Jeppe Curth: 0:00

Hi and welcome to the Collector's Edge from Nordic Art Partners. In today's episode, we will explore the work of Ron Gorchov, a pioneer figure in abstract art known for his unique approach to shape canvases. Joining me, as always, is our art expert, icholas Robinson. I'm your host, jeppe Kort. Let's get started. It is with Alex Rotter at 400 million Selling here at Christie's. $400 million is the bid and the piece is sold.

Nicholas Robinson: 0:30

We've all heard about it. Sometimes it's front page news Important works of art are being sold for incredible sums of money. But can you get involved and become a part of the exclusive club yourself, and how do you get started while avoiding buying the wrong things? That's exactly what this podcast is about. This is the Collector's Edge from Nordic Art Partners, a podcast for those of you interested in the mechanics of the art industry, want advice about putting money into art, or simply want to buy something for your walls, to beautify your surroundings. Whatever your objectives, it is possible to put money into art wisely, to be considered thoughtful and well-informed in your choices and actions. Welcome to the art of collecting with an eye for curated beauty and practical value.

Jeppe Curth: 1:26

Hi Nick. Hi, good morning Jeppe. Hi Nick, hi, good morning Jeppe. Hi, good morning. Was that the coffee on the table there? Yes, yes, of course that's also allowed in the morning. So today we're going to talk about Ron Gorchov, an artist you actually work with in New York, together with Vitus Navo.

Nicholas Robinson: 1:44

Correct artist you actually work with in new york, together with the videos now correct, um ron gorchov. Yes, a very important modernist artist. Um new york artist whose work I'm very familiar with and been very involved with for 20 years more or less.

Jeppe Curth: 2:00

Yeah, so I guess today is really insider knowledge about his early days. Do you, do you actually remember?

Nicholas Robinson: 2:08

I wasn't. I wasn't alive during his early days, but thank you no worries.

Jeppe Curth: 2:12

Do you actually remember what? When you had the exhibition with him?

Nicholas Robinson: 2:18

yeah, I remember very well when was that it was in New York, in, I think it was 2008. Correct, correct. I looked it up.

Jeppe Curth: 2:30

Ah, okay, and from where? From October to December in 2008.

Nicholas Robinson: 2:35

Well, that I couldn't tell you no.

Jeppe Curth: 2:37

And do you know what I? The fun part, the reason I looked it up was just to see how, when you did the exhibition, do you know what I did in the meantime?

Nicholas Robinson: 2:47

at the same time, no.

Jeppe Curth: 2:49

I played at Old Trafford oh at the same time, you had this.

Nicholas Robinson: 2:54

That's right that's when you scored that goal at Old Trafford. That header from the corner of the 18 yard box let's not go there.

Jeppe Curth: 3:02

That's what I mentioned. It was just that. Actually, that was what I was doing. At the same time, you showed how funny divergent paths and converging paths yeah, I guess. So well, let's go back. Let's go back to Ron. Can you, as always, walk us through his journey as an artist?

Nicholas Robinson: 3:28

Sure, ron was born in 1930 in Chicago, illinois. He, in various interviews, had a recollection of his mother being interested in art when he was a child and her having made art, of his mother being interested in art when he was a child and, um, her having made art that he was familiar with that had been around there, their home, the environment that he grew up in. So he was, he was always quite interested in art, um, and he showed a skill and affinity for it Um, and in 1944, at the age of 14, he was invited to take Saturday classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. Now the Art Institute of Chicago is obviously a major museum in the United States with one of the great permanent public collections, but it also has a school, a very well regarded um sort of historically important art school called the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. So he, he, he was 14 years old, um, and a lot of his classmates, uh, in these Saturday classes were servicemen who were returning from the war, and he remembers being amongst these veterans, one of whom gave him a bag full of art materials saying you know, use these or take this, this will bring you luck. And he always sort of fondly remembered that In the later 1940s he went to the University of Mississippi, after which he returned to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and then the University of Illinois, from which he finally graduated in 1951.

