Four months ago my post What price can be placed on a love affair touched upon my reluctance to part with paintings. The painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler had a similar evasion and referred to it as: "The indignity of being sold".
The painting that opens this post may have avoided the same indignity. I am always at a loss when the first thing a visitor asks on viewing a painting, is the price. In recent years so few of my paintings have sold that I haven't paid attention to prices. In the days when my studio was based in the Virgin Island, virtually all of my paintings sold. Since then, I consider that my work has developed immeasurably. My run-of-the-mill palm fringed beach scenes have been replaced with the subtle beauty of my Daughters of the Caribbean Sun. You might add, as I'll soon reach octogenarian status the adage: "No artist can earn a living until he is dead." may begin to attract speculative buyers.
But be that as it may, I took the average price of a painting from my Virgin Island days in the 1980's and adjusted it for inflation; no more, no less. Perhaps the figure, albeit reasonable, took the potential buyer aback!
But there are occasions when I do take pleasure in selling a painting. My first one-man show in the 1970's was a sellout, but it was the love of the paintings rather than the price tag that motivated sales. One elderly couple asked if I could reserve the painting they liked until they returned the next day. They did return carrying the price of the painting in a shopping bag. The money had been saved over the years beneath their mattress for "something special".
A painting from my 1971 exhibition Lynn and Locality.
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