How do you spot an up-and-coming artist? That’s the best way of making real profits from contemporary art, getting works at what prove to be bargain prices. Flowers Central in Cork Street is showing, as I write, an exhibition of paintings by John Kirby (see pictures on this page). A mature student who had been a probation officer, Kirby immediately attracted attention at art school with the strong, direct painting he brought to disturbing subjects. At the Royal College of Art he was a stand-out, whose work was snapped up as the word went rapidly round.
An early buyer was Angela Flowers, who bought her first Kirby when he was at St Martin’s School of Art. She also gave Kirby his first one-man show in her summer gallery in Rosscarberry, Co Cork. Since then he has had more than 20 solo exhibitions in London with Flowers, Basle, Chicago, New York, Santa Monica and Rome. So this saga tells you how to find the winners:
1. Spot them early at student shows etc. and listen to what dealers, critics, other artists etc. say about them.
2. Follow their careers. Does their work get shown somewhere every year? How does it sell, and how are the prices moving?
3. How does the work move you? Have you developed a real understanding of and love for the work of the artist and do you want to buy more?
One place you might look is the annual ‘Artist of the Day’ show at Angela Flowers. Held in the summer, it shows each day a little-known artist selected by another, but well-known artist. They won’t all be future stars, but one or two will be winners each year. In 1987 one of the artists was an obvious coming man. You could have picked his work up that day for a couple of hundred pounds. (Angela had bought one earlier for a mere £46). His latest show was priced up to £45,000. His name? John Kirby.
You might want to follow up the most praised Artist of the 2005 Day: her name is Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and no less a collector then Charles Saatchi was one of her several buyers. Contact James Ulph or Di Pooole at 020 7439 7766 or james[@]flowerseast.com (delete the square brackets).
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