hooreman, a down-on-his-luck Parisian antiques dealer, realised the chairs were entirely new constructs — recognising in them the handiwork of Pallot’s gilder and carver, whom he knew had a penchant for painting melted-down licorice over the surface of reproductions to make them look old and dirty. In 2012 Hooreman saw a pair of ployants (folding benches) that were billed as the onetime property of Princess Louise Élisabeth, eldest daughter of Louis XV. “I licked the chair and voilà,” Hooreman told Vanity Fair. “I could taste the fraud.” Now such forgeries increasingly include twentieth century design, for which the market is booming — indeed it sometimes seems barely a month goes by without an auction house achieving a new record for modern design.
Perhaps the prime and most obvious example of which being a subset of furniture designed by Pierre Jeanneret (1896-1967) in the 1950s and early 1960s for Chandigarh, the purpose-built capital of Punjab and Haryan, which, until it was “re-discovered” in the early 2000’s, by dealers Eric Touchaleaume, Philippe Jousse, François Laffanour and Patrick Seguin, was left piled up and rotting in the city’s streets. Now furniture from this modernist metropolis is possibly the most in-demand and desirable of all mid-century status symbols, and it’s almost impossible to flip through the pages of any glossy interiors magazine without seeing Jeanneret’s now iconic cane furniture. Yet, despite editorial saturation, with even the homes of the Kardashian/Jenner/West triumvirate bursting at the seams with Capitol Complex armchairs and Pigeon Hole desks, it’s an aesthetic that only seems increase in popularity and desirability, evolving from a cultural curiosity to collectors trophy and social-medial stalwart. With no foundation to police his trademark, provenance is often blurry and chairs fetching tens of thousands at auction might very well be fake; indeed numerous dealers and industry experts suggest counterfeits might make up much as 70% of the market. A quick online search reveals furniture purporting to be by “Jeanneret” is being sold on numerous platforms; priced anywhere from £1,200 for an easy-chair, to £94,000 for a Committe Table.
Such is the sophistication of many modern forgeries that even those with experience in the trade can sometimes be duped — galleries Jousse Entreprise, Patrick Seguin and Downtown-François Laffanour, paid a total of €220,000 for alleged Prouvé furniture from an auction at Artcurial in April 2008; their separate acquisitions of a table and two chairs all turned out to be fakes. Certain pieces have become so entrenched in contemporary design that they’ve become as obligatory for the 0.01% as an Hermès Birkin or a diamond tennis bracelet; and those with a designer who can’t afford an Ours Polaire sofa or Giacometti coffee table are often happy to have one made. “Value used to be linked to authenticity,” explains artist and designer Stephen Antonson (b. 1966), “but a voracious demand created by legions of unimaginative online influencers enabled by designers for whatever reason — ignorance, laziness, greed — has led to a party where everyone is dressed the same and thought what they said was clever only to wake up the following day with a bad hangover.” There’s always a desire to feel included, to be “In With the In Crowd” or one of the “cool kids”, which, when it reaches the mass market, more often than not, results in a poor approximation of something that was once original, but has since become clichéd and unbearably boring. Of course, a classic is a classic, and will remain so however many times it’s trotted out— but it would be nice once in a while to see something new.