Fifties Frenzy: Dealers are scrambling to find aging artists, or their desperate widows, with works that have a 1950s date. Right now this is the area where quality is immaterial if the date if right. The period is viewed as historically significant and yet it is distant enough that it is regarded as a safe investment. Some of the most tired images, fourth even fifth-rate when they were painted, are now installed on gallery walls. The noise of Chelsea scares some and they retreat into the reservoir of poor quality art of the post-war period. There is no doubt that some artists may be seduced to redate their stores of works and that dealers are scouring to harvest as many of these works as possible. One was sighted in a local West Side thrift store going through the paintings and checking the dates. It's all gravy. I predict that the period of bad historical art will balloon as this phenomenon moves into the Sixties in a few years. Get ready for the deluge of psychedelic junk. What's fun is to see the way that the machinery of packaging alters for the marketing goal. And, there are always people to cover it with what Fitzgerald called "a blanket of prose." It reminds us that the number of serious and studious collectors who have an eye and are immune to the packaging apparatus probably remains constant. These are the rare ones who really look and are less interested in the buying experience, than connecting with the implicit vision of the artist. They are a rarity and are the ones whom an artist treasures. They complete the cycle of the work. Highly recommended: Orson Welles, F is for Fake, a brilliant examination of the duplicity of the market and ideas of what is real. It was his last completed film. You can get if from Netflix along with a documentary on its making. Above Left: detail from a Manuscript, 2005-6, gouache with transfer on paper, 15" x 11" painted by me. I promise. See others at Redmond Paper.