Art Buchwald, the American columnist, was pacing up and down Fifth Avenue one day a few years back, glancing at his watch every now and, like many husbands, wondering when his wife would emerge from the shops
When she eventually did, she handed him five carrier bags to look after while she trotted off to check out some jewellery in Tiffany’s.
Hanging around a street in Manhattan with bags from five top stores – Macy’s, Saks, Barneys, Bloomingdales and Berdorf & Goodman – wasn’t smart so Buchwald sauntered over to Lexington Avenue and popped into an art gallery. He carefully left the bags in a corner and slowly sauntered around the place, checking out the state of the art.
When he returned a little while later to pick up the bags he was delighted. The gallery, it turned out, was holding an exhibition and Buchwald’s bags had been awarded first prize. He was handed a cheque for $10,000.
Can this sort of thing happen in London?
It has – and, of course, it can again.
Some of the works of modern art bought by the national galleries (funded by the taxpayer) may have fooled the aficionados but haven’t fooled the punters.
Remember the Tate’s acquisition of a Pile of Bricks by Carl Andrew (officially known as Equivalent V111) which was bought for £6,000 in 1972?
Or Mark Wallinger’s work? He bought a racehorse and designated it ART by simply calling it A Real Work of Art.
Then there was Damien Hirst’s pickled sheep. Away From the Flock (its official title) which consisted of a lamb suspended in formaldehyde in a glass case.
The work of Laos-born Vong Phaophanit, who was short-listed for the Turner Prize for his Neon Rice Field, consisting of seven tons of rice, so infuriated the punters that a young woman threw flowers into it as it went on display at the Tate.
Vong Phaophanit didn’t win the Turner Prize. The winner turned out to be Rachel Whiteread – whose cast of a derelict house was labelled Disaster in Plaster. The house was later demolished by Tower Hamlets.
Then, of course, there was Martin Creed. He showed us he was pretty switched on when he gave us Lights Going off and on in an Empty Room.
Art, according to Tate guidelines, “treats everyday reality in a recognisable manner”.
So anyone can be an artist?
Yes, sir. Even I.
All I needed for a start was inspiration. So I thumbed through the works of Manet, Monet, Chagall and Tretchikov, but eventually I found what I was looking for while making a call from a BT telephone box.
Call girls. Or rather, call girls’ calling cards.
I bought a piece of plywood, painted it, sanded it, mounted the cards on it and then framed it with a border. It was all very tasteful , naturally. Well, most of it was. I put a picture of a telephone box in the middle, a phone card in the top right hand corner, a packet of condoms on the left for emergency use only and added some oil paint squiggles for good measure.
The work was entitled Marking Man’s Progress to the Second Millennium.
I wrapped up my work of art and sauntered over to Sotheby’s in Bond Street.
They were charming.
“Mister Brown will be with you in a moment, sir,” said a receptionist.
Mr Brown turned out to be a Mr Benjamin Brown, Deputy Director of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s. He was busy right now, explaining to a chap from Italy that the prints the man had found in a vault in Sienna were not the works of Boticelli, not even by the wildest stretch of imagination.
Next he spoke to another art lover from Italy – in fluent Italian – before it was my turn.
Mr Brown came over. I took a deep breath. I gave him my name and said: “I would like your opinion on a work of art. It is by a famous artist. I myself have not been told who the artist is but an expert like yourself will probably recognise the signature in every brush stroke. I want to find out what it is worth.”
Mr Brown didn’t throw me out on my ear. He waved his hands. “No, no, no,” he said. “I don’t have to examine the brush strokes. Do you know who I think this is by? This is by Sarah Grieve Stewart.
“Sarah Grieve Stewart does work very similar to this. But she always signs her name.”
I explained that the signature had been left off deliberately to get unprejudiced comments.
Said Mr Brown (again): “I really think this is the work of Sarah Grieve Stewart, an American artist who lives in London. She does this sort of thing and I think she is great fun. I think she is not necessarily a great artist, but she is pretty good.”
Me: “So who would exhibit this?
“I don’t know.”
“So it is just a fun piece?”
“Oh, no, Sarah Grieve Stewart would consider herself a serious artist.”
“So what is it worth?”
“That would depend whose signature goes on the work of art,” said Mr Brown, adding, after a pause, “for a pointer though, Sarah’s work sells for thousands.”
Wow! Cheered up , I bounced along to Lots Gallery in Chelsea and unveiled my work with an air of panache.
Mr Nicholas Carter, picture valuer at the gallery, looked at it with the pleasure you would think he would reserve for a newly-discovered work by Leonardo da Vinci, or, at least, Turner.
I started my routine about recognising signatures in brush strokes and the work being a comment on the 21st century, but he waved me to keep quiet and said:
“Gosh! This is excellent!”
A couple of people, who had wandered into the gallery, rushed over for a peep and an elderly lady burst into giggles. “I say, isn’t that naughty but wonderful at the same time.”
“Steady girl,” said her equally elderly friend.
Mr Nicholas peered at it again. “What fun! I would like to know whose work it is …but anyway, I am sure someone in the West End would buy it.”
“Who do you suggest,” I asked. “An art dealer or a gallery perhaps?”
“Someone who doesn’t mind taking a risk in the avant garde,” said Mr Nicholas. “What I would do would be to take it around to Cork Street and Albermarle Street and even Duke Street and talk to them there.”
As I turned to leave I asked: “What would you say it was worth?”
Artists, I was told, value their own work and then everything depends on the market and who likes it.
“Sotheby’s said it could be worth thousands. What do you think?”
“Try it.”
The Eaton Gallery in Duke Street was my next call.
The boss, Mr Douglas George, squinted at the work, waved me to silence when I launched into my spiel and said:
“A friend of mine collects these cards. He has about three hundred of them, all different. He believes they are going to be very valuable one day.”
He added as an afterthought: “He’s Australian, needless to say.”
Would the Eaton Gallery hang the work?
No, but not for any other reason that all the art displayed in their gallery is over 100 years old. The telephone numbers on my work prove that though the game the girls are engaged in is by no means new, the cards are.
I worked my way through the Burlington Arcade to Browse and Darby and had my first disappointment.
A girl at the reception desk spotted the condom packet and looked as though a nasty smell had suddenly settled on her top lip.
“I’m afraid we wouldn’t exhibit that,” she sniffed.
But across the road at a gallery claiming to deal with the likes of Dubuffet, Nicholson, Matise, Hoffman, Margite and Picabia, I ran into Mr Lindsay Tuckett, who described himself as an art connoisseur.
“I think you have hit the jackpot with that, ol’ man. Haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“That there is a massive campaign to rid all telephone boxes of these cards. “Really?”
“Yes really. Spoilsports. The Metropolitan police, the Rotary Clubs and groups of Women Opposed to Bloody Everything have demanded their withdrawal.”
Mr Tuckett advised me to exhibit my work at the Tate to boost its price.
“Will the Tate accept it?”
“Are you kidding?”
The Tate, it turned out, were busy organising a Bonnard exhibition and didn’t have much time. A receptionist looked at my work briefly, said yes, it looked all right, but I needed to send in slides.
I made one more trip, down the road from Harrods to the Bunch of Grapes, on my way to the Victoria and Albert Museum.
As I sat down and ordered a pint of lager a guy, wearing a Chelsea scarf, said inquisitively, “What you got there, mate?”
“A very valuable work of art.”
“Can I see it?”
“Sure.”
Silence.
“Gee, mate, this is a load of crap if you don’t mind me saying so.” Another pause. “But can I borrow your pen. If you’ve no objections I would like to take down a few of these phone numbers…..”
