Tales of artists being taken advantage of abound, as do stories of artist's work being copied. Here's a true example of both:
The Good: Take a quaint tourist town, a gallery owner and an artist. Things initially go well.
The Bad:Then the gallery owner starts stalling payments to the artist, his rent falls into arrears etc. Enter the sherrif of the court who seizes the gallery and its consigned contents. The artists are unable to retrieve their works, which get auctioned off to reimburse the landlord. Fleeing debt and disgrace, the gallery owner dissapears to a foreign country.
The Ugly: A few years later a new, flashy gallery opens in the same town, the owner (now bouyant it is said from family $$), being the self same badass. Only there is now a twist:- he is the artist as well as the gallery owner. His 'inspiration' none other than the artist whose work he had previously hung. This is not just 'similarity' but straight ripp-offs, however not being an artist, his lack of skill does embarrasingly come through to even the vaguely skilled eye. (Unfortunately it must be said vaguely skilled eyes are not always common in the general public.) The true artist does not have the funds to sue (as is the case with most artists), so our parasitic pal continues his practice. Given the art though, I doubt it will be for long - such people have a way of parting with their money.
As an aside, neither party is known personally to me, was just one of the worst cases of artistic abuse I've come across.
The Good: Take a quaint tourist town, a gallery owner and an artist. Things initially go well.
The Bad:Then the gallery owner starts stalling payments to the artist, his rent falls into arrears etc. Enter the sherrif of the court who seizes the gallery and its consigned contents. The artists are unable to retrieve their works, which get auctioned off to reimburse the landlord. Fleeing debt and disgrace, the gallery owner dissapears to a foreign country.
The Ugly: A few years later a new, flashy gallery opens in the same town, the owner (now bouyant it is said from family $$), being the self same badass. Only there is now a twist:- he is the artist as well as the gallery owner. His 'inspiration' none other than the artist whose work he had previously hung. This is not just 'similarity' but straight ripp-offs, however not being an artist, his lack of skill does embarrasingly come through to even the vaguely skilled eye. (Unfortunately it must be said vaguely skilled eyes are not always common in the general public.) The true artist does not have the funds to sue (as is the case with most artists), so our parasitic pal continues his practice. Given the art though, I doubt it will be for long - such people have a way of parting with their money.
As an aside, neither party is known personally to me, was just one of the worst cases of artistic abuse I've come across.
