Talent Talk

A painting of a muddy pond with a few lilies floating on it sold for a record $80m last week amid signs that despite the economic downturn, the art market is in good health.

Monet's Bassin aux Nympheas may not strike you as being one of his greatest works (as in all probability it is not) but the fact that it was able to attract such a high bid says something about how we price talent.

Monet, as we know, is dead, and nothing advances an artist's worth quite so much as his own passing away. At that point good old economic forces of supply and demand kick in and, with no more supply, any demand can only push an artist's prices upwards.

How do you then value a work of art? This is where it gets interesting.

Prices are driven by all sorts of forces. Sentiment, genres going in and out of fashion, biographies, new revelations, the world economy, similar artists coming into the limelight… even thefts and robberies. All of these factors move prices up or down.

But surely the most difficult thing is valuing one work of art against another.

Take the painting below, for example. False Start, by Jasper Johns, sold for about the same price as Monet's Bassin aux Nympheas a couple of years ago - which would indicate it is worth more now. Featuring a beguiling splattering of oils across canvas, with the names colours printed on top, this work is currently the highest-valued piece by a living artist.

The painting is renowned almost as much for its previous owners as for any inherent qualities it may have, featuring a roll call of the rich and famous. There are those who class it as 'pop art', while others say False Start is closer to Dadaism.

Estimating art values must be a headache for the experts at the best of times. The increasing trend of artists becoming famous (and even wealthy) in their own time is surely good for the world of art.

Jasper Johns is without doubt a great living talent. But we must always go back to that question… is his work really art?

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