The Art Patronage Vade Mecum
Source: https://chowartfund.wordpress.com/
The arts are kept up by a very few people; they always have been kept up, when kept up at all, by a very few people. A great art patron is a man who keeps up great artists. A good art patron is a man who keeps up good artists. His reputation is coterminous with the work he has patronized. He can not be an imbecile. — Ezra Pound
If a patron buys from an artist who needs money (needs money to buy tools, time and food), the patron then makes himself equal to the artist: he is building art into the world; he creates. — Ezra Pound
Only those of us who want better literature, not more literature, better art, not more art, can be expected to pay for it. In the arts quantity means nothing, quality everything. — Ezra Pound
The only way in which we can prove a love of the arts is by helping the artist, when possible. — Edith Sitwell
If people prefer and buy good things when they see them, good things will be likely to be made, but if those with money to spend have no taste and buy bad things or order ugly things to be made, then the men who had it in them to be great artists may die unnoticed, because the beautiful things they could have made are not called for. To-day many people spend something upon art and a few spend a great deal. Let us hope we may not see too much of the money spent in creating a demand for what is bad rather than for what is beautiful. — Agnes Ethel Conway
Never was there a time when picture-dealers occupied so much of the public attention, and painters so little; when there was more disposition to traffic in the arts, and less to cultivate them; when the possession of celebrated pictures was so much contested, and the protection of native genius so little attended to. — Martin Archer Shee
I am interested only in artistic values. The test of artistic values is Time and I shall not live to know whether the men in whom I have believed have justified my faith in their future. To stimulate contemporary artists by establishing personal contact and friendly relations, to win their confidence and to help them to understand themselves and to succeed with their own best methods and intentions, resisting the temptations to fall back on commercialism of one kind or another — such a policy I consider of the utmost importance. — Duncan Phillips
If, in this our day, the due remuneration were accorded to upright effort, there would be still greater and much better works executed than were ever produced by the ancients. — Giorgio Vasari
As long as the highest honours and regards are almost exclusively bestowed on the great artists who formerly existed, and whose works are only too highly appreciated when they are suffered to shut out our sensibilities to the opening attractions of the younger-born sons of genius in our own time and country, a blight is produced in the atmosphere of the arts which stints their growth. — The Examiner of 26th April, 1818, on the opening of Sir John Fleming Leicester’s gallery.
A nation has honour not for what it acquires but for what it gives, and one would have respected Mr Morgan infinitely more if he employed, or bought from, or subsidized contemporary American artists. That this might have been a no less profitable investment I count but little argument. An old thing has a sort of fixed value. One acquires property in acquiring it. It is a fairly safe investment. The clever dealer buys modern work cheap and lives thereby; but there is more risk in so doing. ‘You never know unless you yourself happen personally to care.’ — Ezra Pound
Will you be the person who loans Vincent 10 francs to buy paint or the person who patches his fence with the painting? Will you be the monarch who commissions Velasquez or the monarch who commissions Lucian Freud? Will you be the art critic who discovers and promotes a truly great artist (and be the first who ever did) or will you write absurd and trivial things about people who are greater than you in every possible way? There are a thousand ways to be art-historically significant without ever lifting a brush or chisel. — Miles Mathis
Individual patronage remains more appealing, but is, [Wyndham] Lewis claims, a diminishing prospect in a period in which ‘no individual is healthy enough, or light-hearted enough, to become the ‘patron’’. As Lewis was always quick to point out, patronage of the arts was largely a status game for these wealthy individuals, and such games were the first to be curtailed in times of financial hardship. Only the state or a ‘fit and hearty’ corporate entity has the means of supporting the arts in such circumstances, and only the latter is likely (if properly organized) to leave the business of art up to the artist, rather than to put him or her in the service of propaganda.