Nicholas Robinson: 5:22

So he was, you know, intending, determining to be a career artist, and in 1953, he moved with his, his wife and his, his three month old son Michael, to New York. He had $80 to his name and he was determined to head to the bright lights of New York to make his way as an artist. But of course they had to live and survive, and $80, even back then, presumably didn't go so far. So he painted, mostly at night, and earned a living working as a lifeguard and a swimming instructor. So that was his early background, shall we say.

Jeppe Curth: 6:06

Can you tell us a bit more about his works?

Nicholas Robinson: 6:10

The kind of work that Ron became most known for, and the type of work that his reputation today is founded upon, is not something that he just started to do. It's not something that he just started to do. There's an entire decade of production, development, showing, exhibiting various career milestones that take place before he kind of hits his mature signature achievement achievement. So, uh, I suppose we should cover some of that to understand the trajectory of his working life of course okay.

Nicholas Robinson: 6:55

So in 19, in the late 1950s, he was around the some of the leading figures in the sort of downtown art movement. He was quite influenced and a little bit mentored by an artist called John Graham who had been significant in the careers of a number of very important abstract expressionists, jackson Pollock primarily amongst them. Abstract expressionists Jackson Pollock, primarily amongst them. But in the late 1950s and in in in the early 1960s his work consisted of a sort of post abstract expressionist kind of painting. He called it abstract surrealism, which actually is sort of related to some of the earlier works that maybe we associate with artists like Pollock and Rothko who, before they evolved their signature style, also were a little influenced by the sort of expressive possibilities of painting in this slightly sort of surrealist idiom. And at this juncture his works were also just painted on, you know, a conventional rectangular canvas like most artists were using. So this was his work. It was not, it was accomplished work and it was well-received, but it was not radically sort of transforming the landscape of what people considered art could be or should be. But in 1960, he was offered his first solo exhibition at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, which was quite important actually because it was one of the very first truly modern art galleries founded in New York in the post-war period and since 1950, it had become quite a significant establishment. It was promoting quite major emerging artists of the day Carl Andre, helen, frankenthaler, larry Rivers, fairfield Porter, larry Rivers, fairfield Porter so really quite significant contributors to the art of the mid-century, amongst many others. But it was also a really significant hub or salon for a wider bohemian avant-garde crowd. It had poetry readings and in fact published poetry, issuing volumes of poems by Frank O'Hara, john Ashbery, both of whom were major figures of this cultural scene at this time. So this was the sort of milieu that he was part, that he was part of, and and this first exhibition that he had in 1960 did did quite well, um, it garnered positive reviews who had kind words to say about his skills, his color, uh, his use of color, um, uh. There was a very uh, um praiseworthy review from from from Dor Ashton, who's a was a very important writer, professor and critic of the time, also the biographer of, of Mark Rothko. So this was his first exhibition and very soon thereafter he had a an institutional breakthrough as well. He was included in a Whitney museum exhibition called Young America 1960, 30 American painters under 36.

Nicholas Robinson: 10:31

And at this time these kinds of survey shows of the, you know, the current emerging scene were very commonly held by museums. Moma used to initiate similar shows that they would then perhaps even tour to Europe. So this was a way that emergent trends were collated and exhibited and he was part of this, which proved to be a sort of a significant achievement for him. So he's working during the 1960s. So he's working during the 1960s, associating actually mostly with senior members of the abstract expressionist circle, including Rothko, who I mentioned, willem de Kooning, arshile Gorky. He became somewhat friendly with these people.

Nicholas Robinson: 11:23

He had two more shows at Tibor Danagi in 63 and 66. But all of these shows consisted of his, you know, conventional rectilinear paintings. Again, nothing radically departing from the kinds of things that people had grown accustomed to seeing and actually you could say slightly anachronistic for the period, because this is a decade that witnessed a sort of a slow sort of reputational diminishment of abstract expressionism. It was becoming replaced by pop art, it was becoming replaced by minimalism, and the abstract trends of the preceding decade had even been sort of evolving into colour field art of Morris Lewis, kenneth Noland. So this very sort of deliberate kind of painting style. Abstract painting style was perhaps even somewhat old-fashioned at this time.

Jeppe Curth: 12:24

Okay, thanks, nick. So that was a bit of his life in the 1960s, but, as you said, that's maybe his early days. What did he get known for, what distinctive style did he have and what do?

