Getty, Portrait Gallery Strike Deal on "Omai"
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| Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of Mai (Omai), about 1776. Image courtesy of the owner |
The Getty and Britain's National Portrait Gallery have announced a deal to jointly acquire and exhibit Joshua Reynolds' Portrait of Mai (Omai). Each institution will contribute half the £50 million ($60 million) price. The seller is billionaire Irish horse breeder John Magnier.
As a painting invoking themes of colonialism and the representation of persons of color, Portrait of Mai is of the moment in ways that few British Grand Manner portraits are. The press release states that Portrait of Mai "is widely regarded as the finest portrait" by Reynolds. That contemporary opinion has been amply reflected in the price, unprecedented for a Reynolds.
Mai (about 1751-1779) was a man from Ra'iatea (near Tahiti) who traveled to London with Captain Cook's expedition and became a celebrity. His name was misunderstood as Omai (the "o" means "from"). The Getty/UK press release indicates the painting will be known as the Portrait of Mai (Omai). The two institutions will show it sequentially and equally. "If the National Portrait Gallery is successful in the final phase of its fundraising campaign," it will be shown in London after the NPG reopens in June 2023. It is then to be "displayed in the Getty Museum when Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Olympic Games."
Comments
I suppose paying only half the cost for a fine, albeit grossly overpriced, portrait is better that paying the full monty.
Can you say airline miles?
Maybe the Getty is throwing them a bone knowing they're not going to raise the funds. Or maybe there's another export license they want in the future and hope UK funds are eaten up by this purchase?
As for LA? Until not much more than mainly the past 30-50 years, it has had to often play a game of sloppy seconds or deal with a variety of bread crumbs.
In regards to LACMA's new building, it's featured in this video:
https://youtu.be/gWH0BBuSpaU
(April's fool!)
For $18 million more, the Getty could have had Paul Allen's, Botticelli painting.
The Getty reduced to bargain shopping and pandering to the Brits...
I think that's a mistake.
Getty has more money than God. If a work of a lifetime comes up, they should pounce on it, no matter what era it derives from. Getty's grade would have been enhanced appreciably if they had taken Allen's Klimt, "Birch Forest," for example [ex coll. Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer].
The days of building a Met clone are over.
All Getty should focus on is quality, quality, quality. See Norton Simon as teacher.
https://www.christies.com/en/events/visionary-the-paul-g-allen-collection/browse-all-lots?sortby=alllots_desc
It's a museum of European art from antiquity (Greece and Rome) to the early 1900's. The pieces from the 1900's are by artists whose work began in the 19th century.
The Klimt piece would have fit that criteria. But as a general rule it's better to collect in depth than introduce a new artist if that new artist is not central to the story your collection tells.
In which case, if the Getty did not like the Botticelli, the better tree painting from the Paul Allen sale was the Van Gogh, Verger avec cypres.
--- J. Garcin
Getty already has a splendid 1889 Van Gogh study of "Irises" from the classic final 18 months of his life.
People in LA would have their minds blown were the Getty to add a masterpiece of Austrian art the caliber of that Klint.
The Getty is wise to stick with old masters, which is an area falling out of favor for the superrich. It can choose to wait for that one great painting that comes up every year. Although up until the last few years, it seems like the Getty is only successful every 2 years now and that’s frustrating. Their last great purchase was the Caillebotte in 2021. It’s clearly in a drought. I sort of which they’d extend their cut-off a couple more decades, but the further out after 1900, the more it fails at acquisitions as it gets priced out by hedgefunders.
But steady and slow wins the race. It’s just a matter of time when the museum has a stunner on every inch of its walls. The paintings that are bought by the rich end up at auction sooner or later. And it doesn’t really have any competition from other museums when it does. What other museum is adding anything on the level of Caillebotte’s Young Man at his Window or Manet’s Spring to its collection? Maybe the Kimbell when the Getty was terribly mismanaged by Munitz.
The private sales have dried up. It used to be that a museum could get a bargain for a great painting when sellers did not want to expose themselves at auction. Now, auctions with guaranteed minimums are too hard to resist for even the most reticent of collectors.
Plus, the Getty may no longer have the connections to arrange for those private sales. The former painting curator had previously worked at Sotheby's and knew where all the great paintings in private hands were. Did he take that knowledge and those relationships with him when he retired?
Scarcity is the biggest hindrance now. As a collector, you want a significant Botticelli, Caravaggio, El Greco, Seurat, etc. Almost all are now in museum collections. Last I checked, the pickings from private collections aren't very good. With Caravaggio and Seurat, there is almost nothing of significance. Maybe, the Getty has a better understanding of what's in private collections and is simply biding its time. If not, with each auction, time is running out to fill holes in the collection.
PS. What other museum is adding anything on the level of Caillebotte? That's the wrong problem to have. You want to be the Met which got all its good stuff from collectors and can use its acquisition funds to round out the collection with much more affordable secondary artists. Or, you want to be the Musee d'Orsay which in a private sale recently acquired another Caillebotte painting "Boating Party." You can look for yourself and decide which you like better, the Getty's or the Orsay's. From my standpoint, the Orsay painting allows you to better tell the socio-economic and pictorial story of Impressionism.
--- J. Garcin
I do suspect that there's plenty of Getty-grade art in private hands there.
LACMA wasn't created until 1965 (separate from fossils and dioramas), the Getty (as more than a passing fancy in Malibu) didn't come together until as recently as the late 1990s. Meanwhile, the uncompleted "treacle" Lucas museum (and Crystal Bridges in Arkansas, etc) is contributing to a big ramp up in prices at art auctions and private transactions.
But the much older Paris, France has admittedly seen some of its best and biggest museums created over the past 40 years.
We wish the Getty had collected sooner. That, it can’t get past. Nor will it ever have a Da Vinci or Caravaggio painting, all in museums now. But being the richest museum is still a very advantageous position to be in. The d’Orsay’s Caillebotte is a once in a lifetime acquistion for them. But it’s not common for d’Orsay in these times. It is common for the Getty which makes acquistions at that level every couple years. After the Manet was the Bernini, Parmigianino, Bronzino, two Watteaus and the Rembrandt. All blockbuster purchases and transformative for the museum’s collection. all of them after 2010. That’s proof their current strategy is still working for them.
I think what the market wants is not necessarily what the Getty wants. The market is obsessed with post-impressionists and modern. So it will get priced out of Cezanne and Van Gogh almost always. But the Botticelli still went for less than $50M, within the Getty’s usual price range. Why the Getty didn’t go for it, I don’t know. But I just don’t see a sudden demand for old masters or the price increasing beyond usual inflation. And the Getty benefits because this area is not as popular among collectors anymore. I’m looking at the acquisition history of some notable western museum, and none compares to what comes to the Getty. Old Masters are scarce, but its too soon for the Getty to panic and buy indiscriminately or expand it’s curatorial areas (athough I would love to see that).