A Word Please: Conversations With 24 Authors

by Darcia Helle

  Our conversation:

  How did the two of you first get involved with art hunting?

  Actually, we started buying art on our honeymoon in 1968! We stayed at a nice hotel in upstate New York when someone told us about a local art auction, which sounded exciting. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we had just received some wedding gifts. It was enough to buy a few inexpensive paintings and lithographs in very attractive frames. In time, we learned that the frames were worth more than the art. The lithographs were by famous artists like Mark Chagall. But while Chagall’s originals are worth millions, most of his lithographs are only worth $10 to $100. This was the beginning of a life-long quest to understand the value of art. We are self-taught art experts.

  According to your research, an estimated 50 million valuable paintings are out there waiting to be discovered. In your opinion, how did all these valuable paintings get overlooked for such a long time?

  Most valuable paintings “in private hands” were inherited from people who bought them from the original artists, or from galleries, at very reasonable prices many years ago. While the best paintings in the world (Monet, Picasso, Rockwell, etc.) are in museums and billionaire art collections, millions of lesser works by famous or semi-famous artists are still hanging on the walls of people who like them but who often have no idea of their true value. When someone leaves art to their children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews, surprisingly it isn’t always appraised professionally. As described in the chapter titled “Art Just Around The Corner” in The Art Hunters Handbook, a woman who worked as a seamstress for a wealthy New York family gave two valuable 19th century paintings by the famous American “Hudson River School” artist Jasper Cropsey to her family, which she had apparently received as a gift from her employer. For decades, the paintings were believed to be reproductions and the family almost used them as a dart board before discovering the truth, and selling them at auction for $840,000! In addition to the 50 million valuable paintings waiting for art hunters to find them, there are probably 50 billion pieces of junk! Many people can’t tell the difference, especially with modern art.

  One of the things you point out in your book is that the value or art doesn’t have anything to do with its beauty or appeal. Instead, the value depends on the artist’s fame. I’ve always been curious about this. What brings fame to one artist, while another, whose work might be more appealing to the majority, never reaches the same stature?

  Fame is hard to explain, not only in art but in music, literature, sports and Hollywood as well. But there is something very original and distinctive about the work of famous artists, even modernists like Mark Rothko who painted gigantic rectangles now worth up to $70 million apiece, and Jackson Pollock, whose “drip paintings” sometimes appear to be the creation of a child or a chimpanzee! Famous artists all have a “voice” that sets them apart from others. You may not like the voice of some artists, but when knowledgeable art critics, museums, prestigious art galleries and other connoisseurs put their stamp of approval on an artist, he or she will become famous. That is no easy task. True, you don’t automatically become famous by painting “pretty pictures” like Thomas Kinkade, and an artist doesn’t become famous just because he dies. It’s a lifetime process. Most famous artists were taught by other famous artists, they attended important art schools, they showed their paintings at hundreds of public exhibitions, they had a vision, they were obsessed, they were dramatically different, and they often struggled for 10 to 40 years before achieving serious recognition. Ironically, Vicent Van Gogh, one of the most famous artists of all time, did not receive fame or even commercial success during his brief lifetime of only 37 years. This is because he was the first “Expressionist”, which describes an artist who paints what he feels, not just what he sees. Even the French Impressionists, who had just broken away from the traditional Barbizon / Realism art genre, did not understand or accept Van Gogh’s new voice and great talent. They said he was ruining Impressionism. In fact, he was transforming Impressionism into Modernism which now embraces every style of art.

  Of the artists included in your book, do you have a favorite?

  Our favorite artist is Fern Coppedge, the only female member of the “Pennsylvania Impressionists” group (or the New Hope School) led by Daniel Garber and Edward Redfield, All three artists are showcased in The Art Hunters Handbook, and can be seen at The Michener Museum in Doylestown, PA. Fern was a prolific artist who painted seasonal landscapes, including phenomenal winter scenes along the Delaware River and primarily in Bucks County. She also painted very nice harbor scenes in Gloucester, Massachusetts. She did not paint portraits, and people almost never appear in her outdoor scenes. Like Van Gogh, Coppedge took the liberty of painting what she felt and frequently altered the colors of her landscapes to suit her inner self. Her paintings generally keep to the standard of Impressionism, but they are stylized in a way that none of the other Bucks County artists did. We own two painting by Fern Coppedge, one from the 1930′s and one from “New Year’s Day, 1949″ (dated in fountain pen on the stretcher). They’re worth $50,000 to $100,000 apiece, and we bring them to art events and book signings to show people what can still be found. Both paintings were found in attics, one in Florida in 2009, the other in Pennsylvania in 2004.