Nicholas Robinson: 12:39

we know him from today. Well, during the 1960s he, amongst other artists who also felt similarly, he was becoming, he was becoming dissatisfied with the limitations of painting as he saw these limitations, but he still wasn't prepared to give up on painting. He wasn't interested in going in this sort of minimal, post-minimal, conceptual direction that other artists were pursuing. He was much, very obvious flat, rectangular format that painting had used, of course, for hundreds of years. He found that it was a bit used up or worn out as an idea and he wanted to find a format, a support for painting that was less flat, less hard edged, for painting that was less flat, less hard edged. Um, and and he, he'd considered, you know, a few alternatives to, to, to, to how to structure his canvas. Um, he had experimented with placing a tennis ball behind the canvas in order to affect a uh sort of bulge on the surface that one would see from the front. That would create a certain kind of curvature and change the surface dynamic of the picture plane. And his breakthrough actually came after a conversation with another prominent artist of this decade, an artist called Al Held, who he'd who had already, you know, had a strong friendship with throughout throughout the decade, uh, and both of both, al and Ron, were sort of dubious about this tennis, tennis ball idea. They felt there was sort of something in it nevertheless that they should try and pursue or explore.

Nicholas Robinson: 14:42

Um, there were a number of other artists at this time that that that Ron came to be associated with, who were all exploring the idea of the shaped canvas, the. The first person to really do this in in the 1960s, or the first people were, um, frank Stella, ellsworth, kelly and, uh, richard Tuttle and these andtle and Ron. After he had his breakthrough, which I will describe in a moment, he also came to be associated with these artists. But anyway, there was actually also a British artist who was working in New York, whose work he had seen, and this artist was actually the most radical innovator of shaped canvases. Uh, um, richard Smith was his name and his, his, his shapes really were, uh, very uh, large, uh, uh, intruded or protruded into the space from the wall in in very dramatic ways that they were very big and very cumbersome and quite complicated in some cases. So Ron was interested and intrigued and somewhat inspired by this, but still unsure how he could, you know, break the monopoly of the normal rectangular painting, the monopoly of the normal rectangular painting.

Nicholas Robinson: 16:06

What he eventually innovated was a canvas, that that curved, or a structure support that curved in two directions simultaneously. It was both sort of concave and convex. Even though it was hung on the wall it kind of curved into the space and had a curved surface and these physically resembled a shield or a saddle, you might say. And this was a very key, key thing. When he realized that he could build them out in these three dimensions, that would give him an altogether new structure. And and the common consensus is that he made his first curve painting in in or about 1967 and was actually made in the studio of mark rothko um. So this was his key breakthrough. So this was the support that he wanted to make his paintings on. It was a painting, but it also had very sculptural properties, and this warping of the surface created new dimensions and depth which in turn would sort of disorient the viewer's perception. And he had a very particular approach to the way he would make the painting he applied.

Nicholas Robinson: 17:24

I should say most of these paintings had two shapes on the surface.

Nicholas Robinson: 17:30

They're abstract paintings with two sort of biomorphic shapes on the surface in the middle, kind of facing off against each other, sometimes thinner, larger, sometimes a little more, you know, a little more character to the shape.

Nicholas Robinson: 17:46

Sometimes just a couple of lines, essentially a couple of blobs, you might call them, and then with a background colour that is not really a solid colour but is sort of lots of thin washes of color which in places have appeared to sort of run down the surface, and the edges of these canvases were very casually sort of stapled around the edge, all of which was very visible.

Nicholas Robinson: 18:11

So you didn't have this very pristine object quality where the canvas was stretched around the back. You had a lot of the fabrication very visible to the viewer. Some critics at the time described this as sort of clumsy, but Ron was just interested in the sort of general non-preciousness of this and was much more interested in the paint that he would apply to the surface. So this is the you know the achievement that he made. You know his paintings, you know, challenged this very strong subjectivity of abstract expressionism and they also kind of challenged this very cold objectivity of minimalism and he was able to create a kind of a balance between form and content and this sort of emotional content and created an entirely new object, a new painted object.