But a truce to all this and to business. Your last letter has made me feel you to a singular degree as a friend. Without ever having known, or even inquired into your financial position I always more than suspected that you were really spending all your fortune on works of art. No other living person can claim such a title to glory. There are plenty who will relieve need, and found institutions of obvious good but man does not live by bread alone, and a collection like yours will one day have the refined and elevating effect that not one of our universities, at least as at present constituted, can hope to produce. Great shall be your reward; for centuries after the very names of your ridiculous and vulgar detractors will have perished, America will still thoroughly appreciate what you have done for her. — Bernard Berenson to Isabella Stewart Gardner
None of these men had real recognition, nor a decent return from their work during their lifetimes, and there are many today now living under the same conditions. The only remedy, so far as I can see, will come through a more enlightened public, who will take their courage in both hands, make mistakes, improve their taste, and treat the work of art, created with sincerity and without thought of commercial value, as an object which will bring gratification — yes, and mental and moral improvement — while it is in their possession.
Most things being made today are not worth the precious resources of material, effort, and space we have devoted to them. This does not mean that we should abandon objects and look elsewhere for our future, though — or that we should attempt to reduce or even eliminate our dependency on the physical. On the contrary, the reason that we have too many unsatisfying objects in our lives is that we don’t care enough about any single one of them. — Glenn Adamson
I think it’s important to support artists when they’re young. That’s when they need it. But more broadly I’m interested in those artists, whether young or not so young, who don’t hop on the bandwagons, who have their own demons and their own goals to pursue. Such artists are their own people, while so many on the scene today, are, in my opinion, basically con artists, whether with or without talent. — Edward Albee
The trick was to turn collectors into patrons by luring them away from a consumerism of safe investments in the celebrated dead, and to get them instead to sponsor the next generation of masterpieces.
[The nation] lacks no pre-eminent talent in the arts, it lacks real encouragement; it lacks genuine patronage, and fair play; it lacks enlightened judges; and able as well as impartial critics; it lacks, above all, in those who rule, or are invested with the influence of patrons, or are deputed to direct the execution of great public works, that bold spirit of enterprise which, instead of suffering them to creep among puny imitations, and diminutive undertakings, will lead them to adopt lofty, grand, and original ideas.
In modern times, there has been a trend away from individual patronage. It is somehow considered “elitist” and thus does not fit into the mold of certain political philosophies. So instead the government is expected to shoulder the burden of funding artists, providing art for all the people this way. Who exactly gets to create and deliver this art is chosen by committees, in the usual government manner. Few artists thrive and create great work in this kind of environment.
What ever happened to patronage? It seems to have died out completely. Nowadays, billions of dollars are given to colleges, orchestras, and other institutions, but who gives money to individuals — to individual writers and artists? Patronage was important in ancient times, and in Renaissance times; there were even wealthy people in the mid-twentieth century who patronized writers and artists. But where are the patrons today? Have we forgotten that culture is created by individuals, not by institutions? Government funding of the arts might be regarded as organized patronage. But governments are unlikely to fund those who are truly creative. Can you imagine van Gogh receiving a government grant? Real patronage takes place between individuals and individuals. The best way for politicians to help is to lower taxes, so that at least a few people can become patrons, or self-patrons. — L. James Hammond
From the point of view of a real art patron, one touch of original genius is worth all the copies in existence; for in making that touch, the artist is increasing, by just that much, the world’s aggregate of beauty.
