Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.
Benjamin Franklin

Who Decides What Art is Investment Art and what is not?

The official definition is the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. Who decides what is beautiful or appealing?

 We all do. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I feel that art is the same. We each have different ideas of what is beautiful or appealing. Abstract art is just that, abstract. No real definition or subject to it, just what the artist felt was meant to be together. It may be the only true realm of the visual artist.

 Angelina Hawley-Dolan and Ellen Winner wanted to test the assertion that  abstract expressionist art is devoid of talent – that it could be done by a mere child, or even an animal. To find out, Hawley-Dolan and Winner asked 32 art students and 40 psychology students to compare pairs of paintings. One piece of each pair was the work of a recognised artist, such as Kline, Rothko, Cy Twombly, Gillian Ayre, and more. The other came from lesser-known painters, including preschool children, elephants, chimps, gorillas and monkeys. The paintings were matched according to colour, line quality, brushstroke and medium; the students had to say which they preferred and which was better.

Both groups of students preferred the professional pieces to the amateur ones, and judged them to be superior. Even the psychology students, who had no background in art education, felt the same way, although as you might expect, their preference for the professional works was slightly weaker.Throughout the experiments, the students typically picked the professional pieces between 60% and 70% of the time. These aren’t overwhelming majorities, but they were statistically significant. On average, a child could not “paint that”, even if first glances might suggest otherwise. Nor are the qualities of the abstract art only visible to people steeped in the art world – even untrained people responded to the paintings in some way.

Hawley-Dolan and Winner also found that it didn’t matter if the students were duped into thinking that the paintings came from the wrong “artist”, the students still preferred the actual professional painting. The labels only swayed the decisions of the psychology students – they were more likely to judge the professional paintings more positively if they were correctly labeled (but not more harshly if the labels were swapped). 

Hal Borland

Henry Taylor has been in the fine art business for over 30 years now, and is considered a master in the investment field.  We get offered 100s of artworks monthly, but Henry is extremely selective about the art that deals in, mainly to ensure that our Clients investments appreciate in value.  If you require any information on buying or selling South African art, please contact us the Art Masters.

Edith Lovejoy Pierce

As another year draws to an end, and we sit back and reminisce about what a year we have had, I am sure you will agree that top of mind has to be the state of the world economy.  It really threw us all a few curve balls during 2011, didn't it?  I have a strong belief that a large portion of the world's issues are sentiment! Sentiment is actually caused by people talking, whether positive or negative. 

 I really feel that the negative sentiment creates more uncertainty than may be necessary!  I say we try our best to be optimistic, and believe that 2012 is going to be a fantastic year!  I will leave you to think about that, and as this, and the many other memory's and theories of 2011 start to fade to a distant memory, let me be the first to join with you in saying Good Bye to yet another year.

The management and staff of The Henry Taylor Gallery would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to you for the support you have giving us during this year.  We are very grateful and remind you that we see our relationship as a partnership, and trust that we can further strengthen our mutually successful business relationship.  

Before you act, listen.

Before you react, think.

Before you spend, earn.

Before you criticize, wait.

Before you pray, forgive

Before you quit, try

The Gallery will not be closing over the Festive Season, and will be trading 7 days a week, as usual.  Every Friday evening in December, there will be a night market held at Cedar Square, please pop into the Gallery for a browse or a chat.

-David Joseph Schwartz

 Fuz Caforio

Fabrizio Caforio, or "Fuz" as he prefers to be called, was born from Italian parentage in Johannesburg, South Africa. From his home in Africa, close to the creatures of nature that grace his art, he can trace his creative roots to Florence, Italy, where his Great Grandfather was a sculptor. Recognizing his artistic gift from a young age, Fuz has been painting for more than half of his life.

Fuz has devoted the last nine years of his career to the study of large cats, refining technique and style to capture these magnificent felines on canvas. The exquisite detail and life-like quality of his art comes from painstaking research. Much time is spent in the wild bush and at breeding research stations collecting the necessary reference before he goes into the studio to paint.

Fuz Caforio's style can be described as painterly realism, the medium being acrylic on canvas, and the studies done in true life size. He has refined his skill and technique over the years to a point where fur patterns and textures are vividly and authentically reproduced.

Through his work, Fuz has helped to raise funds for many non-governmental conservation organisations. These include: The WWF, The Endangered Wildlife Trust, The Honorary Rangers of South Africa, Birdlife South Africa, DeWildt Cheetah Research, The Endangered Species Protection Unit, the Born Free Foundation and the Nedbank Green Trust   

-Stephen R. Covey

 Wessel Marais

Born in Magaliesberg in 1935, Wessel Marais is the son of Postmaster who grew up on a plot in Welverdient near Potchefstroom among the white, pink and crimson cosmos.  Wessel says of his father, “My father was a kind of artist, a poet from whom I seem to have inherited my urge to create”. The artist’s earliest recollections of art are with a friend named Simon who introduced him to drawing with sticks in the sand, most of this drawing were of upside down trains.

Upon the completion of his schooling, Wessel recalls that art was not an economically sound career to pursue, nor was his ambition to become a pilot practical and achievable. Hence, he followed his father’s footsteps to the post office.  The post office with its rigid nine to five hours soon took its toil and bored him, and when the opportunity to study commercial art after hours arose he took it. 

Soon after, Wessel left the post office and began working in a shop and painting after hours. He took lessons from Zakkie Eloff, learning how to paint portraits in pastel and oil, and drew inspiration from Erich Meyer’s landscapes and the masters of French impressionism. Encouraged by his success, the family man who had settled in Pretoria exchanged his sheltered job for the life of a painter under the support of his wife Christine.

Wessel had his first exhibition in Potchefstroom, followed by others in Johannesburg, Cape Town and at the Schweickerdt Gallery in Pretoria. His studies: landscapes, city scenes, flower studies, still lives, Cape scenes with children playing in gay abandon, have become sought-after collectors’ items throughout South Africa.

Wessel believes that a skilled artist must be able to interpret any subject matter successfully on canvas. His personal preferences are to portray everyday scenes with an innate playful and poetic intuition. His ability to portray the captivating play of light and shadowing vibrant colours is a gift which is highly appreciated by many of his admirers. Wessel Marais passed away in April 2009 but his memory lives on in his oil paintings of landscapes and his portrayal of everyday scenes in a poetic manner.