Jeppe Curth: 19:14

If you can make it short, when did you meet Ron and how was he to work with?

Nicholas Robinson: 19:22

I met Ron in the second half of the 2000s. I had shown some artists that were in the same studio complex as him, some artists that were in the same studio complex as him. I knew Vito a little bit through other friends and associates and artists that were, you know, part of the gallery scene, and Vito had been really actively promoting Ron's work for some years. Maybe two or three years prior to this time there had been a show of Ron's work at PS1, which is a major museum in New York, and Vito at that point in time didn't have a permanent space of his own, so he was really just looking for a collaborator. I really can't take any credit at all, no-transcript. So I got to learn about Ron's work and met Ron through Vito and people that had introduced me, other artists that introduced me to Vito.

Jeppe Curth: 20:52

How was his market at that time? Can you say there was a bit of a rediscovering market?

Nicholas Robinson: 20:56

his market was non-existent I mean ron.

Nicholas Robinson: 20:59

Ron was a really wonderful man, warm and gregarious and tremendously knowledgeable and passionate about so many things. But he was also very sort of strident about his own work, like so many artists were, you know, had a strong sense of his own value, um, and and was a little spiky sometimes. You know they were oftentimes he really needed money or you know he had had 20 years. Essentially the eighties and nineties were very barren for him. He had a few shows but nothing really worked out for him uh in this, in this time. So he was used to being very much on the margins and economically not in the best shape. Um, and and and at this time there was no market for his paintings. It was essentially at the beginnings of being created by Vito uh, which you know I helped with um and then you know I helped with and then, you know, his work has gone sort of from strength to strength Subsequently. He's had many exhibitions, but his main period of commercial success was actually in the 1970s. This was after he had sort of broken through with his signature achievement, um, and he, you know, had a number of exhibitions uh, during the seventies in institutions. In 1972, he had a solo show at the Everson museum, uh, which is in Syracuse and that's pretty nice museum. That created a big kind of stir with his show. What he subsequently did with his saddle-shaped canvases, he would make other sort of hybrid sculpture paintings with these shapes, whereby these shapes were configured with other shapes of this type. So he would stack them, he would configure them in sort of doorway-shaped arches and he would make these elaborate physical constructions, almost installations from these canvases, where sort of multiple canvases were put together in various formats. So he showed some of these at Everson In 1976, the museum PS1, which for a long time was a very independent, really cutting edge museum. Now it's been subsumed into MoMA, but in 1976, when it was initiated, they had a famous exhibition called Rooms, where this very raw space was like taken over by the artists to stamp their own work and ideas and personalities on these rooms. And ron showed two of these sort of seminal shaped works there in 76 a work called entrance, which is basically an enormous doorway, uh, like a portal if you like, or a triumphal arch, a modernist triumphal arch, um, and another painting, uh, construction called set. He showed at the Whitney Biennial in 75 and 77. He showed with the Fishback Gallery. There was a fantastic, uh, a woman dealer in Detroit called Suzanne Hilberry. She was super, uh, progressive, she championed lots of great artists and she was like a real, a real artist's gallery and he showed with her several times, going also into the into the early 1980s.

Nicholas Robinson: 24:26

So he had, you know, he had momentum, he had reputation, but, like I say, he was, you know, sometimes perhaps not the easiest person to work with, but, like I say, he was, you know, sometimes perhaps not the easiest person to work with. He would get indignant, he would, you know, kind of maybe get a little bit angry. Sometimes. He did not actually with me, but reputationally. People had said, you know, one of the reasons why his career had not done as well as it had deserved to in the preceding 20 years was that he had made life difficult for himself sometimes with his reputations. Um, I mean he, he was married five times in his life. So so perhaps you know, there were some issues once, once in a while, with enduring relationships, which obviously could also extend to relationships with galleries.

Jeppe Curth: 25:13

Well, maybe sounds like that which galleries have played a key role in representing Ron and which galleries now represent Ron's legacy.

