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Found a painting like the print above in a different color scheme for $14. Facebook group Identify My Artwork helped me make out the signature. Hoping someone with Worthpoint here can look up. Thank you!
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Hey Christine:
Yep found it. Sorted by highest price sold on July 2016 for $90 framed. Now consider couple of things.. It is a reproduction [4 color offset lithograph printed only in CMYK colors], the signature is captured from the original and reproduced in the plates and the cost of the frame, which is probably worth about half the price.
The fact that the one you have is as you say “a different color scheme”. usually CMYK litho repros try to match the original painting as closely as possible. But if you have an image, that is EXACTLY the same image, then it has been exposed to a very large amount of sunlight and some of the colors have faded out. I can spot repo’s from 50 feet away in the antique mall booths. They are all a bluish, purplish color. The yellow and red colors are not light fast and fade quickly. Any repro, DVD, album covers, posters, art print, anything that has that bluish-purplish overall colorization is a cheap repro. that is faded and not worth the sheet of paper it is printed on.
This artist is very interesting because not only did he work in the Bauhaus group, but worked in Italy for advertising clients and the Joseph Albers, author of the interaction of color, which his color theory is still taught in art schools today, invited him to the USA and he taught at the Black Mountain College of Art here in the US. Some other artist from the Bauhaus school that are worth researching or at least looking at some of there art is Paul Klee. Paul Klee was a Swiss-German painter, Oskar Schlemmer. Oskar Schlemmer was a German painter, sculptor, designer and choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school, and László Moholy-Nagy.
The Bauhaus was a German group of artist and designers with their focus on “Form Follows Function” motto, where most of them were designers of industrial, functional, utilitarian objects which in turn got manufactured. things like dinnerware, flatware, blenders, furniture, room settings and things like that. Anything from Bauhaus artist group are highly collectible and bring high prices. MOMA [the Museum of Modern Art] has a large collection of Bauhaus designed items and many Danish Modern and Office Furniture still bought today are of the Bauhaus design. Some metal chairs go for thousands of dollars. The plastic style chairs that Jay and ryanne sold some time back and others like those are again, variations of the modernist Bauhaus designs. Very interesting subject and group of artists and worth maybe looking up just for your knowledge base. Will help when watching out for MCM type of furniture and home decorative accessories.
It came after the Art Deco period but was the fore runner of the Mid-Century Modern phase. Many of the MCM objects were variations spin offs of Bauhaus Designs and styling.Here is the link to the WorthPoint.com page:
https://www.worthpoint.com/inventory/search?query=xanti+schawinsky&category=So hope this helps. Good Luck.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
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According to findartinfo (a free sold price database), his color lithographs have sold at auctions (ebay is not included in their sales data; it’s more like an artnet or mutualart but with prices instead of photos; easily cross-referenceable with sites that have photos) for roughly $200 to $500. Again, these are not eBay prices.
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I’m fairly close to LA. I might be able to have someone from a big auction house do a drive by when they are here to check out items for someone else in town. There is an LA gallery with a collection from the artist’s estate too. I love it but if it belongs in a museum then it should be there. Also, we could use the $ for sure!
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I misread your original post and thought you had a lithograph. Apologies!
Here’s a link to the findartinfo page with his sold prices: http://www.findartinfo.com/english/list-prices-by-artist/5/3453/xanti-alexander-schawinsky/page/1.html
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Yes, I mis-read your original also. I see you did say painting, like a lithograph.
If it is a painting, it would have to the one and only original that photo offset prints came from later. If it is “the one and only original”, then like Ryanne says, “thousands” or more. Yes a museum piece and after appraisal, then auction house in NYC.
Sothey’s has a quick appraisal service and if they find evidence of authenticity and have an interest they will take the appraisal further. Check out Sotheby’s web site on this link:
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auction-estimates.html to start the “get an Estimate” process.Now to make doubly sure, you want to discover if you have a Giclee print on canvass [copy] then it is embellished on top with clear gel over the print underneath to simulate brush strokes. The best way to do this is with a strong magnifier. Take at least a 10x or better 20x loupe and then top closely at the brush strokes. What you are looking for is two things. Fisrt, is if the direction and motion of the brush strokes follow the same shape and contours of the obejct that is being defined. If the black areas [your image] are going vertical and the brush strokes are going across it, then this may be an embellished print. Second you want to look at different angles at the brush strokes and see if the strokes have any height to them and if so, if you catch the light just right, are the higher tips of the paint seem “clear” of solid with color. If clear then it would indicate a “clear over coat”.
Now this may not be bad because it could still be an original painting but with a clear protective varnish on top of the paint. That is very common. But back in those time periods the use of a varnish coat was usually applied as a thinner coat just for protective reasons. Not to simulate “brush strokes”. The simulation of top surface brush strokes is more of a modern techniques which has become popular due to the invention of Acrylic paints [1960’s] and forward. Then even more often used as Liquitex developed the formulas for thicker matte and clear Gel Mediums Coats.
