There's a Sucker Born Every Minute

$119 million refrigerator magnet

 $10.00 watercolor

 

 $1,600.00 pastel

When trying to comprehend large amounts of money, I start with a dollar and think about what I could buy with it. Then I move up to a five, a ten, a twenty, and so on. This helps put things in perspective. When I buy art, I consider the costs involved for the artist--price of paint, canvas, shipping, marketing, framing, etc., then imagine the value of the pleasure I will get from looking at the image every day. In the long run this method doesn't always pay off: One of the most expensive pieces of art in our home, a pastel still life that my husband and I fell in love with at an art fair, now gives me almost no pleasure--in fact, I actively dislike it--while the cheapest, an unsigned watercolor buried among a batch of others in a musty antique shop--cost me ten bucks and remains a favorite to this day.

Last week a painting sold at auction for $119 million. The painting, called The Scream, is not pretty but it is famous. It was painted by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1895, and the fact that he made four versions of the same image tells me, as an artist, that he was never quite satisfied with any of them. (And who could blame him, it's hideous--I certainly wouldn't hang it up in my house.) As auctioneer George Cole says to prime the pump at his auction hall in Rhinebeck, New York each month, "Just remember--the higher you bid, the more it's worth."