Nicholas Robinson: 25:25

Well, he's had a lot of shows in the last. Well, it's almost 20 years now since the exhibition that I hosted and lots of galleries have sort of picked up the mantle. The key, uh, common thread is Vito. He's been a real devotee who has very loyally and dedicatedly, you know, pursued the support and promotion of Ron's work. He's, he's, a very big believer and advocate in the work and it's, you know's, done an amazing job. Um, so, so Vito has gone from strength to strength and built his own stellar career as a gallerist. He has spaces. He has multiple spaces in New York. He has a wonderful space in St Moritz. He took over the Bruno Bischofberger gallery space in St Moritz. So he's a he's a major gallerist these days and has been building and building up to that for quite some time now.

Nicholas Robinson: 26:20

Ron has had his work shown with Max Hetzler. He's had his work shown with Chime and Read a couple of times in New York. Now Chime and Read is a fantastic gallery, has been for a long time, but they've been sort of scaling back their activities for some years now. Um, they uh have a much smaller space and they used to have they work much more privately than these big public exhibitions that they used to have. Nonetheless, they've been supporters and advocates. Um, he showed his work with uh stewart shave at modern art in lond, which, as many people know, is a tremendous gallery Mauani and Mercier, which is one of the biggest galleries in Belgium these days no-transcript pushing ron's work for quite some years now. Um, I think maybe I've left one or two people out, but that already is a very strong base from which, to you know, build up this reputation in this career again indeed um, if we can talk a little bit about prices, yeah, then ron's auction record is 193 000.

Nicholas Robinson: 27:35

Yeah 200 000. Yeah, yeah, that was a good one. That was last year, I think. 2023, maybe in june, yeah, yeah um.

Jeppe Curth: 27:43

I work from the 80s 80, 81, yeah yeah, what does this tells us and what are the typical primary market prices in his works?

Nicholas Robinson: 27:53

well, well, there is no primary market anymore. He's, he's dead. He died in 2020, so he's not making any more paintings, but there's an estate.

Jeppe Curth: 28:01

Let me reframe that, then the prices that are sold for the galleries.

Nicholas Robinson: 28:05

That okay now have works from him. Okay, well, that's changing because obviously there are no more paintings and even he was 90 years old when he died, so he'd been increasingly scaling back. I mean, some of the stack paintings that he made. He got to a point where he was no longer making those because it was physically too challenging for him to to work on this kind of scale. But, uh, in 2008, when, when, when we had our exhibition, the very, very small paintings were $15,000, I think I recall, and the very large paintings and by that I mean more or less two meters, were $60,000. Now I think a 60, sorry, a two meter painting today from Vito would probably be priced at around $300,000, maybe a bit more than that. So the gallery exhibitions are quite sort of stringent about sticking to a certain price, because of course there's, you know they're obviously incredibly important paintings, but of course they're, you know, there's only so many of them and there's and there's a distinction also a little bit evolving between different kinds of his paintings.

Nicholas Robinson: 29:20

Most of the big prices have been for historic paintings, which is often the case for artists, you know when, when you have important examples of works that were made in and around the time of their breakthrough. They're the most sort of prized ones because they're the. They're the original ones, the first ones. So I've never actually seen a a a shaped canvas work from by Ron from the late sixties, but I've seen some from the early 1970s and I actually don't know what they would cost these days Maybe, maybe privately 400, 350, $400,000, if I would expect that's. That's somewhat accurate. And then and then a lot of the works that that do well and they're in demand are paintings made, let's say, between 76 and 82.

Nicholas Robinson: 30:13

There's a sort of a period where he was prolific and successful and making really strong work. Most of them have these two biomorphic shapes on the surface, sometimes the same color set against a solid color background, sometimes two different colors. But the two different colors is something that came a bit later. And then some of the works from 1980, 81, 82, they have much more of a sort of a swirl on the surface where the biomorphic elements are kind of blended together and the, the composition is much more complicated than the two simple forms set against the ground. Um, but those paintings have a strong following and high prices.