In todays modern world, all of the discount stores are loaded with Giclee prints, which are highly fine reproductions from high level Ink Jet printers that do not use the typical litho half tone dot patterns, but a fine mist spray from the ink jet heads. Then these prints are quickly over coated with thick clear gel to simulate brush strokes and then passed off as original paintings. Goodwills are full of them, so are TJ Maxx, Marshall’s, World Market, Target, Walmarts, etc., etc ad nauseum. Most people now a days can’t tell the difference. Just another problem we have with China. But that’s another story.
Hopefully this sheds some more light on the “painting” you have.
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Just to add, I think he did a number of similar cityscape abstracts; I think that the original painting the OP has is super similar to, but different from, the lithographs. If you google his name and “Cityscape,” a bunch of different, but similar, pieces show up. So it may not be that this is THE original painting on which the lithos were based, but rather AN original painting by this artist.
Mike, thanks so much for the explanation of Giclee prints. I didn’t totally understand what they were before.
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Thank you both! I have no background in art and really struggle to distinguish medium, etc. even after reading descriptions online. Also I don’t have a loope. Using my magnifying glass and trying to follow your instructions, it appears that the brush strokes all go in the same direction – black and otherwise, and there are raised areas of paint that are not clear. This is nothing from Marshalls for sure. It’s old. Also we do have a number of oil paintings by my grandmother and it does not look to me like an oil painting. So maybe acryllic?
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If you live in LA, I’d contact http://www.bonhams.com/locations/LA/. They’re one of the big boys for art.
I know they have a link on their website where you can email the photos and they’ll do a free consultation on its worth. If they’re interested, they’ll then ask you to come in.
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We are a couple of hours outside of LA, more with traffic. But, there are a lot of rich people up here so I think some places will schedule visits if they are coming to town anyway. I’ll look into it. There is a number and some writing on the wood frame on back that I cannot make out, so if I send some photos off, maybe they can help by email. It will probably take me a bit, but I’ll update later on this topic.
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Don’t forget Sotheby’s, Park and Bernet. They have a West Coast auction hgouse also as well as Paris and London. As Jay says these are the “big boys”. Sotheby’s takes photos online, do the front and back and a close up of details on the back. Things like staples vs. tacks, the weave of the canvass, how the corners are folded or constructed, even the hanging hardware will give them clues. And again as Jay says, and on their site, those houses will contact you if they are interested.
We came across a Pissaro painting up in Connecticut decades ago. We knew some people at the Wadsworth Athenium. We showed them photos and they immediately asked us to bring it in [carfeully]. We got to ride down to the basement and observe how they tested the canvass, the paint surface under black light. They knew how to look for rips, repairs, bad cleaning., etc. It was finally acquired by them and is now part of their permanent collection.
we got a finders fee out of it because we didn’t own it outright. It was a friends and they bought it directly from him and his wife. But $250 bucks in 1974 wasn’t too bad and the education for a 2nd year graduate student was OK by us.
BTW they did pay thousands for it. Pissaro was part of the Impressionistic School and was sort of a lesser known but in the same league as Cezanne. They actually thoguht it may be a Cezzane until they uncovered the signature and cleaned that area up and discovered it was a Pissaro. That was agreat trip. We got to go back one more time after they did more study on it, then we were out of the picture and they went directly to the owner.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
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@Mike and Jay Thank you again. I finally submitted this to Sotheby’s and Bonhams online today! I’m hoping it will pay for my kitchen tile that is a bit pricey.
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@Christine very exciting, I’m interested in how it goes with the auction houses!Crossing fingers that it’s tile worthy….
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@Sally. They got right back to me. Neither auction house wants to sell but Southeby’s did provide a valuation of $3,000. That would certainly be tile worthy. I asked for more information and I’m playing phone tag with Bonham. Nice of her to return my call since it’s peanuts to them. I’m trying some other sites today with connections or works by this artist for sale. Pretty cool. My spouse and I are at odds over the tile so unfinished it sits. The tile guy says tile budget gets cut because at the end of the project expenses…
Reminds me that we once sold a ’56 Tbird we bought pre-kids from my father-in-law and used the money to remodel our master bathroom after buying our current house in crappy condition. Ah, the joys of being house poor in So Cal… Nothing of beauty will stick around long, but it’s an investment hopefully that will pay off when the kids are grown and we move or downsize.
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That’s cool Christine. We have suggested others check with the high end auction houses in the past but never heard any replies or if the SL poster did inquire. That is cool news. And the valuation comes from a respectable source.
A little more homework. see if the artist was ever represented by a gallery somewhere and see if they may have an interest in it. Or another path would be any relatives that may have an interest, then latly maybe a library or small museum in the artist home town. Just other channels on a possible sale that may lead to more money than placing on Ebay or Etsy and without the fees.
Good luck and do keep us posted.. 🙂
mike at MDC Galleries
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We’ve had little luck selling through auction houses.
–Often when you send an item to be evaluated, they simple do the same kind of research we all can do. Look up artist name online. Look at comps. Unless the auction house specializes in that artist, they have no special power. I saw our guy take our painting, go to his computer, search the artist name, and come back and say it wasn’t worth much.
