Hi everyone,it's been a quiet week on the blog, but showing Asher Durand's painting, Progress, this morning made me think of another of his famous paintings--Kindred Spirits (1849), shown here.
This painting made the news last year when the New York Public Library decided to sell it off, and the buyer turned out to be Alice Walton, heir to the Wal-Mart fortune.
The rumored but uncomfirmed purchase price is estimated to be somewhere in the ballpark of $35 million, the largest amount ever paid for a work of art by an American artist!
This sparked a lot of commentary from critics who argued that the Library should have held on to the painting; or, if they had to sell Kindred Spirits, that at the least it shouldn't have gone to Wal-Mart.
Here are a couple of links to articles discussing the sale and whether it was appropriate. Another "UTPT"--Ultimate Term Paper Topic!
2005 Article "Kindred Spirits: Art and Money" from the Gotham Gazette, an NYC arts commentary publication.
Rebecca Skolnit Feb. 19, 2006 OpEd piece: "Not-so 'Kindred Spirits'" in the LATimes. You need to register with (for free) with LATimes to read the article. It's worth it.
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