Nicholas Robinson: 30:59

And then the works that he made in the 2000s, when he was able to be prolific again. You know his stretches, these wood, complicated wooden stretches. They cost a lot of money to make and so for a long time he didn't make so much work because it costs more than he could afford to produce work. But when he started achieving success again, from 2005, 2006 onwards he had much more access to money to get materials. So there's a lot of paintings from this period and these are typically characterized by maybe much bolder, brighter background colors and then two different colors of the two elements, the two biomorphic elements. So you get these much more, I don't know, sort of joyous, harmonious color combinations that are actually very sumptuous, three colors that just really sing together on the surface I have been diving a bit into his auction data.

Jeppe Curth: 32:05

Yeah, um, I don't know if that's a surprise to you, but he had you have had a 91 auction results.

Nicholas Robinson: 32:14

Yeah, I'm not surprised?

Jeppe Curth: 32:15

I'm not at all surprised. So not that big amount, but also not a small amount.

Nicholas Robinson: 32:21

That's a decent sample size Because, don't forget, this market has only been possible for him in the last, let's say, 10 years now.

Jeppe Curth: 32:30

Yeah, but if we nail it down to say, okay, we're going to only look at all on canvas works, which is the ones that are interesting, also the ones we have, um, and he sold the first one on auction in 2011. So you're right, um, his compound annual growth rate per centimeters has been 5.10% a year. Okay, so the growth in oxygen over the years. What does this tell us?

Nicholas Robinson: 33:07

You've got growth of 5%, you say, well, that's good and that's solid. Obviously that's pretty much in keeping with, perhaps, what the stock market has done in the last three, four years. That is in keeping with the general expectations for gold. But that's actually a small part of the picture. What you've identified is a as a steadily performing artist at auction. Um, there's a, there's a strong market and it's clearly gone up every year. There's enough of a sample size with these results to say that it's gone up by this percentage every year. But that's, that's a small part of the picture.

Nicholas Robinson: 33:50

You know what the statistics, or what these statistics do not tell us. They don't tell us all of the paintings that have sold, that have traded in private hands in that time. Now the auction record is 200,000 or actually a bit less than. But I know of many deals for larger Gorchov paintings, significant historic paintings, where the price is $300,000, $350,000, $320,000. So if you were to track the price appreciation over time and you would also factor in all of those results, in addition to the ones that are in the public domain, then the results would be better, the percentage appreciation would be better. And the other thing that these statistics do not tell us. They don't tell us any of the specifics about those paintings. Now I've seen many paintings at auction that on the face of it have been quite well-priced, quite an attractive acquisition. But then you know, close scrutiny of that painting and then getting the condition report, et cetera, has revealed, you know, problems. Now if you've got, if you've got a painting which is quite shabby and in poor shape and maybe there's crackalore on the surface, this complicated sort of tautly stretched drum-like surface, you're gonna, you're gonna be reluctant to buy that painting and it's probably not going to perform as well at auction as if it were in perfect or pristine or restored condition. So so you've got a lot of, a lot of lot of sort of hidden information that is germane to these results. That is not part of that 5%. So I obviously feel that he's been a strongly performing artist with lots of growth and and we've followed him, you know, for many reasons, but that's one of them.

Nicholas Robinson: 35:51

Even now, when you look at them they look very radical. They are like nothing that you've ever seen. Your perception is strangely warped by this odd shaped painted object. I mean, there's a quote from Ron. He said I wanted to change the context of painting, because I opposed the ad hoc acceptance of the rectangle, wanting a more intentional form that would create a new kind of visual space. Well, we still look at lots and lots of rectangular canvases and you stand in front of a Gorchov painting and you are, in fact, in a new kind of visual space.

Nicholas Robinson: 36:28

So any market, for any market to evolve, people need to get used to these things.

Nicholas Robinson: 36:34

People need to get used to the fact that they're they're big, they take up a lot of space. They need to get used to the fact that they are challenging in some way. They are very beautiful, but they're not conventionally beautiful, if that makes sense. They're not pretty, they're, they're, they're very assertive. You know the market's going to take time to get used to them, for people who buy them, to get comfortable with them. That's for starters. The second thing is is that people need to sort of see and understand that there's, you know, an enduring quality to these things and the galleries that I mentioned continuing to promote the work. It reinforces the notion that of course, this is a significant thing that's worthy of attention and then, when people keep looking at these exhibitions and maybe understanding more deeply the work, they increasingly understand that this is a significant historic achievement as well. So all of these things play into the notion of a market developing and evolving and maturing as the understanding of the work and the significance of the work deepens amongst the collecting community.