–We’ve tried to sell two items through a fancy auction house. First one sold for a low opening bid. Second didn’t sell because they didn’t know the market. We could have sold each ourselves on eBay without issue.
–Auction house often charge you an upfront fee to even take the item whether it sells or not. Then they’ll take 25%-35% if it sells.I know someone will pop in here and say they had a big sale at an auction house, but I feel like this is like meeting someone who say they won $100k in a scratch off ticket. Sure it happens, but its rare.
TL;DR Selling through an auction house is an option, but it’s not our go to choice when selling an item.
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@Mike I found another foreign website where some of the artist’s other works are for sale and they do free evaluations. Also, the estate of this artist has a website but it just leads back to a gallery. I contacted the gallery – it’s nearby in LA.
My earlier research indicated that this was an early work of his done while he was living in New York. It’s very different than his later works which are more high profile. I only found one similar not so recent sale of $1500 before.
I’m sending very broad requests fishing for any information since I am really quite clueless having no art background. They have been getting back to me right away, but so far using mainly generic responses.
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So this has been an interesting learning experience. The painting seems to be considered authentic and because there are similar ones, I know that it’s acrylic. The estate did not get back to me. I got their number from a smaller gallery who shows this artist, mostly his totally different later works. I emailed a Swiss auction house, and they only estimated $1400 euro, so it seems like it could be worth more over here. It’s the NYC skyline, so I tried a NY gallery with no response. The big boys said to use a local estate liquidator and I read something online discouraging using Ebay to sell fine art. The value appears to be within $1500 and $3K. Soooo, I think I may hunt for a smaller gallery in New York due to the subject matter. Depending on the commission, I could be better off on Ebay. I’d kind of like to sell it within a month or two to fund my tile.
What say you, scavengers?
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@ChristineR
Maybe just list it at the high number while hunting for a gallery? Ya never know… The Reginald Marsh tempura painting I posted here, I sent emails to Sotheby’s and the other auction house in LA, just auto email responses. I fell down a rabbit hole when looking for authenticators and appraisers. This lady is an appraiser and a broker near me – I post the link just as an example, I don’t know this person. Mike probably knows if working with a broker is a viable option.Keep us posted on the tile quest…;)
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Thanks Big Sally, I don’t really have time to fall down a rabbit hole. I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has dealt with either an online outlet or local type of art liquidator. Maybe that person in Seattle would be interested…doesn’t hurt to check.
I might just go ahead on Ebay if it’s a dead end. This painting is only 11″ square so easy to ship. I’ve never sold something this expensive, so I wonder about how much insurance would cost and how good it would be. :O
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We don’t sell $1000+ item often, but we’ve learned it’s the same as any item. Often the buyers are easier because they’re more sophisticated. They’re not buying casually to try on.
But we were also very nervous our first couple sales over $1000. Seems like so much money. But we have to remember that its all relative. Some people spend $1000 very easily.
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I’m finally listing this painting. I looked online and was cautioned that UPS and FedEx exclude valuable art from their insurance, so I guess I will go with shipsaver. I looked at their website and can’t find the limits for the carriers but the rates are higher for USPS. Anyone have advice? I’m nervous!
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USPS insurance is available for up to $5,000 for Priority Mail and I don’t see anything indicating that art is excluded. You can add the USPS insurance up to the order value when you print the label on eBay and also add signature confirmation if you wish. “Insurance Restricted Delivery” is an additional service available from USPS but I don’t see it on the eBay label page. Signature confirmation and restricted delivery are not required for the insurance, though. See https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-Insurance .
You might want to limit the listing to US buyers since First Class and Priority foreign limits are low, like under $1,000 unless you pay for expensive express shipping to get $2,500 and that’s not to all countries. To get an idea for each mail service and each country, see https://postcalc.usps.com/CountryPriceGroup .
If you want to allow foreign buyers, don’t forget that Shipsaver (capped at $2,500) also has some foreign destinations that are excluded from any coverage. There are some restrictions and special requirements for jewelry and electronics but I don’t see anything about art. Here’s the link: https://www.shipsaver.com/terms/ .
The eBay listing page does not appear to allow the addition of calculated insurance. It appears that sellers that have sold higher value paintings in this size range are either frequently using a flat rate for shipping (like $50 to $85 for domestic and $200 for international) or offering free shipping. The USPS insurance domestically might cost up to like $70 though, for $5,000 worth. The sellers I’m seeing don’t mention signature confirmation but I like to say it in the listing if I’m going to require it.
If it were me, I’d put it up for $5,000 BIN or best offer, with flat fee domestic shipping of $85 and state in the listing that the item will be insured and signature confirmation required. And have only USPS Priority for shipping method. Although I normally allow international buyers from Shipsaver-approved countries, maybe that’s a little too much risk to add in here for your peace of mind.
If you scroll through the sold listings in the art painting subcategory, you’ll see that items in your price range are sold every day. Go for it! And don’t forget to buy the insurance when you print the label after it sells.
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@Temudgin thanks so much. I took your shipping advice. I definitely am not messing with international shipping on this one. Hope it goes ok. I’m launching the action today!
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