It was an extraordinary investment, but it paid off handsomely. The boy was Michelangelo. The Medicis didn’t spend frivolously, but when they spotted genius in the making they took calculated risks and opened their wallets wide. Today, cities, organizations, and wealthy individuals need to take a similar approach, sponsoring fresh talent not as an act of charity, but as a discerning investment in the common good. — Eric Weiner
Mankind has not all of a sudden lost its talent for making art. But just what is out there right now, that I can see, I don’t feel is a permanent and responsible addition to the history of art. And I think there are things being made that we don’t know about right now which will be that valuable addition. — Eugene Victor Thaw
How is an Art Patron different from a Gallery Consumer? The difference is evident in the artworks (e.g. paintings) that they buy. An art patron: causes an artwork to be made that would not otherwise exist, has a direct influence on the content of the artwork (and thus on the creative process itself). In contrast, a gallery consumer: selects a ready-made artwork, has little or no impact on the creative process. Anyone with money can buy a ready-made artwork. But to be an art patron requires more than that. Besides money, an art patron must have: a good idea of what the artwork should be about, discernment to select the best artist for the job, patience and persistence to deal with problems, delays, and drama that accompany any serious artistic project. Being an art patron is difficult. It is something of a lost art in itself. — Karl Zipser
In buying, with the patronage of art in view, we must of course discriminate. To be able to discriminate to good purpose, to the end that we may encourage the serious and accomplished artist, and, by neglect, discourage the pretender, we must seriously study our subject. Unless one is rarely gifted and has an intuitive knowledge of what is fine and sound and wholesome and enduring in all departments of art, — and very few are so gifted, — one must select a narrow field, study it, master it as far as ability and opportunity permit, become in it an expert, or better, become in it what we may call, to render freely the French phrase, an honest amateur. — John Cotton Dana
The patrons’ commitment to the arts was rooted in their civic pride and patriotic spirit as well as their belief in the moral imperative to use their wealth to benefit society and culture. [Nicholas] Longworth and others of his day believed that the possession of works of art by a city demonstrated enlightenment. The example of Europe showed that national pride was connected with artistic maturity. With no aristocracy or royalty in America, the arts had to be championed by those who could afford it.
A renaissance in the arts comes when there are a few patrons who back their own flair and who buy from unrecognized men. — Ezra Pound
Only individual art lovers making individual decisions to support art that speaks to them can assure the continued health of the creative process which has helped define us as people and cultures. — David Miller
But what is “great” patronage, and what is “poor” patronage? For Michael Straight, great patronage provides “discernment,” “resources,” and “restraint” — the good patron chooses the artist well, gives sufficient space, scope, and funding for good work, and declines to meddle in the process or in the result. (For Straight’s model of poor patronage, we can presumably invert these terms: a poor patron lacks taste or judgment, provides insufficient funding, and mucks in where he or she is not wanted, whether at the level of the commission or at the level of execution.) — Marjorie Garber
We’re now living here in a world of painting where it’s unspeakably paralyzed and wretched. The exhibitions, the shops for paintings, everything, everything is occupied by people who all intercept money. And you mustn’t think that I’m imagining this. People pay a lot for the work when the painter himself is dead. And people always disparage living painters by pointing unanswerably to the work of those who are no longer with us. I know that we can’t do anything to change this. For the sake of peace one must therefore resign oneself to it, or have some sort of patronage or captivate a rich woman or something, otherwise one can’t work. Everything one hopes for in terms of independence through one’s work, of influence on others, absolutely nothing comes of it. And yet it’s something of a pleasure to make a painting, and yet there are 20 or so painters here right now, all of them having more debts than money &c., all of them with a way of life something like that of curs, who will perhaps mean more than the whole official exhibition in so far as the future manner of working is concerned. The principal characteristic of a painter, I imagine, is to paint really well; those who can paint, those who can do it best, are the germs of something that will continue to exist for a long time, just as long as there are eyes that enjoy something that is singularly beautiful. Well I constantly regret that one can’t make oneself richer by working harder — on the contrary. If one actually could do that, one would be able to accomplish much more, be able to associate with others, and what not. For now everyone is bound by his opportunity to earn his living, and one is far from free, exactly. You talk about ‘whether I had submitted something to Arti — certainly not — only Theo sent Mr Tersteeg a consignment of paintings by Impressionists and there was one of mine in it. However, all that transpired was that neither Tersteeg nor the artists, so Theo heard, had found anything in it. Well that’s very understandable because it’s always the same, people have heard of the Impressionists, they have great expectations of them…and when they see them for the first time they’re bitterly, bitterly disappointed and find them careless, ugly, badly painted, badly drawn, bad in colour, everything that’s miserable. — Vincent van Gogh to Willemien van Gogh. Arles, between Saturday, 16 and Wednesday, 20 June 1888.