  Is there one state or area of the country where these undiscovered gems turn up for often, or are more likely to be found?

  Although valuable paintings literally turn up everywhere, a higher percentage seem to be found in Florida, the Carolinas and the southern states. Maybe because when people retire, they bring their stuff with them. Surprisingly, we are offered a lot of art from people in Minnesota and California, as well as New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Because people move a lot, family treasures get scattered about the country. If someone is thinking of taking a cross-country road trip they could probably recover the cost of the trip by visiting flea markets, garage sales and antiques shops along the way, accompanied by our book, a computer and a cell phone!

  What is your favorite piece of art that you’ve found yourself, and where did you find it?

  We bought a 30″ x 36″ oil painting by the Indiana Impressionist Edward K. Williams on eBay about 8 years ago. It’s dated 1922, and it was either painted on a farm in Wisconsin or Indiana. Williams was in the process of moving east at the time and there is no documentation as to exactly where this beautiful painting was done. The painting surfaced in Chicago, where someone had apparently nailed it to the wall as a decoration for many years. Fortunately, the small nail holes were very close to the edge of the canvas and were covered by the frame. Other than this slight mistreatment of Williams’ earliest known masterpiece, the painting was fresh and original. The eBay auction enjoyed competitive bidding from several serious Indiana collectors, and we had to pay $35,000 for the painting. A similar painting (which we don’t think is as nice) is shown in our book. It was sold in an Indiana auction in 2005 for $70,000.

  Tell us about the Art Auction Partnership.

  We began our “Art Auction Partnership” program in 2006 when we realized that people with valuable art for sale had only two choices: (1) Sell to a dealer for a fixed price, where the dealer kept the entire profit, or (2) Sell at auction, which takes 3-6 months with no guarantee of what the price will be, or if your painting will even sell. So we came up with a creative alternative: Sell to us for a fair price based on previous auction sales, then we put the painting up at auction and share the profit 50-50 with the original owner. For example, if we think a painting is likely to bring $25,000, we might buy it for $15,000 to $20,000 plus half the auction profit. The price we pay up front is a guaranteed minimum, and we pay as much as any other dealer would pay. But we are the only dealers, or as we call ourselves, art auction brokers, who will share our profit with the original owner. Because we sometimes lose money at auction, we are very selective in the paintings we choose for this program. We don’t buy paintings worth less than $3-$5,000, and we try to choose paintings
with “eye appeal” or historical perspective in the hope that this will translate to strong competition at auction, which is what drives prices up. By the way, we are happy to appraise paintings for people at no charge if they send us good digital photos of both sides of the paintings, the artist’s name and the size. We only appraise original paintings, not prints or reproductions, by artists with public auction records. All of this is explained in great detail in our book. (Note: The 120 artists in our book are not necessarily easy to find. But they clearly illustrate why you shouldn’t judge a book, or a painting, by its cover! We can research an online database of 240,000 artists with 5,000,000 auction records to determine current market values.)

  You’ve written several books on the art of collecting, including The U.S. Rare Coin Handbook (which my husband has) and The Beanie Baby Handbook. Are there ways to tell at the start when a certain toy or product will become a collectible?

  To be honest, it’s hard to tell when something like Beanie Babies will become a national obsession. In April, 1997, when we published the first edition of The Beanie Baby Handbook, the toy had been around for three or four years. Beanie Babies didn’t become a huge phenomenon until “Lefty” and “Righty” became the hot collectibles of the 1996 Democratic convention. At that point, the manufacturer, Ty, Inc. decided to start “retiring” Beanie Babies, which created “limited editions” instead of an unlimited open production run. A woman in Chicago named Peggy Gallagher published the first book about Beanie Babies, titled “The Beanie Baby Phenomenon” which was an instant success. We published the second book, and the most successful. The Beanie Baby Handbook became the # 2 New York Times bestseller for 6 months, selling 4,000,000 copies. This allowed us to develop our Art Auction Partnership business. It would be nice to know what little-known toy or product will become a huge collectible. Rare coins and high quality art are staples. They will always enjoy a large collecting base, from modest prices to millions of dollars. So we just stick with the winners!

  Les and Sue Fox on Amazon

  You can learn more about Les and Sue Fox, and their world of art, on their website: https://www.AmericanArtAdvisor.com

  Web of Lies by Sarah Tate

  Web of Lies takes you on an emotional roller-coaster, experienced through the eyes of Sarah Tate, an intelligent, young newcomer to Switzerland who is swept off her feet by an older, more experienced company manager. Within weeks of their meeting, Bill impresses her with a courtship vastly unusual in modern times. He lures Sarah with his intellect along with numerous gifts, expensive restaurants, and trips to luxury hotels. Sarah, who is searching for not only love but security, quickly finds herself falling for the worldly but sensitive and caring man Bill represents himself to be. In Web of Lies, she describes the highs and the lows of what it is like to be involved with a person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), how to come to terms with the abuse, and most importantly, how to escape.