Jeppe Curth: 37:45

Other abstract artists in his generation? Where does Gautier of the market? Valuing cultural impact as you see it right now? Valuing cultural impact as you see it right now.

Nicholas Robinson: 37:52

Well, he's a very singular artist. You know he started painting these works that I mentioned in the 60s, at a time when this kind of painting was less and less in fashion, and then he was working amongst I mean, his paintings are not in the same price ballpark, as you know somebody like Frank Stella. Frank Stella's first shaped canvases, I mean he was making. He was making paintings that deviated from the rectangular format as early as 1960, 61, I think. Now these are still, they're still flat to the wall. They don't have a physicality that Ron's paintings, um, ultimately went on to have, but nonetheless they they definitely um were pioneering, uh, innovation in terms of the pictorial surface, but in many respects he's more of a pioneer than Ron is.

Nicholas Robinson: 38:55

Ron took some of these examples from Stella and developed them. I mean, he's a significant artist in this sort of generation that straddled, like painting, minimalism, conceptualism I mean these are conceptual paintings and he's definitely a pioneer in that regard. Most of his peers, I suppose, who had a greater continuity of career from the late 1960s until today, have had a longer run-up, building up their market and their prices. I don't think Ron is less significant than these people and their works are in many cases more expensive than Ron's work. So I think that Ron probably will. I think the awareness of his work and the appreciation of his work is still has a way to go until it reaches the level that it deserves relative to the level the work of similar peers has attained.

Jeppe Curth: 40:04

So, for someone exploring Ron's work for the first time, what should they look for in terms of style, maybe color composition?

Nicholas Robinson: 40:13

Well, I think that you know my feeling is, if someone's interested in Ron's work, you know, getting like a medium-sized painting, 80 centimeters a meter, from the 2000s, with a really very sumptuous ground color, two very nicely composed surface elements in colors that really work in harmony with the ground color. You know, this sort of very beautiful, harmonious amalgam of all these constituent elements that his, that his works consist of, that that to me it would be the sort of, you know, the consummate Ron Gorchov work to to own and to have. I think you know it's possible to get works like this, for it is possible to find them for like 70, $80,000 euros, um, but it is also possible to find them for like 120, 150,000 euros for similar, for like 120, 150,000 euros for similar. So you know it's something to bear in mind, to hunt around for there are still possible good buyers at auction. We've bought some at auction that we've been very happy to manage to get for we would have been prepared to pay higher prices than what we actually had to pay. So that's been been been nice, um, but that that's the kind of work that I think would be an ideal thing.

Nicholas Robinson: 41:41

Some of the seventies works are, you know, tremendously exhilarating. But they're. But they're they also, they're very how to say this sort of very vintage objects. You know the sort of very vintage objects. You know the wood stretcher maybe needs a little help because of the way the canvas is stretched over the surface. Sometimes there's little cracks, you know. I mean I'm not saying that they're like hideously destroyed, but some of them do have some condition issues and because of the complex construction it's not always so clear how easy it is to sort of fix. So you know, the issue of sort of conservation, preservation, uh, is something that maybe people would be a little wary of with a really, a really old painting.

Jeppe Curth: 42:27

Thanks, nick. Um well, I think that's that's it for me. My question do you have anything to add? No, not at all. I mean, uh, I think we's it for me. My question do you?

Nicholas Robinson: 42:34

have anything to add? No, not at all. I mean, I think we've covered everything. He's a really unique artist, really a great man, sadly missed by people, and you know he's managed to achieve, you know, one of the really great comebacks in terms of his career. This modernist generation, who really did lapse into almost total obscurity, is once again a significant figure and very nice that he got to understand that he was attaining this status before he died.

Jeppe Curth: 43:10

Thank you for listening. Hope to see you back for our next episode. Bye. If you have any questions or any requests, you are more than welcome to write to us at info at nordicartpartnerscom, and we will do what we can to help you. Thanks for listening and we hope to have you back for our next episode. Goodbye.