It is incredibly perverse that artists, critics, galleries, museums, collectors and the various funding agencies supposedly dedicated to the support of the arts habitually stoop to fashion, fad, artifice and emptiness when they might support greatness and beauty. Are we now so debauched, so dead in spirit, so in love with mediocrity in art and life that we no longer have the stomach to appreciate or work for greatness and beauty? — Don Gray
I come to my great crime, the one that overshadows all the others. For a long time I have been purchasing and praising to the sky works by some highly original and highly knowledgeable painters, several of whom are geniuses, and I intend to have art lovers accept them. — Paul Durand-Ruel
Artists traditionally have faced a choice: stay true to their calling, trading financial security for intellectual freedom — or put art aside in favour of a steady paycheque and the stifling strictures that come with corporate life. But in the current era, something has changed. Artists now experience the worst of both worlds: They still struggle to make ends meet, while enduring all of the oppressive controls that come with selling out. This policy of obedience is toxic to creativity. Artists need freedom to explore the unknown — to follow their thoughts wherever they go, and to represent their beliefs through art. Creating real art is bound to cause offence in some cases, yet the practice must be encouraged. Otherwise, the goal of art will be to placate ideological critics, thereby pushing it into the realm of propaganda. — Gabriel Scorgie
In olden and golden days, some serious collectors had encyclopedic tastes and ambitions, but those days are long gone in part because the availability of really desirable objects has dwindled and/or become prohibitively expensive for most, and in part because few would attempt the daunting task of being a connoisseur in many, to say nothing of all, fields. — Carter B. Horsley
What is the author to do who can not sell his books, or artist or musician who is told, like Turner or Wagner, that his works may be well, but are not for this world? Wagner was near starvation in Paris; Beethoven, Liszt, and many other musicians would have suffered the pangs of hunger had they depended on that feather-brained entity called “the public.” In our own country Edmund Spenser died “for lack of bread,” Milton lived in poverty, Goldsmith was haunted by duns from cradle to grave, Johnson walked the night round St. James’s square in lieu of a bed, Huxley in his early days found it hard to earn a living, Carlyle during the first forty years of his literary life never earned more than an average grocer, Browning during the greater part of his career never made a penny by his poems. Now all this is not accident, nor is it due to stinginess or hard-heartedness on the part of publisher or reader. It is due to the fact that great and revolutionary writers, those men of genius who derive direct from the spirit of God, must be ahead of their public. This, then, is the justification of the patron — he may be the protector of a genius not yet understood, and so may guard the precious germ from the furious tempest or withering neglect of an evil or stupid generation.
Patronage of the arts is a noble passion, one shared over the course of centuries by men and women of discrimination, taste, and foresight. Spurred by their love of the arts, today’s patrons, through their benefactions, continue to add immeasurably to the general well-being of the society they serve. — Rand Castile
The genius does not deliver to order. Men cannot improve the natural and social conditions which bring about the creator and his creation. It is impossible to rear geniuses by eugenics, to train them by schooling, or to organize their activities. But, of course, one can organize society in such a way that no room is left for pioneers and their path-breaking. — Ludwig von Mises
Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated. — Jordan B. Peterson
Though one is told it is impossible to compare quality in objects of different cultures and periods, it is precisely this that a serious collector must do. If there is a message in our Collection it is that diverse objects may be compared. Here is Classical and Primitive, but as Kipling might have written, there is no Classical and no Primitive when a real collector is about. Many people viewing the Collection discern a characteristic Guennol quality, but perhaps the Collection is most remarkable not for the objects themselves but for its demonstration of the success that an amateur can achieve in bringing together objects even from areas in which he has little knowledge. — Alastair Bradley Martin
People who complain of the smallness and unimportance of most of the work that is done in this country forget that no important work ever was done in any of the arts unless somebody wanted it done and was ready to pay for it. Michael Angelo and Raphael and the Venetians did all their great work under direct commission from the ecclesiastical and civic dignitaries of their time, and they never could have done it otherwise. All the most important of the modern work in Europe, in painting and sculpture, has been produced in a similar way, either by orders from intelligent patrons or by the certainty of finding a purchaser when the work was done. But an American painter seldom can afford to devote his time to a serious composition, for the simple reason that there is no sale for it, and he must paint what he can sell.
When I buy for myself, I buy based on my own taste, which is often not museum taste or market taste — it’s more radical or eccentric. I buy things that I personally need to look at, or works by certain artists whom I want to support, who may not be trendy. The works that really interest me the most are those not yet digested by the public. The thrill to me of contemporary art is appreciating something before it’s digested by the mainstream. Perhaps my goal now is to only buy art that other collectors are not interested in buying. Even with this extreme position, I’m sure I could create a better collection in the long run than those who clamor over the things everyone else wants. — Diego Cortez
My own belief is that the public is sick of lukewarm praise of the mediocre…I’m sick to loathing of people who don’t care for the master-work, who set out as artists with no intention of producing it, who make no effort toward the best, who are content with publicity and the praise of reviewers. I think the worst betrayal you could make is to pretend for a moment that you are content with a parochial standard. — Ezra Pound
Whom do you know who takes the Art of poetry seriously? As seriously that is as a painter takes painting? Who Cares? Who cares whether or no a thing is really well done? Who in America believes in perfection and that nothing short of it is worth while? Who would rather quit once and for all than go on turning out shams? Who will stand for a level of criticism even when it throws out most of their own work? — Ezra Pound
I don’t condemn any man who has made lasting or even more or less durable art. But can’t you ever see the difference between what is ‘good,’ and good enough for the public, and what is ‘good’ for the artist, whose only respectable aim is perfection? ‘The difference between enthusiastic slop and great art’ — there’s a text to preach on in your glorious unfettered desert for the next forty years. — Ezra Pound
The only way to make a civilization is to exploit to the full those individuals who happen to be given by nature the aptitudes, exceptional aptitudes, for particular jobs. By exploit I mean that they must be allowed to do the few things which they and no one else can. — Ezra Pound
An utterly stinking social order does its damndest to extirpate the arts, and then howls for pity when an artist gets wise. — Ezra Pound
In this country, the village should in some respects take the place of the nobleman of Europe. It should be the patron of the fine arts. It is rich enough. It wants only the magnanimity and refinement. It can spend money enough on such things as farmers and traders value, but it is thought Utopian to propose spending money for things which more intelligent men know to be of far more worth…As the nobleman of cultivated taste surrounds himself with whatever conduces to his culture, — genius — learning — wit — books — paintings — statuary — music — philosophical instruments, and the like; so let the village do. — Henry David Thoreau
A revision of values is useful at a certain age, but it takes a singular liberty of mind to get away from the accepted. I know subtle intelligences, profoundly capable of appreciating fully and delicately in a work the qualities that are pointed out to them, but just as incapable of discovering new ones as of inventing reasons for admiring less works that have long been extolled. — André Gide
To be honest, I find it a bit comic how “collector” is considered such a great status today. What does a collector do that is impressive aside from saving art for future generations? In the past, what a person commissioned was a measure of greatness. — Karl Zipser
The great need is a revival of patronage. In former times when the arts flourished they enjoyed the active co-operation and support of a section of the lay public. The great patrons set out to discover talent and promote its interest, for in those days it was frankly recognized that beauty did not look after herself, but that its interests had to be actively promoted, that they had to be fostered, sheltered, cultivated, and one of the reasons of our decensus averni is that the old type of patron has practically disappeared. — Arthur J. Penty
Critical lag or backwardness is inexcusable in the few who actually have it in their power to choose between the new creation and the hackneyed copy. The ability to make that choice depends on being a connoisseur not only of past, but of living contemporary art. — Jacques Barzun
There is a gap between what we pretend to want as a civilization and what we are willing to pay for as a people. — Jacques Barzun
As for the small patron, how much better it would be if he gave himself the pleasure and honor of helping genius individually, rather than swelling the pockets of the disbursing corporations. He will make mistakes, but on a small scale compared to those of the giants, and probably learn from them, too. Patronage, like anything else, takes practice and experience. To give wisely and well is no mean achievement. — Ernst Bacon
The proper acknowledgment by an artist, whether of assistance, or appreciation, or praise or patronage, is a new work. Artists, like our children, thank us through their own offspring. — Ernst Bacon
No one but the master can promote the cause of Art. Patrons help the master, — that is right and proper; but that does not always mean that Art is helped. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In the early years of the nineteenth century the very meaning of the word patronage began to be debased until, in our own day, a man may call himself a patron of the arts if he buys a picture painted three hundred years ago and presents it to a museum. He may be a man of exquisite discrimination and unparalleled benevolence; or he may merely be eager to suggest that a rapid acquisition of money has not prevented a similar acquisition of taste. He may possibly be doing something well worth doing, but he is not, except by courtesy of twentieth-century jargon, a patron of anything, or of anyone. The task of a patron is much less expensive, and much more difficult. He is concerned with living, unknown artists. He must have the good taste to demand fine poetry or painting or music — or silver, pottery, furniture — and he must have the perspicacity to discover the artist who can supply him. He needs all the insight and flair of a good critic, but, in addition, the faculty for seeing where a young and untried artist may make the most of his gifts: he needs the tolerance and tact to ensure that he will do so. No wonder that great patrons should be so rare, or that poets should have so often recognized the primacy of patronage. Martial gave it as his opinion that if you have your Maecenases you will get your Virgil: Sint Maecenates, non deerunt, Flacce, Marones. — John Buxton
Millions are given each year to charities which help crippled children, old people, blind people and all kinds of disabled unfortunates; which is a perfectly worthy cause. But, on the other hand, has anyone given much thought to the crying, desperate need of helping the exact opposite type of human beings — the able, the fit, the talented and unusual ones crushed by purely material circumstances? That idea of hardships being good for character and of a talent always being able to break through is an old fallacy. Talent alone is helpless today. Any success requires both talent and luck. And the “luck” has to be helped along and provided by someone. A talented person has to eat as much as a misfit. A talented person needs sympathy, under standing and intelligent guidance more than a misfit. And the question arises: who is more worthy of help — the sub-normal or the above-normal? Who is more valuable to humanity? Which of the two types is more valuable to himself? Which of the two suffers more acutely: the misfit, who doesn’t know what he is missing, or the talented one who knows it only too well? I have no quarrel with those who help the disabled. But if only one tenth of the money given to help them were given to help potential talent — much greater things would be accomplished in the spirit of a much higher type of charity. Talent does not survive all obstacles. In fact, in the face of hardships, talent is the first one to perish: the rarest plants are usually the most fragile. — Ayn Rand
America has produced no body of true art patrons. It has merely produced a wealthy group of rich collectors of paintings, tapestries and antique rarities. America so far has not produced any dilettanti, in the European sense of the word: the kind of people who are brimful of artistic enthusiasm, who uphold the work of living artists, and who go in for the new thing in art, wherever they see in it a trace of genius. — Baron de Meyer
Real patronage: the support of artists and of artwork-in-the-making, the support of experiment, initiative, failed attempts, collaborations, wild art, and avant-gardes, not to mention the kind of art-making (whether visual, filmic, theatrical, or acoustic) that involves very large outlays of money for materials, space, teams of collaborators, apprentices, fabricators, and so on. — Marjorie Garber
Society has a responsibility to art, not the other way around. Private and public collections do not have to be justified on educational or other utilitarian grounds. An art object requires love, attention, and understanding. It is like the little orphan who poked a note through the iron fence, saying, ‘Whoever finds this note — I love you.’ — Alastair Bradley Martin
When I vowed as a young man to collect the works of living artists, I had little idea of the richness, variety, and quality of the art that would be available to me, or of the value of friendships forged in the art world that would endure for a lifetime. — Roy R. Neuberger
Look around you for pictures that you really like, and in buying which you can help some genius yet unperished — that is the best atonement you can make to the one you have neglected — and give to the living and struggling painter at once wages, and testimonial. — John Ruskin
It is not easy to find some common ground between those whose interests dictate they should give only what they must, and those who feel themselves impelled to give without limit, that is, the artists in the fullest sense of the word. — Ernst Bacon
