This is an Homage to the Collector, always as much a fascination to myself, the Artist, as the Artist is to the Collector.
Collectors are a special kind of person. They are as fascinated and absorbed in works of art as the artist is in creating them. They choose carefully, often holding an image in their hearts and minds for weeks before they make the actual decision of what to bring home, where to place it, how it will live with other art works in their collection and in their lives. It becomes very personal to them.
And once they choose, it's very hard for a Collector to part with that chosen art work. It becomes, not only a part of their home, but also their inner world and their way of being in the world. They marry it. To part with it is divorce and has an impact of one kind or another!
This image by Honoré Daumier stayed in my mind for many years, since I first saw it at about fifteen years of age.
And there was the Collector again, in 931 Gallery with me, the last day of my show. A recognition clicked for me. Transported into the imagination of The Collector, Martha and Daumier, each a collector, study the lines, the shapes, the meaning that is evoked in the mind and bodily felt senses of the viewer. The Collector is intensely present. They explore the images that have come through the artist and connect in those moments. Moments of sheer pleasure and meditation happen. The image is alive again for this viewer, as it did for the artist when it was created.
The Collector Chooses a Painting
"Life Too Sacred to Ever End" by Marilyn Wells, 14" x 17" on mulberry paper with sumi ink, double mounted, SOLD.
After much study, this is the one Martha carries home under her arm. She gathered it, almost like a new child, on that fine, chilly October afternoon, late in the day, at the very end of my show, The Cosmos and I. For all these reasons, I offer "this is an Homage to the Collector" for now and always.
As Homage to the Collector, Daumier makes innumerable versions of this, a favorite topic of his also.
by Honoré Daumier, The Print Collectors, c. 1860–63, oil on panel. Clark Art Institute, 1955.696
Daumier, one of the pioneers of realistic subjects, a prolific painter of the human situation and human life is likened to Rembrandt. He worked in the early and mid 1800s in Paris. Daumier reveals the human situation. This facet we miss so often in current, contemporary artworks.
See more of my sumi paintings in earlier blogs here and in my online store, marilynwellsartstudio.com