Ms. Horton, the farthest thing from an art-world aesthete, had never heard of Pollock when she purchased a canvas she describes as so ugly that she tried to give it away to a friend (“We were going to throw darts at it,” she recalls), but it wouldn’t fit through the door of her friend’s trailer. At a garage sale a local art teacher spotted the painting and suggested it might be a Pollock. Her curiosity whetted, Ms. Horton began calling Los Angeles art dealers. Her son, Bill Page, joined the search, which became a decade-long quest for validation of her purchase.
As this smart, hard-bitten woman with an eighth-grade education pursues her quest, the documentary portrays the debate between connoisseurship and science as a culture war. Among the connoisseurs who insist that a refined eye is the ultimate judge of authenticity is Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, exuding contempt and superciliousness. He is the most outspoken in his rejection. Shown the painting, he dismisses it as “pretty, superficial and frivolous.”
This is why you have to spit on your paintbrush, then future DNA tests can confirm that you are having a bad day.
$9M offer? She could have a double-wide in San Tropez with that kind of money.
Sure, but she's not stupid. If it's real, she'll get $100 million +........
And then she can play the slots in Monaco............
here is a story with a big picture. its like lets make a deal. do you take the cash or go for whats behind the curtain. horton is going for the curtain. after looking at the image i thinks she might should have taken the cash. i still have my high school era pollack stashed at my moms house. same pallet as hortons (brown, black, white) but not as nicely painted or as big. hortons looks overworked.
Hard to say anything from a jpeg, but the long white lines on the topmost layer don't look his hand to me--they're slack and meandering, and too conspicuous, not "allover" enough. Usually anything that didn't look "on" got covered by other paint in his work.
The fact that Horton's represented by a known LA art world snake, who did prison time, taints the affair big time.
The director says it's about class in America--I'd say it's a tabula rasa that makes it about whatever you want it to be about.
It's also another way to make the art world and its denizens look silly to a public eager to prove that "Modern art is a fraud."
Tom makes a good point about Pollock probably going over bad drips as a matter of course. But in this debate I want to side with forensic science, the possibility that even the most brilliant can leave a few bad works sitting around, and a foul mouth old slag who buys art at yard sales.
Sentiment, bah. As for forensic science--the "fingerprint match" is one (possibly too eager) expert's opinion. This isn't a crime scene--except maybe in the bunko squad sense.
So now she's a foul mouth old GRIFTER slag! Well that just brings a tear to the big-eyed Margaret Keane painting that is the exact picture of my most sensitive soul.
Everything looks good with baby seal eyes!
I don't think that woman's a grifter--but her "dealer" definitely is. He's done time!
The filmmaker really sank low to make his point about "class in the art world" that we already know.
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- bill 11-16-2006 12:53 am
This is why you have to spit on your paintbrush, then future DNA tests can confirm that you are having a bad day.
- L.M. 11-16-2006 1:19 am [add a comment]
$9M offer? She could have a double-wide in San Tropez with that kind of money.
- mark 11-16-2006 3:55 am [add a comment]
Sure, but she's not stupid. If it's real, she'll get $100 million +........
- Justin (guest) 11-17-2006 5:19 am [add a comment] [edit]
And then she can play the slots in Monaco............
- Justin (guest) 11-17-2006 5:20 am [add a comment] [edit]
here is a story with a big picture. its like lets make a deal. do you take the cash or go for whats behind the curtain. horton is going for the curtain. after looking at the image i thinks she might should have taken the cash. i still have my high school era pollack stashed at my moms house. same pallet as hortons (brown, black, white) but not as nicely painted or as big. hortons looks overworked.
- bill 11-17-2006 7:24 pm [add a comment]
Hard to say anything from a jpeg, but the long white lines on the topmost layer don't look his hand to me--they're slack and meandering, and too conspicuous, not "allover" enough. Usually anything that didn't look "on" got covered by other paint in his work.
The fact that Horton's represented by a known LA art world snake, who did prison time, taints the affair big time.
The director says it's about class in America--I'd say it's a tabula rasa that makes it about whatever you want it to be about.
It's also another way to make the art world and its denizens look silly to a public eager to prove that "Modern art is a fraud."
- tom moody 11-17-2006 7:47 pm [add a comment]
Tom makes a good point about Pollock probably going over bad drips as a matter of course. But in this debate I want to side with forensic science, the possibility that even the most brilliant can leave a few bad works sitting around, and a foul mouth old slag who buys art at yard sales.
- L.M. 11-17-2006 10:03 pm [add a comment]
Sentiment, bah. As for forensic science--the "fingerprint match" is one (possibly too eager) expert's opinion. This isn't a crime scene--except maybe in the bunko squad sense.
- tom moody 11-17-2006 11:48 pm [add a comment]
So now she's a foul mouth old GRIFTER slag! Well that just brings a tear to the big-eyed Margaret Keane painting that is the exact picture of my most sensitive soul.
- L.M. 11-18-2006 12:18 am [add a comment]
Everything looks good with baby seal eyes!
I don't think that woman's a grifter--but her "dealer" definitely is. He's done time!
The filmmaker really sank low to make his point about "class in the art world" that we already know.
- tom moody 11-18-2006 12:49 am [add a comment]