Cosmopolitan Fine Art - La Jolla, CA
Let's first of all begin with qualifications for creating a Review of a gallery. Mine include 50 years of working in the art business, as a dealer, as an artist's representative, as a gallery owner (in several states), as a wholesaler and as a publisher for artists, as well as a writer. I've visited ten or a hundred times more galleries than most of the Art Critics whose work appears in local columns. I've read many reviews, and what can be said for a good number of them was well said in a book called PRECIOUS GARBAGE.
A "review" in which there are numerous misspellings and grammatical errors is not worth the reading in the first place. 'Nuff said.
The one valid criticism for Cosmopolitan Fine Arts is that the gallery is too small to properly display the art that is exhibited there, but that's why she stays in business, by keeping her overhead low, but selling yet fine quality art. It obviously takes a more discerning eye than some of these pseudo-reviewers have in order to understand what they are looking at and (rather poorly) writing about
.
Let's take the work of Eduardo Cortes, for example, an artist whose work has been exhibited in Cosmopolitan Fine Arts for many years.. For just as many, and more, years I have read criticisms of his works by reviewers, his Paris street scenes dismissed as the work of a "hack" and yet dealers in France, England and the United States persisted in showing and selling his work. Cosmopolitan Fine Art has enthusiastically sold it for years and now is vindicated, as the work of Cortes now sells in some of the finest galleries in the world, and brings record prices in the top-notch auction houses. He is now in the latest art books written about Impressionism, alongside of Monet, Suerat, Degas, etc. In the past I read review by unknowledgeable people who referred to some of his work at "pot boilers", in spite of the fact that he had his first notable exhibition at fourteen years of age.
When one sees the full scope of this artist's work in the three books published in recent years on his life and work, the range is absolutely amazing. So much for phony reviewers over the years who did not know what they were talking about. Yep, Precious Garbage is right.
The "no one else puts toilet paper under the paint and creates the type of imagery I do" school of art appeals to some, but that is not what art is all about. The Old Masters never went out of style. Younger artists today can show the same skills and talent. View the work of Rino Gonzalez, for example, or Richard Peterson. The "Know-it-alls" visit a gallery and in ten minutes they're ready to write a review. Jeeeezzz. "Boring floras" in one review; now that's a new one to me for a criticism! As the lady says, "Ho hum." Tanya, by the way, is an International Dealer, so make no mistake, you're not walking into a gallery that lacks expertise.
Tanya Stedjal, the owner of Cosmopolitan Fine Art Gallery, has a most discerning eye, and the work in her gallery is comparable to what you may find in the bigger and best known galleries in New York, Chicago, Paris and London. Make no mistake about it. She does not deserve to have the quality of art she carries disparaged by people without "street creds" or, for that matter, people who definitely should not expose their lack of knowledge in the field of art.
As a business-woman, Tanya stands tall (literally). Just don't discuss politics with her; she might go ballistic; my phone got so hot I had to put it in the freezer. For two weeks, no less.
I'm not rating the prices. What is pricey? You buy art, you pay the price of the painting you've selected, and if it is within your budget, fine. You want ten dollar Korean knock-offs, you go to a hotel and pay $60 for it, plus a $120 frame.
As they say in French, "Toodle-ooo, Toots".
Howard E. Morseburg read more