  Our conversation:

  What made you decide to write your story and share it with the world?

  I knew from the very beginning that I had an important story to tell. Many of my friends and family encouraged me to get the whole experience down on paper whilst it was still fresh in my mind. Once I began researching the psychology behind what had happened, I was struck by how few ‘real life case histories’ are out there for public consumption. I wanted to write a book that was not only a gripping read, but could also be used as a tool to help others who have suffered in a similar situation. My motivation in writing Web of Lies was to help others (both men and women) to spot the red flags, by seeing these traits being played out in an everyday situation. I also wanted give the readers hope that there is a way back from it.

  A big part of your struggle seemed to be getting past your own guilt. You felt responsible for much of the problems in your relationship, which I think is all too common with women. Looking back, why do you think it was so much easier to blame yourself, rather than see your husband for what he was?

  Not only is guilt a common problem for most women, invoking feelings of guilt is also a huge part of the Modus Operandi of the psychopath. It wasn’t really a question of it being ‘easier’ to blame myself, it was a question of being manipulated into genuinely believing that I was the one who was failing in the marriage. This is all too common in these situations, and I’ve heard from countless women and men who all had a ‘lightbulb’ moment whilst reading the book, realizing that they too were blaming themselves instead of recognizing that they were being manipulated. It’s very easy with hindsight to spot the red flags and glaring lies, but when the person concerned is a practiced pathological liar, they can easily pull the wool over your eyes. I’ve written articles about this on my blog and websites. I feel that an important part of the process of recovery is to recognize which of your own character traits left you open for manipulation or exploitation by the NPD/APD. A narcissist/sociopath/psychopath cannot sustain a relationship unless the partner provides a source of supply. Once you have recognized that you are the supply, you’re half way to making the break.

  At the end of your book, you state, “The key to successful recovery lies in the letting go.” Have you been able to let go?

  I won’t pretend it’s easy to let go, especially when you have to live day to day with the fallout of the toxic relationship. Getting out of the situation is only the very beginning. Recovery is a process which can take many years. I wasted a great deal of energy on self-recrimination; you can read about that in the book. I no longer feel those emotions. I have recognized my mistakes and I’ve accepted them. I have also recognized his character traits, and accepted them too. There is no longer any blame. This is what I refer to as ‘letting go’.

  How are your children coping with their father’s absence?

  Children are amazing and incredibly resilient. I took great care from the very beginning to get the best advice to enable me to support them through what was initially a grieving process.

  All children require to thrive is love and security. As long as they have your attention, and feel loved, they are happy. Mine no longer ask about why their father left. They have accepted that it was what he needed to do. They were incredibly young when he left and they have now spent longer without him than they did with him. They still mention him from time to time, but he has become a figure from the past.

  As they grow, they will no doubt want to learn more, and I will always remain honest and open with them about what happened and why I made the decisions I did.

  Narcissism is just one of many personality disorders. Often, a person will have a combination of two or more. Now that you’ve escaped the situation and can look back on things clearly, what signs do you wish you’d seen earlier? Are there personality traits that stand out as things to avoid?

  There are several levels of narcissism and not all of them are dangerous. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is when narcissism becomes pathological. It is one of the Cluster B variety of disorders, grouped together with APD (Antisocial Personality Disorder….ie. a sociopath/psychopath), Borderline Personality Disorder & Histrionic Personality Disorder. This cluster of disorders almost always has co-morbidity with other disorders in the group.

  NPD and APD are closely related. I think it’s safe to say that whilst not all narcissists are psychopaths, ALL psychopaths are narcissists.

  Looking back, I wish I’d spotted the superficial aspects of Bill’s character much sooner. I was unable to spot many of the red flags because I was ignorant to the personality disorders being displayed. The only way to recognize these traits it to learn what to spot:

  Elevated sense of self importance

  Over exaggeration of personal achievements

  Disregard for the feelings/achievements of others

  Inability to empathize

  Superficial charm

  Do you have advice for women who feel they might be married to or involved with a narcissist?

  If you can, get out. Cut off th
e supply. There is no cure for pathological narcissism and psychopathy. Try to talk to somebody about what you’re experiencing. There is a wealth of information available on line, and also many fantastic support fora. Sharing your experience with others makes you feel less alone and more able to face up to what is happening.