The Big Deal - a programme about selling art

The Big Deal with Steph McGovern - Media Release

A new programme about art was broadcast last week on BBC1. It's a novel idea - about seeing whether complete novices can become art dealers!

The Apprentice for the Art World?

My questions as I started to watch concerned what is it actually about and what is it trying to do. Specifically:

• Is it educational or not?
• Is it going to be informative about the business side of the art world?
• will it help artists understand better how to deal with the business side of art?
• Or is it just a game show with a spin?
• Or as characterised on the programme is this "The Apprentice for the Art World"

The proposition seems to be "art is no different to any other business". 

How would you describe The Big Deal?

It’s like The Apprentice for the art world, but the deals are all real, and it’s as much about the hustle as it is about art.

So maybe educational about the sort of knowledge and skills you need to do well - much the same as happens with Sir Alan Sugar in in "The Apprentice"?

According to the media brief

Seven pairs of trainee art dealers from around the UK are putting their creativity, negotiating and profit-making skills to the test in the highly competitive art world 

The bottom line is the seven pairs compete to win £50,000 of "brilliant British art" (I spotted a David Shrigley)

The Seven Trainee Dealers

Back row: Bella, Ollie, Liam, Gavin, Phil, Ellie
Middle row: Charles, Darren, Steph McGovern, Cordelia de Freitas, Claire, Aaron
Front row: Deborah, Rebeckah, Daisy, Rebecca

Now realistically, none of them are actually trainee art dealers! Their backgrounds seem to be completely random.

However they do, of course, cover all the demographic and diversity bases. (Do you get as bored as I do ticking all the boxes for every dimension covered? Disability - tick; Gay - tick; Black - tick)

Their media profiles suggest very little involvement in the art world in terms of making, reviewing, buying, selling, collecting or anything else.

UPDATE: After I published - and after I got some odd comments on Facebook from Art Dealers who seemed very offended by the programme - I went looking and found what are "said to be the criteria used" for those who were selected to be trainee art dealers

The production team selected contestants who met specific criteria:

• No professional experience: None of the participants had a background or professional history in buying, selling, or trading art. [1]
• Walks of life: Producers recruited ordinary people from diverse backgrounds across the UK who showed a strong competitive drive, natural curiosity, and a willingness to learn. [1, 2, 3]
• Auditioned pairs/individuals: They were chosen through standard casting processes handled by production company Stellify Media to test how well their interpersonal dynamics and business instincts translated to the high-stakes contemporary art market. [1, 2]

So is that clear? NONE of the participants had any experience or history as art dealers. They are complete amateurs.

This, of course, is where the competition starts for the viewers - spotting those likely to go to the end!

• Darren (43) and Charles (40) - characterised as the "go getters". They reminded me of second hand car salesmen. I'm not expecting much of them.
• Ollie (26) and Bella (29) - siblings who are trying to get a business off the ground. Seem to be tuned into what young people like
• Claire (59) and Aaron (36) - Welsh friends Claire and Aaron are from Pembrokeshire and have a background in sales and the building industry. She's obviously the mover and shaker. I think he's along for the ride.
• Gavin (32) and Liam (28) - Best friends Gavin and Liam from Belfast have an interest in graffiti art and want to learn more about the art world. I'm expecting them to leave early.
• Deborah (42) and Rebeckah (42) - Friends Deborah and Rebeckah, from London, hope their eye for fashion can would translate successfully into selecting and trading art pieces. I think they may go far - possible winners.
• Phil (74) and Ellie (28) - the Dad and daughter team from the West Midlands love visiting art galleries together.
• Daisy (27) and Rebecca (61) - Mother and daughter Rebecca and Daisy from Warwickshire work together on the family farm – which specialises in camel hire. I also think this couple could go far. They seem to have a good eye.

The programme has two constants throughout the series.

Norman Ackroyd CBE RA (1938-2024)

I was very sad to hear that the eminent master printmaker Norman Ackroyd passed away last week - in the  afternoon of a fine warm day (Monday 16th September) at his home in Bermondsey. He was 86

Norman Ackroyd (1938-2024)

Such a contrast to his lithographs and prints of the windswept, rainy isles and vaporous clouds in the North of Scotland and other rugged Atlantic seascapes and landscapes in the UK and Ireland. He was a complete master of portraying the coasts on the Atlantic seaboard.

His capacity for creating vaporous clouds filled with sea birds - with amorphous giant shapes representing the coastline which has stood up the beating of winds and rain from west was simply amazing - and his prints had very many fans.

Norman Ackroyd's map of all the locations (with a pin) where he been
to create etchings of that landscape in his studio in Bermondsey

There's a couple of excellent Videos of him talking about his artwork and his processes on YouTube based on the BBC series "What do Artists do all day?" which reviewed him and his work. These are they....

I remember him very well from when he led the tour on the Press Preview for the RA Summer Exhibition in 2013 - which was the best I'd ever been to. It's always stayed in my memory. He struck me then as a complete "one-off" and a really interesting man who could speak about art in plain English. Probably something to do with the northerner in me responding positively to the fact he was born in Leeds in Yorkshire!

Norman Ackroyd CBE RA
talking about hanging Gallery III at Burlington House (RA Summer Exhibition 2013)
which included works hung in honour of the late Mary Fedden RA
who had recently passed away.

This is a video of Norman Ackroyd talking about the process of selecting and then hanging a Summer Exhibition.

Life and career of Norman Ackroyd

His website summarises his life, art education and the career of Norman Ackroyd. He graduated from the Royal College of Art 60 years ago this summer.

• 1938: Born Leeds
• 1956-61: Leeds College of Art
• 1961-64: Royal College of Art, London
• 1988: Elected Royal Academician
• 1994: Appointed Professor of Etching, University of the Arts
• 1999 - 2000: Professor of Printmaking
• 2000: Elected Senior Fellow, Royal College of Art
• 2007: Awarded a C.B.E. for Services to Engraving and printing
• 2013: Elected Senior RA: 1 October 2013

He has produced work for many significant commissions and has work in prestigious collections all over the world. It also sells pretty fast at the RA Summer Exhibition

He called his medium “painting with acid”, and he was on friendly terms with a vast array of the chemicals, from the violent hydrochloric to the lively nitric, which “bites in all directions”. Daily Telegraph obituary

His work in Art Collections

His work is in the collections of very many prominent art galleries and organisations.

Selected Public Collections

Albertina Museum, Vienna

• Art Institute of Chicago
• Arts Council of Great Britain
• British Council
• British Museum, London 
• Cleveland Museum of Art
• Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
• Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Museum of Modern Art, New York
• National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
• National Gallery of Canada
• National Gallery of Norway
• National Gallery of Scotland
• National Gallery of South Africa
• Queensland Art Gallery
• Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle
• Stedelijk, Amsterdam
• Tate Gallery, London Norman Ackroyd born 1938 - Tate". Tate Britain. 
• Utah Museum of Fine Art

and numerous museums and art galleries in the United Kingdom

Ackroyd also received several public mural commissions, produced in etched stainless steel or bronze. Recent commissions included Lloyds Bank, London; British Airways, Birmingham Airport; Freshfields, London; Tetrapack, Stockley Park, Heathrow; a bronze mural for the Main Hall of the British Embassy, Moscow; and Lazards Bank, Stratton Street, London W1. RA Obituary

 

Obituaries

Other posts about his life include: