Real Estate Art: 1535 Milford St.

Robert Boyd

One again HAR provides us a glimpse at someone's art collection in their real estate photos. The house at 1535 Milford, designed by Natalye Appel, is for sale. Swamplot reported on it, which tipped me off to the art collection within.



The picture by the staircase is Fanny by Chuck Close--but not the original, which is huge. Did Close produce smaller-scale prints of it?



There is another small-sized Chuck Close image in the house, his portrait Phil (of Philip Glass). The original was painted in 1969, but he has returned to it several times since. Those are the only two pieces I recognize.



But we may assume the owners have a thing for portraits, because this room has a striking large-scale frontal portrait.



The bedrooms also have some pieces of art, but nothing I recognize.



And these five phones on the wall below surely aren't functional. I assume they are a piece of artwork or at least meant to be decorative.



One Swamplot commenter said, "They need to dial-down the phony décor." Which raises the question, is this actually someone's art collection? Or is this a bunch of stuff hung up by the realtor to make the property look attractive? I don't know. I leave that to you readers. Does anyone know who owns this house? Is this their artwork? Can you identify any of the pieces shown?

Real Estate Art #3

Robert Boyd



Beautiful, huh? And for four million bucks, you can have it and the acre of land it occupies on Buffalo Bayou in River Oaks. Unlike the last house we visited, this one is very elegant and spare, inside and out. No clutter here. So there are a smaller number of visible artworks than the previous home, but still this was obviously the home of a serious collector.

And indeed, HCAD identifies the owners as Jeffery and Toni Beauchamp. But Toni Beauchamp died in 2012. That is a reminder that a house for sale is part of a story, sometimes a sad one. Beauchamp was an important person in the arts in Houston. She was one of the first people to work on Houston's art history, writing the extremely interesting chronology in the 1980 Houston Area Exhibition and Recapitulation: 1928-1960 catalog. There used to be an annual exhibit of art from the region called the Houston Area Exhibition. In 1980, the catalog for that exhibition also contained chronology of all the other juried exhibits and all other key art milestones in Houston up through 1980, compiled by Beauchamp. Now she did many other important things in her life, but as someone interested in Houston's art history, I appreciate this one the most.

But enough of that--what about the art? I only recognize one of the pieces I see in these photos. But I won't say which. If you can identify any of the artists, let us know in the comments section.


Photo 1

There is a small sculpture on a pedestal and a crazy-looking painting here. 


Photo 2

From left to right, there is a piece of art above the fireplace, then another over the desk nook, and then a very minimal piece that looks like it is made of two sticks.


Photo 3

Here is another view of the piece over the fireplace--admittedly it will be hard to identify because it's so small in the photo. Good luck.


Photo 4

Another piece over a fireplace--but one almost obliterated by the spotlight on it. You can see a little bit of the image, though. Is that enough to identify it? Not for me, but you readers have good eyes...


Photo 5

In one picture, a man appears to be holding a woman. The other is a black and white portrait.

There you have it. If you know anything about any of this art, please let us know in the comments. And you can see more photos of this house at HAR.

Nothing About the Art at Frieze

Robert Boyd

I spent six hours on Thursday at Frieze in New York. There was art worth looking at and thinking about. But this post is all about people watching.




Here's what I want to say to the people on preview day at Frieze--YOU LOOK GOOD.



You look so good that you should buy a piece of art that tells you so in 3 foot letters.


Well, you don't all look good. Like this guy who has carefully constructed a Charles Bukowski look going, checking out a Mark Flood.



There were some amazing shoes at Frieze







When you're rich enough, you can wear dirty white shoes with no shoelaces or socks because who cares what anyone else thinks? That was the theme of much of the fashion at the fair.









Even Chuck Close doesn't care what you think of how he dresses.



(Besides, you're probably two busy having your mind-blown by his Segway-style wheel chair.)


See, this guy's jacket which says "fucked by the system" is ironic because he's actually supremely blessed by the system.



To quote David Cross, a jacket like that is like a big "fuck you, poor people!"



I expected to see nine other clones.






Look at the F%@&ing hipster.


I can tell you, there is a LOT of walking at Frieze. This woman played hurt--an inspiration to us all.


Frieze, where even rich people wait in line

 
Check out her blouse.


It's ironic because Mao was a psychopath who killed millions of people in the ironically named "Great Leap Forward". And now it's on a shirt wearing a priest's collar.


Please stand on the art.




Please stand on the art, part 2.





Look, it's Jerry Saltz walking in front of a giant blow-up of Walter Crane's ‘The Vampire’ (1885), which is ironic because Frieze is a bazaar devoted to selling super-expensive luxury items to very wealthy people.


He was headed for the can as far as I could tell.


Selfie.











Frieze won the prize for best people watching of the four art fairs I attended this week.