In exhibitions devoted to the late work of Henri Matisse, J.M.W.Turner and now Rembrandt, “late” is replacing “early” as the pointer to artistic excellence.
All three artists are winning critical praise for work done after they should have been in their dotage; and with artists ranging from Titian to Louise Bourgeois proving that old can equate with renewal as much as decline, old is back in again.
This means that works that tend to turn up in Australia - to which many atypical works have strayed through the difficulty of finding buyers back home – may not be not as suspect as usually thought.
In later years many artists simply branched out and became much more creative. Sometimes they were successful and sometimes they were not, as some of the works by Turner with their rich thick paint and heavy egg yolk yellow suggest
And strange themes suggest they were not always more lovable.
The bravura of age is as evident in Late Turner - Painting Set Free at Tate Britain as at the Rembrandt: The Late Works show at the National Gallery.
It was also noticeable in Matisse Cut Outs at the Tate Modern which consisted of works created merely by scissor cuts.
The exhibition, which closed on 7 September 2014 was the most popular ever held. It attracted 562,622 visitors.
A new term may have to be invented for the old guys to distinguish them from the artists known as YBAs or Young British Artists who have hogged the attention of museum goers if not art buyers.
Matisse did better than perhaps the most eminent YBA, Damien Hirst who in 2012 pulled in 463,087 visitors at Tate Modern.
This is bad luck for lovers of work by the modern and old masters as most of their work has already been taken by museums. The current shows make the atypical acceptable. In Rembrandt's case it also supported the old adage that artists do their best work when they are suffering.
His later years were wrought by strife in his marriage and bankruptcy.
Turner became more eccentric and abstract. He investigated natural phenomena to ponder the lessons of history and to engage with the culture of the age. His albatross was his health which began to wane in the last five years,
He turned 60 in 1835 then regarded as marking the onset of senility, but his intense energy defrayed his waning powers for at least another decade.
Works attributed to Turner appeared in early Tasmanian collections and in various later holdings, one celebrated such in the collection of retailer Marcus Clark.
The NGV also has an audacious oil painting that might well have fitted into the Late Turner show because of its audacious abstraction, Vale d'Aosta which was purchased with help from Associated Securities (one of the few memorials to the lamented once-great finance house)
With its enormous holdings of works by Turner such loans were not necessary for the exhibition.
The Rembrandt exhibition curators liked Portrait of a Blond Man because it showed impressive variation in paint application. In the catalogue of the National Gallery exhibition Marjorie E. Weiseman writes:
“The most detailed brushwork is reserved for the treatment of the face and the head: the flesh is built up with thin, densely layered brush strokes that seem almost chaotic when viewed close up but are extraordinarily effective from a distance.
“In the eyebrows and moustache the artist occasionally allowed the dark under-painting to shimmer through, to recreate the effect of the shadows cast by light hair against fair skin.
“While the majority of Dutch portraits rely on a carefully balanced composition to create an impression of solidity and aplomb, here the man’s figure lists slightly off-centre and his right hand is cut off by the edge of the picture, infusing the composition with liveliness and a sense of impending movement.
How different were matters in 1951.
According to Leonard Cox's The National Gallery of Victoria published in 1970, when the work, which had belonged to gold mining magnate Sir Alfred Beit, came into the hands of the gallery's director through Marshall Spink, he “noted a weakness”. “The right arm looked stiff and too short, and the hand disappeared out of the canvas". He was looking at it in a catalogue of Rembrandt's work and thought this might not be apparent in the original.
“It was, however, a great Rembrandt, even if not so fine as the portraits in the Widener collection; yet vastly superior either of the two in their possession which were not in the front rank.
These were the Self Portrait bought for £A25,982 and in excess of the market value of the day, and The Two Philosophers “a doubtful picture and at best a poor example of Rembrandt's early period.” purchased for £A21,250.
The price of “Blondie” was £A43,500 and it appears well worth it although £A2000 had to be paid in Swiss francs – as is so often is the case in such deals.
The new respect for “late work” may be a little late for a flow on Down Under where artists like Arthur Streeton's late works enjoyed a new run in the 1980s and following years when conservation became a cause celebre. His felled trees became evidence of his concern for nature.
Many other artists just kept painting the same old pictures.
Coincidentally, white is the nature of another trend with white paintings grabbing attention once again.
They soared on a rise in support for the Italian contemporary school which produced more than its fair share of these paintings and which feature in specialised Italian paintings sales at both Christie's and Sotheby's.
The prices held up despite the weakness of the Italian economy.
Piero Manzoni’s monumental Achrome (1958-59) sold well beyond pre-sale expectations to make £12,626,500.
The estimate was £5 million to £7 million.
It was the highest price across all the auctions put on to coincide with the Frieze art fair.
The Manzoni was the top lot in a ‘white hot’ evening sale in which collectors battled for a series of luminous white works, smashing records in the process.
Appearing at auction for the first time ever, Manzoni’s Achrome (1958-59) represents the apogee of the artist’s ground-breaking Achrome series, considered one of the most revolutionary and profound artistic contributions to the post-war age.
Last exhibited at the Tate Modern’s Beyond Painting exhibition in 2005/2006, this painting was broadcast as one of only nine Achromes that Manzoni created in this large scale (110 x 150 cm), three of which are held in museum collections.
So the price could also be interpreted as a tick for artist's series works.
Alongside Manzoni, works by Castellani, Bonalumi and Simeti (all of them white) nearly doubled the previous records for the artists.
Italy's contemporary and especially white paintings appear to be finally catching up with its decorative arts with the scepticism finally raised by the Broadway and West End hit play finally dispersed.
Shapiro's in Sydney and now Mossgreen have grabbed a slice of this market which has taken over from granny's Victorian furniture.
At Christies on October 19 a column of white doilies by Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994) Colonna (Column), 83 cm tall sold for £2.43 million.
Artists self-portraits were also trend setters, several by Rembrandt, of course, being represented in that exhibition and those of contemporary artists who appear very introspective and therefore turn out a lot of them, firing in the saleroom.
Throughout the auctions there were also surprise prices for self-portraits by contemporary artists.
Frieze does not publish sales figures but they appear to have been anything but frozen.
Estimate of work on offer at the auctions and fair ranged up to nearly $A3 billion.
Bloomberg reported that Damien Hirst, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol works sold for more than $3 million each during a hectic week of sales and art shows at a time of year when not too long ago London was quiet and uneventful.
The 12th annual edition of a fair promoted by the leading art magazine from which it takes its title was a packed and lively affair.
162 galleries were represented at the original Frieze fair and 127 at the accompanying Frieze Masters fair which shows modern and historic works.
On the first day your correspondent jostled past crowds lined up around the block in Regents Park before regretfully having to run for a flight that left late that day.
Bloomberg however reported that guests including billionaire Indonesian collector Budi Tek, who opened a private museum in Shanghai in May, actress Sienna Miller and architect Zaha Hadid.
There were plenty of white paintings on offer on the white walls but dealers were much more imaginative and involved with some of the stands featuring special commissions.
