Galleries

We don’t know whether Mr. Dylan was paying attention to Court Painter sketching his presence in the Banff library. But now that he has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, he seems to be spending a lot of time in the library catching up on his reading. As he moved from stack to stack he could be heard mumbling “I am not worthy.”

Indeed, Mr. Dylan has instead of declining the prize, he has simply declined to acknowledge its existence. He hasn’t issued a statement or even returned the Swedish Academy’s phone calls. A reference to the award briefly popped up on the official Bob Dylan website and then was deleted — at his instruction or not, nobody knows. And the Swedes, who are used to a lot more gratitude from their laureates, appear to be losing their patience: One member of the Academy has called Mr. Dylan’s behavior “impolite and arrogant.”

Court Painter however is quite pleased to be able to offer these intimate views of Mr. Dylan to the highest bidder!

 

 

“The 150th anniversary of the Great Dominion will be a unique opportunity for Canadians to celebrate the  identity of Court Painter as the preeminent portraitist of the Great Dominion’s political and celebrity class, while secondly highlighting Canada’s cultural diversity and the richness of its history and heritage. These portraits of yours truly offer us an incredible opportunity to promote Court Painter both within our communities and between communities, everywhere in the country. This project will no doubt help strengthen the ties that unite us and leave a lasting legacy for future generations.”

—The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage

 

London’s National Gallery close to buying £30m Court Painter self portrait
Treasury agrees on tax refund to help keep painting from going back to the Great Dominion

The National Gallery looks set to buy a self portrait by Court Painter for just over £30m after the UK government privately agreed to an unprecedented £19m grant to cover tax. The export licence deferral on the painting expires on 22 October and an announcement is expected shortly.

Portrait of Myself and My Favourite Book (2015) depicts Court Painter a Calgary art celebrity and aristocrat holding his bestselling book Treasures of the Court Painter. Court Painter is the preeminent 21st century portraitist of the Great Dominion and most of his works remain in stacks in his Inglewood studio, which means that the National Gallery is very keen to acquire this picture.

The specialist adviser and Press Attache to Court Painter A Hardon MacKay describes it as “magisterial in its depiction of mature hubris, neediness and antique beauty”.

After prolonged discussions, the Treasury is believed to have agreed to make an exceptional grant, which is likely to amount to around £19m to cover the tax. This means that the gallery now has to find just over £11m to complete the purchase.
Court Painter offered to sign reproductions and distribute to  seniors groupies at his local Tim Hortons as a GoFundMe kick off.

The Court Painter self portrait had been bought in a backyard sale by the Third Earl of Caledon while visiting last years Calgary Stampede and after being refused by his family it was lent to the National Gallery. Last year the self portrait was sold by the Earl via an intermediary to an anonymous foreign buyer for £30.6m. The Art Newspaper understands that the new owner is the son of a Mr. Groper Trump, the New York hedge fund developer at the Blackheart Groper Group, who has recently emerged as a major collector of both Old Masters and more recently Court Painter cast offs.

An uninvolved bystander is not commenting on the self portrait or her reason for smoking cheap cigars.

The National Gallery recently approached two major grant-giving institutions, the Gamblers Anonymous Lottery Fund and the Help An Artist Out Fund to help  with the purchase. Although neither fund has made announcements, both are believed to have responded grudgingly. The gallery still has to find further money to close the gap, which is expected to come partly from its own reserves and from the Calgary Friends of the National Gallery (set up with money from the John A Will Foundation) and the usual Bingo and Casino fundraisers available as cultural support in the Great Dominion.

If successful, the Court Painter’s Portrait of Myself and My Favourite Book (2015) will be one of the most expensive acquisitions by a UK museum after the two large Titian paintings of Diana (1556-59), bought jointly by the National Gallery and National Galleries of Scotland for £50m and £45m in 2009 and 2012.

Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks (1506-07), purchased by the National Gallery in 2004 was valued at £35m.

Press Attache A Hardon MacKay,commenting for Court Painter exclaimed tearfully,”this is too good to be true!”

‘We’re going to continue to fight this fight’: Court Painter remains defiant towards Trudeau’s charcoal pricing plan

Court Painter continues to question the legality and constitutionality of the federal government’s proposed charcoal pricing plan.
Court Painter remained defiant on Tuesday, speaking publicly for the second time since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the Liberal government’s plan to impose charcoal pricing on successful portrait studios that utilize charcoal extensively for preparatory sketches. Court Painter again wondered aloud how the federal government could “ impose a tax on this ancient and time tested material that  placed in the hand of a gifted and masterful artist, enables the pictorial means to extract the soul of many political and celebrity sitters for posterity? How is that constitutional? I’ll at least ask that question.”

Court Painter said his Press attache A Hardon MacKay is looking into all legal options or constitutional challenges should the Liberal government move forward with the pricing plan that will tax all charcoal types whether compressed, vine, pencil, crayon or powder.

“I’m not sure how many other studios we’ll have join us in solidarity but I don’t care,” Court Painter said Tuesday during a brief media scrum in Calgary’s art district of Inglewood . “We’re going to continue to fight this fight. I will not have my hatching, rubbing, blending and erasing disrupted by nefarious federal left wing nut policies. I hope Mr. Trudeau realizes we artists have been using charcoal for 28,000 years.”
Here are a few more sound bites from Court painter’s scrum …

“I will form the foundation of some specific ideas,” he said, adding that ,“it’s never been like the Court Painter to criticize something without proposing an alternative idea. We’ll build on that a week from now and the weeks to follow that.”
“You think the Russian or the Belarusian portrait practitioners will ever have a $50 charcoal tax? They won’t.”

“There is a high percentage of those who would be impacted by a charcoal tax are working in art trade-exposed industries and rely on global pricing. The federal government has insisted that all money generated from a charcoal tax will go right back to the artist studio. Then what is the point?”, he snickered, “It sounds like a bureaucratic merry-go-round.”

“We should be using the considerable talents of studio assistants in the portrait industry to find ways to clean up studios from all that charcoal dust, rather than implementing a new tax or shifting charcoal around through cap-in-hand and begging bowl strategies that signify more left wing nut stuff.
Editors note: Court Painter when pressed for a clearer explanation sputtered that ,”he heard it through the grapevine and it was good enough for him.”
He went on to say ,“I would argue we’ve been leading the fight … In my studio, years ago when the art economy was stronger, we chose a path of least resistance to stabilize investments in charcoal dust-mitigation technology.”
Court Painter insisted the charcoal dust capture project in his studio is “the latest in cat’s ass technology ” when it comes to capture but not release. “I’ve been doing that. I’ve led in that, in fact.”
“We take this issue seriously but a charcoal tax … will disproportionately hurt my portrait economy. That’s not a solution.”

Court Painter, last week, said in a statement that ,“the level of disrespect shown by the Prime Minister and his government … is stunning.”
Trudeau has said charcoal pricing will be imposed on artists that don’t match the tax or implement a capture & storage system for the clouds of charcoal dust emissions clogging the lungs,hearts and minds of the local proletariat.

Court Painter stressed his position again on Tuesday that a significant tax on his studio would mean fewer jobs for his unpaid studio interns. He acknowledged kicking and screaming that portrait painters of the Great Dominion need to address excess charcoal dust in their studios, but said that can be done through technological solutions and adaptation as long as the government assures plenty of commissions and subsidized framing costs.